Pietro and Girolamo Ballerini, Epistola nuncupatoria ad Benedictum XIV et Praefatio generalis in hanc editionem

THE BALLERINI'S LETTER OF DEDICATION.

TO BENEDICT XIV, SUPREME PONTIFF,

PIETRO AND GIROLAMO BALLERINI, BROTHERS, PRIESTS OF VERONA.

These Works of the most holy and equally most learned supreme pontiff LEO THE GREAT, which, collated with the most excellent codices, especially the Roman ones, now come forth more correct and enlarged: to whom should we rather inscribe them than to you, most blessed Father, who, as successor of so great a pontiff in the same Roman chair, treading in the same footsteps of his zeal and learning, seem the same LEO THE GREAT come to life again? He indeed, on account of the many and illustrious deeds of a long pontificate, by which, terrified by no vicissitude or difficulty of times and affairs, he most keenly defended the dogmas of the Catholic Church against the contumacious and crafty enemies of the faith, and, setting himself against the novel and rash ventures of certain men, bravely vindicated the privileges of the Churches and the rights of the apostolic see, and, for the safeguarding and observance of ecclesiastical discipline, strove to detect, censure, amend and extinguish the corruptions and abuses that were creeping in; he, I say, so great a pontiff, on account of such illustrious deeds rightly earned the title of GREAT; and his distinguished Works, by which he advanced and accomplished so many and such weighty matters, handed down to us for the perpetual remembrance of posterity, and commended with the highest praises not only by the Latins but also by the Greeks, both ancient and more recent, demonstrate the merit and the justice of that same title.

But what of you, most blessed Father? From the very outset of your pontificate, how many and how intricate causes have come together, such being the condition of these times, by which now the integrity of the faith, now the pontifical rights, now ecclesiastical discipline and the sound doctrine of morals were assailed? Yet you, sparing no labour, no reflection, have provided seasonably for them all. Your unremitting cares and vigils, in which, content with the most sparing food and brief sleep, you give yourself day and night untiringly to the pastoral office and to public business, and bestow whatever spare time is left on composing, as affairs require, most learned and most erudite Institutions and Constitutions, are very well known to all. Your Works themselves, which, arranged in several volumes, have hitherto come forth into the light, and which come forth again from day to day, and in every ecclesiastical matter look not so much to present as to future times: while all turn their pages with pleasure and profit, and admire in them no longer the very great bulk but the erudition, the variety of matter, the method, the clearness and the learning, they do not hesitate to compare you with the more eminent pontiffs of old, and to confess you truly GREAT, or rather GREATEST. The Works, therefore, of the ancient Roman bishop, the GREAT, were most justly to be dedicated to you above all others, his successor and emulator, yourself GREAT.

To this most fitting reason, moreover, another is added, weightier and stronger. For when a few years ago one of us was living in Rome and presented himself from time to time at your feet, among those conversations which in your supreme kindness you used to hold with him, and in which you were wont to discourse not a little, for the most part on the best studies and the ecclesiastical disciplines, mention fell upon that edition of Saint Leo in which Pasquier Quesnel strove not so much to emend and illustrate the holy pontiff's Works as, by a number of perverse little notes, observations and dissertations, to refute, pervert and disfigure them in not a few places. Hence, further, you spoke of the necessity of a new edition, which should be collated above all with the Vatican manuscript codices that he had not consulted, and should blunt and break his audacious attempts. But since this same design had indeed come into the mind of certain of your predecessors, yet by those to whom that business was entrusted it was never carried through, nor was it believed that it would be carried through, you, by no means enduring that so necessary an edition should be put off any longer, judged that it should be laid upon us. Not

only the magnitude of the work, and the erudition and talent of a great adversary, but also, and much more, our own weakness, of which we are conscious within ourselves, held us at the beginning in suspense and wavering in mind. But your will and authority had to be obeyed. And to raise us up and restore us, you did not use words alone, but also brought your own help to this same edition. For since in preparing editions of this kind the aid of the more excellent codices is what is chiefly required, you ordered the Vatican copies to be communicated at once, and, that the collation might be made more easily and readily, by a rare privilege you granted that those we needed should be carried to our lodging and kept as long as was necessary; and moreover you yourself, of your kindness, brought it about that from other cities, where there were rare and unconsulted codices, accurate collations should be furnished, so much so that you even sent on to this city of ours, together with your most kind letter, the variant readings of certain ancient books, which, because of the remoteness of the places, had arrived there too late. Now this, with fair judges of things, counts for so much that this edition, of which you were the author and the helper, is in a certain way to be held as yours; and accordingly, in dedicating it to your name, we do not offer something altogether our own, but, more truly, give back what we received by your favour. Hence also we trust that you will kindly receive and protect the edition itself as a thing of your own; and that all who understand that it was enjoined by you and completed with your help will both commend your illustrious care and singular favour, and indeed, if they find anything carried out by us less aptly, will, we hope, pardon it for the sake of your name and patronage.

But before we make an end of this letter, allow us, we beg, most blessed Father, to submit to your most wise judgement what we believe to be most fitting and glorious for Saint LEO. It pleases us to set before you a few things, not unwelcome to you, as we trust, concerning the title and cult of DOCTOR to be decreed to this same holy pontiff. That he who obtained the name of GREAT also deserves the title of DOCTOR we do not doubt at all. For if those are worthy of the appellation and cult of DOCTOR who, joining distinguished learning equally with eminent holiness, both taught the universal Church while they were among the living, and still teach her after death by the works they have left, which are to be of use at every time for the faith and discipline of the Church: has not Saint LEO, whose holiness is most certain, both taught, and does he not teach, and will he not always teach the universal Church, since he published the memorials of many sermons and letters, most apt both for forming the morals of Christians and for preserving the right faith and confuting the errors of the heterodox, which, received with the highest honour not only in the Churches of the West but also in those of the East, are celebrated by all and are very frequently cited with the greatest weight of authority, just as the works of the more celebrated doctors are wont to be cited? Hence, moreover, not undeservedly was the name of DOCTOR long ago given him by Cassiodorus, and (who are to be held of the greatest account) by two supreme pontiffs, Vigilius and Hadrian I, and thereafter by others, among whom Usuard and Wandalbert inserted the same title in the Martyrology. Many times also the doctors of the Gallican Church have not hesitated to venerate him with honour in the public offices, as we have learned from their liturgical books [so printed, the sense wanted is perhaps that many Churches of Gaul also have not hesitated to honour him as DOCTOR in the public offices, as their liturgical books show]. We shall touch here, only by way of example, on a few testimonies, which the most eminent Cardinal Filippo de Monti, greatly favouring this design of ours, communicated to us from his most choice library shortly before he departed from the living. From the Breviary of Langres of the year 1731, on the 30th day of October: Of LEO I, pope and DOCTOR of the Church. From the Breviary of Châlons of the year 1736, on the 20th day of October: Of LEO the Great, pope and DOCTOR of the Church. The same is read in the Breviaries of Cluny of the year 1726, of Rouen of the year 1728, and of Clermont of the year 1733, on the 11th day of April; in that of Narbonne of the year 1709, on the 28th day of June; in that of Sens of the year 1726 and that of Orléans of the year 1731, on the 30th day of October; in that of Paris of the year 1736, on the 10th day of November; and in that of Bourges of the year 1634 [so printed, perhaps 1734], on the 30th day of November.

But whether the time has now come in which the Roman Church also, which cherishes no less a love of this her most holy and most learned pontiff, by whom she is most greatly adorned, should solemnly bestow this same title and cult upon him, and extend it by a general decree to the whole Christian world, we leave to you, most blessed Father, to judge and to determine. You, in that most celebrated Work On Beatification and Canonization, which, filled with sacred erudition of every kind, is to be for the future the solemn and safest rule concerning rites of this sort, have laid down three conditions for

constituting a doctor of the Church, marking them out as necessary: namely eminent learning, distinguished holiness of life, and besides these the declaration of the supreme pontiff or of a general council lawfully assembled. That the two former conditions, in which the root and the merit of decreeing that title are contained, are found in our LEO, the Roman Church herself has sufficiently attested both in other public records and in the Martyrology. It remains that the third condition, by which the same title and cult may be established for him in the universal Church by lawful authority, should come to him through you, who, considering his merits, will perhaps pronounce of him what you wrote of Saint Bernard in the same Work: It seems a matter for regret that thought has not hitherto been given to venerating with the title of DOCTOR in the universal Church a Saint outstanding for so many merits and filled with heavenly doctrine. Perhaps for you, to whom nothing is more pleasing than to promote the cult of the saints, and who showed your own particular devotion to Saint LEO, while you were Canon Archivist of the Basilica of Saint Peter, above all at the most recent finding of his body, for you, I say, this praise has been reserved: that you, who are a great successor and emulator of the great LEO, should adorn so great a pontiff with the title of DOCTOR on the occasion of this edition, which, while it brings forth into the light his Works, collated with the purer codices and illustrated at your bidding and with your help, and inscribed to your name, also confirms the merit of this GREAT DOCTOR. But let this be your judgement. Meanwhile, as we offer this volume to you, most humbly kissing your holy feet, we beg the apostolic blessing.

THE BALLERINI'S GENERAL PREFACE TO THE WHOLE EDITION OF THE WORKS OF SAINT LEO.

I. When the supreme pontiff Benedict XIV laid upon one of us, while he was in Rome, the burden of working out a new edition of the Works of Saint Leo the pope, collated with manuscript codices, especially the Roman ones, which could be set against and preferred to Quesnel's edition, already proscribed, not a few considerations, and no light ones, at first alarmed us. For what that edition of Leo is, and of how great worth, which Pasquier Quesnel prepared with the utmost zeal, only those can fail to know who do not know his edition. If you weigh the text, which in appraising editions of the ancients is to be looked at first and chiefly, and in which the question is whether it has been emended and enlarged with unpublished pieces, he obtained many and most excellent codices, by whose aid he happily corrected many places corrupted in the earlier editions, and was able to enlarge the pontiff's Letters, which among his Works are the more useful for sacred history, by twenty-eight Letters previously unpublished, from the single Grimani manuscript. Besides, he added certain other unpublished things, among which the most celebrated is that very ancient collection of Canons and of Letters of the Roman pontiffs, which yields nothing to the Dionysian, and is of the greatest help to students of the most ancient canon law. But if you consider the editor's own labours, inserted to illustrate the text or the matters (for that is the second thing looked for in editions), what edition of the Fathers will be found enriched with so many observations, admonitions, notes and dissertations of a single editor as that edition of Leo which Quesnel put into print? For the Works of this same pontiff, which in the old editions were contained in a small volume of octavo or quarto format, as they call it, fill, on account of Quesnel's additions, two folio tomes of no small size. Whom, further, would so great a zeal in editing Leo not move, undertaken and diligently expended by one who, endowed with outstanding talent and much erudition, was capable of very much, and who after twenty-five years reprinted his former edition, revised with fresh care and enlarged, so that it ought to be judged polished and perfected, as far as could be done by him? Magnificent praises indeed from very many learned men were won by an edition of this kind

an edition which for that reason, not so much when first printed as when reprinted, was at once spread and received throughout the whole world and is still sought after by many; and although, on account of the censures of some, and especially that of the Roman Inquisition of the year 1676, it suffered no small loss among Catholics, nevertheless Johann Albert Fabricius did not hesitate to affirm that it was approved by the learned everywhere. This praise from a heterodox man, although it is quite wrongly set against the Roman censure, nevertheless shows the widespread opinion about this edition, confirmed also by other testimonies of Catholics.

II. Against these considerations, which inspired fear, there was set the necessity of yet another new edition after Quesnel's. For first it was judged to be of the greatest importance to collate the holy pontiff's Works chiefly with the Roman codices, which, although in the Works of a Roman bishop they are to be presumed the more excellent and the purer, were nevertheless sought by Quesnel with a vain effort, as he testifies in his preface, and had to be passed over in the first edition; in the second, indeed, he received the variant readings of the Barberini manuscripts only, and of these very ones he used only a very few, and in the Letters alone. And this review of the Roman copies seemed all the more necessary because, on the one hand, Quesnel is accused of negligence in the use of codices by certain men, and especially by Baluze and Coustant, men most skilled in the study of ancient books; while on the other hand his well-known freedom in emending the text from time to time, with no codex alleged, has aroused suspicion in some. Next, there are very many things inserted with too much licence in his own labours, by which he favours false doctrines, and has assailed, now openly, now covertly, not so much Leo as the prerogatives of the Roman see; so that this edition, which disfigures Leo rather than illustrates him, has deserved a most just prohibition.

III. For these reasons, that as soon as this edition came forth into the light in the year 1675 the plan of preparing a new edition at Rome was at once taken up, we believe can be gathered from an Italian letter of Lorenzo Mari written to Francesco Grisendi on the 30th day of March of the year 1677; for he affirms that the command of the most illustrious Brancacci concerning a new edition of the Works of Saint Leo had been signified to him, The commands of the most illustrious Monsignor Brancacci, my lord, concerning the new edition of Saint Leo are communicated to me; and he adds that whatever Giovanni Battista Mari, his brother, had prepared from the Roman manuscripts was sought for it. Of this letter, which we found in a Barberini codex, fuller notice will be given in the preface prefixed to Leo's sermons, § 7. This same thought of a new edition was stirred up again in the year 1716, with the favour of the supreme pontiff Clement XI. Well established is the testimony of the Fathers of Trévoux inserted in the Mémoires, April 1716, p. 722, where from a letter written at Rome this is reported: The project of a new edition of Saint Leo has been formed. His Holiness, who has a particular devotion to this holy doctor, favours this design. Under Clement XII, moreover, not only did the same plan revive, but this charge was also laid upon two most distinguished men, and, their studies having been combined and many things prepared on this side and on that, so great an expectation of this Roman edition spread abroad that the most eminent Cardinal Querini wrote on this account in the year 1740, in the appendix subjoined to the Life of Paul II, p. 161, that the wish of the pious and the learned not only demanded, but also hoped for, a sounder and more faithful edition according to the witness of the Vatican codices especially.

IV. When one of us came to Rome in the year 1748 for another reason, he inquired of many about this new edition. But some answered that they had long heard nothing, and others that all hope had vanished. When there had been talk of this matter before the supreme pontiff Benedict XIV, he, while one of those two to whom that edition had been entrusted under Clement XII confirmed the same despair, laid this study upon us. And although, besides what we mentioned at the beginning, the weakness of our own powers also deterred us, yet so great an authority was not to be resisted any longer. And when it had become known in the City that this edition had been undertaken, there were added the urgings of several cardinals, prelates and friends, who also offered their help. Since a beginning had to be made from the codices, the aforesaid supreme pontiff, to make the collation easier and readier, granted by a special privilege that the manuscript books of the Vatican library which would be of the greatest use should be carried home. The other Roman libraries also stood open: the Barberini, the Chigi, the Casanatense, the Vallicelliana, the Angelica, and that of the Basilica of Saint Peter. But since there were many codices to be gone over, for which one man does not suffice, helpers came in for pay, and others also contributed spontaneous and unpaid labour: among whom Father Bruno Toma is especially to be praised, then lector, now prior of the Fathers Preachers of Santa Sabina, who in the collations

joined others of his own brethren to himself. In this labour the one of us who stayed in Rome spent the whole of that time, that is, a full year and a half, unceasingly among the codices. And when, on leaving the City, he had left some things still to be collated, several friends most kindly gave their aid. Father Master Schiara, of the Order of Preachers, prefect of the Casanatense library; Count Giuseppe Garampi, canon of the basilica of Saint Peter and keeper of the Vatican archive; our fellow citizen Father Francesco dal Pozzo, priest of the Oratory at the Vallicella; Simone Ballarini of the Barberini library; and some others, who sent to Verona the variants of the manuscripts that we wanted, carefully copied out by themselves.

V. In the other libraries of Italy also, untouched by Quesnel, which are the more celebrated for their manuscript copies, we have seen to the collation, either by ourselves or through friends, of the Leonine codices, as many as we knew to be of any worth. Besides several most excellent copies of the cathedral chapter of Verona, which on account of their remarkable antiquity yield to no others, at Venice in the library of Saint Mark, which is most richly furnished with many Greek and Latin codices, it was possible to find not a few useful for the present matter, and we found Antonio Zanetti, its keeper, who shows favour to all the studious, a most kind helper, especially in going over the Greek books. At Padua, in the library of the Hermit Fathers, Father Master Antonio Manenti, in that of Santa Giustina, of the monks of Saint Benedict, Father Dom Spiridion Peristiani, and in that of [Saint] Anthony, of the Conventual Fathers of Saint Francis, Father Master Reginald Fischer made available codices and their labour. From the distinguished monastery of San Benedetto in Polirone, in the territory of Mantua, Father Dom Giovanni Agostino Gradenigo sent on the variants of the codices, gathered with no small labour. At Florence, both in the library of San Marco and in the Medicean Laurentian, we owe much to Father Lector Filippo Maria Sereno, who collated some things and also copied out others. At Fiesole, what was needed was procured by Father Alessandro Chiappini, abbot general of the Lateran canons, who very lately died. As regards the manuscripts of Monte Cassino, we found a great patron in the most eminent Cardinal Tamburini, of whose truly wonderful favour particular mention will recur in the preface to the sermons, no. 16. The collation of the codices of Lucca was offered of his own accord by Father Giovanni Domenico Mansi, most versed in ancient manuscripts, and known by many published documents and tomes. At Bergamo help was brought by our very dear friend Father Giacinto Sala, of the Order of Preachers, public professor of theology in the university of Turin. Other aids, through others, were at hand at Milan, Trent, Turin and elsewhere.

VI. We extended our diligence outside Italy as well, namely to the Imperial library of Vienna and to that of Saint Emmeram at Regensburg. From the Imperial library, whose manuscript books the French editor sought in vain, we procured for ourselves, sparing no expense, a most careful collation of two most excellent copies, of the Spanish collection and of Quesnel's. And that in the library of Regensburg there is preserved an altogether outstanding and singular codex of the Letters of Saint Leo, given as a gift to that library on behalf of Bishop Tuto at the end of the ninth century or the beginning of the tenth, had been made known by Father Bernhard Pez in the introductory dissertation prefixed to tome I of the Thesaurus Anecdotorum, no. 65. Out of desire for this codex, the one of us who was in Rome approached Father Master Tommaso Ricchini, of the Order of Preachers, secretary of the Congregation of the Index, and with his co-operation Father Master Emeric Langenuaeter, provincial of Dacia of the same order and companion of the master general, wrote at once to Father Master Antoninus Veichtner, who presently, in keeping with his distinguished skill in these studies, recognizing the excellence and usefulness of the codex, with a favour no less than a labour altogether singular, judged that the codex itself should not be collated but transcribed word for word as accurately as possible. And that this might be done by him more conveniently, it was granted with the utmost kindness by the most reverend abbot of Saint Emmeram, prince of the Holy Roman Empire, a man most cultivated in every kind of letters and sciences, that this codex should be carried to Landshut, to the convent of the aforesaid Father Antoninus. This special diligence of the one in copying out, and the kindness of the other in lending so outstanding a codex, of which more will have to be said in the preface to the Letters, had to be attested to the whole world and commended to everlasting memory. Now by these aids we have found that the very text of Saint Leo can, even after Quesnel, be emended not a little, and also enlarged with new unpublished documents.

VII. To the emending of the Sermons the Roman manuscript copies contributed most of all: among which, since some most certainly belonged to the basilicas of the City, they are assuredly Roman, and have preserved for us purer readings. Quesnel, although he corrected many things, yet since he did not use these codices,

he left some things unemended, and others too he changed not aptly enough or wrongly. We have been able either to restore by sure emendation, or to recall to a better reading, about three hundred places. Moreover, from so many and such great codices of diverse origin collated together, of which we shall give a distinct account in the preface to the Sermons, we have discovered that the order, disturbed in some sermons, was to be corrected; that two sermons which had grown together into one were to be divided; that a sermon wrongly attributed to Leo by all was to be removed, as also another fastened upon him by Quesnel from his own codex; but that another, which the latter took away from Leo, was to be restored; and we have accomplished many other things by the help of the manuscripts, as will be plain from the admonitions and annotations.

VIII. In the Letters similar things will be discovered more frequently. Corrections neither few nor slight will occur again and again; and in these, the chronology of several Letters having been restored, the order of all had to be changed. Certain Letters called into doubt by Quesnel, and some things expunged by him, we have been able to vindicate, the manuscript books especially helping.

IX. He changed not a few things both in the Sermons and in the Letters with no codex alleged, and with the old reading not even indicated; which has cast upon some the suspicion of arbitrary correction or corruption. That he might indeed forestall this censure, in the general preface, no. 7, not hesitating to confess the fact of his own accord, he subjoined this twofold reason, as it were: Often I have omitted to enumerate these (the codices), namely when the emendation is of undoubted certainty, and all the codices agree upon it. But neither has seemed sufficiently suitable. For when it is not a matter of open errors of copyists or printers, as for the most part it is not in the places emended by Quesnel, then the readings which were substituted for those previously published, which yielded a sense not bad, cannot be called of undoubted certainty. Further, Quesnel's general proposition about the agreement of all the codices, if it has sometimes been found deceptive when he wrote of this or that reading introduced by himself, So all the codices; what credit does it deserve in those places in emending which he makes no mention of codices?

Nor indeed is it therefore to be affirmed that, where he cites nothing, he changed or corrupted the published text at will. That may seem so to those who have collated only the codices of the later collections, from which the published texts came forth. But we, having obtained older and more excellent exemplars, have been able by diligent collation of these to discern and judge which places he emended neither arbitrarily nor wrongly; whence, retaining the emendations themselves, we shall confirm them by citing the manuscripts. But the readings which we found either approved by no ancient book, or supported only by manuscripts of inferior note, we rightly judged should be expunged, the old reading being restored, or another new one on the faith of better codices; wherein we would sometimes gladly have retained a reading introduced by him with no mention made of any ancient book, if he had produced the authority of some excellent codex.

X. Since, however, in this our edition the works which Quesnel attributed to Leo, or judged should be inserted in his own edition, were not to be omitted, in reviewing these too we have found many things to be corrected on the faith of the manuscripts, and some also to be supplied, as will become manifest especially in the books On the Calling of All Nations, and in the Codex of Canons and Constitutions of the Apostolic See, in editing which last he for the most part followed a more recent and faulty codex.

XI. As to unpublished matter, not only have we found in our manuscript exemplars nearly all those Letters, and in many places more correct, which Quesnel published from the Grimani codex, but also from the remarkable codex of Regensburg we shall bring to light three other new Letters of Leo, and from a Vatican one a Greek letter of Anatolius, bishop of Constantinople, to our Leo, which contribute very much to illustrating the Eutychian history. Besides, we have drawn out from the same Vatican codex several Letters in an ancient Greek translation; how much it matters to make these public will be shown in the preface to the Letters, no. 51. An entire session of the Council of Chalcedon, which, held on account of Leo's Letter 93, has not yet come to light, was supplied to us by two Greek codices of St Mark's at Venice, with which also, Antonio Zanetti assisting, we very usefully collated, for the emending of many places, the Greek edition of many Letters, which, although they are versions, nevertheless had to be inserted in our edition. Another session of the same council, in the cause of Domnus of Antioch, in which Leo's pontifical authority is commended, drawn out from a very ancient manuscript, formerly of Verona but now of the Vatican, will be published, and in its own light

will be placed in the second volume. We have excerpted several unpublished sermons attributed to Leo in manuscript exemplars, which seemed not to be omitted in the appendix.

XII. Hope of several hitherto unknown Letters of our pontiff, said to be contained in an ancient book of Vercelli, had been raised by Fr Francesco Antonio Zaccaria of the Society of Jesus, in a letter inserted in vol. XLI of the Opuscula which have been published at Venice by Fr Angelo Calogerà. For, mentioning one of the codices of the most excellent capitular library of Vercelli, which he calls an incomparable and unpublished collection of the most ancient councils, he testifies, from the words of the very celebrated editor of the Eusebian Evangeliary, that it is richly adorned with several not yet seen letters of St Leo and of other pontiffs. That these so remarkable documents might the more surely be added to our edition, we requested the authority of the supreme pontiff himself, who had commanded the edition. And so the codices of the aforesaid chapter were examined as diligently as possible. But no collection of that kind could be found which would bring forth even one unpublished letter of Leo. And the codex which had seemed to contain something else unpublished we have learned most certainly, from documents transcribed and sent to the pontiff together with a collation of the rest which have been published, as also from other information received thereafter, and from the same editor of the Eusebian Evangeliary, to be altogether like three other manuscript books which we were able to find and collate at Rome, and to comprise the Dionysio-Hadrianic collection with additions of its own, which will be indicated in the preface to the letters, and described more fully in the third volume in the treatise On the Ancient Collections. These things especially had to be noted, lest we should seem to have omitted any diligence in searching out unpublished matter. We think, moreover, that from what has been said so far it has been made plain that this edition will be, as regards the text of Leo, more correct and fuller than Quesnel's; add also, as regards Leo's Works themselves, more genuine, since it will separate his genuine works from the supposititious ones, which that man quite arbitrarily and altogether wrongly passed off as Leonine.

XIII. Now concerning Quesnel's lucubrations, which render his edition most celebrated. If at the beginning the man's outstanding talent and erudition had inspired fear, after we, calling those lucubrations more exactly to the reckoning, detected in most of them a great abuse of talent and erudition, our spirits were raised and strengthened. For although he heaps up many things subtly and learnedly, which have carried off not a few men, and those not of the lowest bench, to his opinions, nonetheless by diligent examination of each we have found that this most sagacious man, indulging his wit and novelty, and carried away by zeal for certain parties, ran out intemperately into conjectures for the most part very fallacious, by which, woven together with great acumen and artifice and coloured with great erudition, many new and false things might put on a certain verisimilitude. Lest we be believed to have affirmed anything too harshly from favour for the opposing parties, or from Italian prejudices, as they call them, before our discourse proceeds further some testimonies of certain celebrated foreigners, who cannot be accused of such favour or prejudices, must be set first.

XIV. The enormous abuse of conjecturing in that dissertation in which Quesnel, meaning to claim for the Roman Church the Collection of Canons published by himself, strove to have it propped by a great mass of conjectures, has been sufficiently declared by Fr Coustant in the preface of vol. I of the Letters of the Roman Pontiffs, no. 79. While the most distinguished man, he says, indulges such conjectures more than is right, he himself more and more betrays the emptiness of his opinion. And more openly at no. 87, noting the fallacies added to the conjectures: To follow up step by step each of the learned man's arguments, he says, and to call them to examination would be long. It is enough to have refuted the chief ones, which, if they are valued according to the truth, are nothing else than either conjectures, acutely indeed, as they say, and prettily devised, but mere conjectures nevertheless; or testimonies twisted by force, which, restored to their place and understood in their own sense, lose their strength; or finally proofs drawn from certain passages which he wrongly judged to be proper to the Roman codex. Hence the opinion which that man defends with much effort he called a mere hypothesis and an ingenious indeed, but less firm, system, at nos. 43 and 63, where he wondered not a little that the same system could have been, I do not say asserted, but even conceived in the mind by a man of the keenest judgement. A like weakness of conjecturing was also noticed and censured by Étienne Baluze in the observations on Quesnel's dissertation on the Council of Telepte, where the latter strives at length to fasten the mark of forgery on that council. After the matter accurately discussed, says Baluze, I am plainly persuaded...: that Quesnel's opinions can indeed dazzle the sight of the eyes, but that it is certain there is nothing solid and firm in them. These observations of Baluze are read inserted in the Concordia

of Pierre de Marca, in the Paris edition of the year 1704, p. 1341. In the same place, moreover, p. 1347, he testifies that Quesnel was too little sincere and diligent in this edition, and reproves him because in a certain place he followed the faulty reading of the Oxford codex, to which the Thuanean exemplar was on every count to be preferred. And in the preface to the ancient Latin version of the Council of Chalcedon, no. 22, accusing the same negligence of his in another matter: If he, he says, had consulted the old codices accurately, as we have done, he would not have conceived this opinion in his mind. In the same no. 22 also he says of a certain conjecture of his: It is mere divination, if I may say so with his leave, which does not rest on reason. Fr Bernard de Montfaucon, or rather the Benedictine monks of the Congregation of St Maur, in the diatribe on the creed Quicumque, vol. II of the Works of St Athanasius, p. 724, pronounce of Quesnel, who had ascribed the same creed to Vigilius of Thapsus: Who nevertheless, strong as he is in sagacity and erudition, speaks only by conjecturing: William Cave, at the year 440, p. 279, wrote likewise of Quesnel's dissertation in which he undertook to adjudge the books On the Calling of All Nations to Leo: He tries to claim them for Leo, and that by a long train of conjectures rather than of arguments. And, these conjectures having been briefly reviewed, he adds: The learned man says these things at length, which, since they are wont to vary according to each man's wit, and can be found more or less in others, seem to lay a not sufficiently firm foundation for this opinion. And Fr Willem Cuypers in the Acta Sanctorum at 25 August, p. 133, says of a certain argument by which Quesnel rejected the history of the miracle of St Genesius: This slight little reasoning, or rash conjecture of Quesnel's, seems to collapse from the chronology. We pass over many other testimonies of the same kind: for these seem to suffice for our purpose.

XV. Thus far these men concerning particular disputations and arguments of Quesnel, since they called only particular points to examination. But we, who have undertaken of set purpose to weigh, and to cut to the quick, all his lucubrations inserted in the Leonine edition, can affirm the very same of most, not to say of all: whence there will be scarcely any dissertation of his which, in our observations subjoined, has not had either to be refuted in its principal theme or to be corrected in many points. The same has befallen very many of his notes, which with a more diffuse pen he either appends to Leo's Sermons or, for the same man's Letters, relegated to after the dissertations. But lest these things be believed to be said in boasting, or there be a suspicion that we, while we shall be attacking Quesnel, pluck from him certain things which, cut off from his context, can easily be twisted into odium and blame, we have resolved to insert his lucubrations themselves entire in our edition, and to subjoin to each its own observations, by which those things that are worthy of refutation may be attacked or corrected. So far, that is, do we trust our cause that we do not shrink from the adversary's face. Hence too it will come about that Quesnel's edition is no longer necessary, since it will be found inserted whole in ours; and that his lucubrations, which in his own editions are forbidden, anyone may read in this of ours and compare with our animadversions and censures; from which we hope it will come about both that the truth will more easily become known, and that each man may see whether we have dared too much.

XVI. This, however, it is right to declare in this place, that this manner of contending, with an adversary present and fighting face to face, has been the more difficult. Richard Simon, following Élie Dupin, noted two things in Quesnel's edition, namely that Quesnel's dissertations are too prolix, and that some pertain only rather remotely to Leo's Works. He (Dupin) has not, however, been able to conceal that the dissertations are too long, and that some have only a distant relation to the Works of Saint Leo. These two things caused the chief difficulty: and, to speak first of the last head, since it is an editor's part diligently to search out and unfold those things which regard the Author and his Works, it would have been needful to weigh and examine in Quesnel very few things, those which are proper to Leo or his Works; nor should we have been compelled to digress into those matters into which he runs out at greater length and more freely; and thus it would have been permitted to pass by not a few more difficult things. But for us, inserting all Quesnel's dissertations, admonitions and annotations, every single thing had to be subjected to examination, whether what pertains to Leo or his Works, or what, brought in upon occasion, draws very far away; nor could anything, however difficult and intricate, be dissembled or run over, especially since in disputations of this kind, from the edition of Leo

very remote, there are not a few things which have seemed to deserve no small censure. Since this, given the variety and difficulty of the matters into which Quesnel runs out, demanded longer meditation and more observations, this, I say, was chiefly the cause that this edition could be committed to the press only later than was at first believed.

XVII. As to the prolixity of Quesnel's dissertations noted by Dupin, it was for the most part necessary for him to draw them out at length. For since in very many of his theses he lacked ascertained reasons and documents, of which, where they are present, a few suffice to conclude the matter, he had to take refuge in conjectures alone, and those weak ones. Since, further, the acute man understood that these, if they are few and set forth in few words, avail very little, he strove to heap up many together, and so to bind them to one another, and to fortify them with learned notices now and again, with the art of speaking and with subtle reasonings, that they might entice readers gradually and more easily, and draw them to his opinion. At first it seemed that we too must tread in the same footsteps, and that each and every thing which called for censure must be refuted. But by this method we should have fallen under the same mark of excessive prolixity. Lest, however, this be believed an escape for avoiding labour or difficulty, we observe that for those defending the truth it is enough if they overthrow the capital and stronger arguments: for when these are removed, the rest, the lighter ones, which are propped by the same, fall of themselves, so that it would be the part of a too captious man to detain readers longer in refuting them. Yet in this very lessening of labour, as it seems, it was sometimes most difficult to separate, among many conjectures, those which were capital and especially to be refuted. For Quesnel joins and mixes many things with such wonderful artifice that it is scarcely discovered which is the weightier. When he has proposed certain lighter things, to which the answer would be easy, he slips away suddenly like a snake, and runs across to others, which, even if perhaps they are equally light, nevertheless seem weightier from what has gone before.

Now he conjectures by asking rather than by affirming; now he inserts other questions into the question, or at least sprinkles in certain doubts, and, these being drawn out at length and eloquently and craftily, the deception is not easily discerned; and, adding conjectures to conjectures, what he could not obtain by few he trusts he will achieve by their multitude. In weighing all these things exactly and recalling them to certain fewer and weightier heads, lest the refutation should run on too long and beget in readers weariness and also, from the multiplicity, confusion, how much attention and diligence was needed every expert will understand. But if in refuting these weightier heads our observations shall sometimes seem to anyone too long, let him consider that more is very often required for refuting an error than for proposing it. Further, we shall use such an easy division and method that the reader may at once understand what is at issue, and why a more prolix disputation was necessary on certain heads, upon which the rest depend. We hope, indeed, that in this way it will be recognized that we, in order to consult brevity as far as could be done, have passed over nothing that was capital; and have rightly neglected only the more minute things, which collapse when the weightier are torn away. But if certain things inserted by Quesnel in the dissertations shall demand a particular censure, which will not find a fitting place in the context of our observations on the several dissertations, we shall briefly indicate such censures, lest anything necessary be wanting, in the annotations which will be affixed at those same places.

XVIII. Richard Simon, whom we mentioned a little before, sets down a testimony concerning Quesnel's edition of St Leo which we think should not be passed over in this place. Having recited the eulogy with which Dupin had commended Quesnel's dissertations, he subjoins this: The edition of the Works of Saint Leo published under the name of Fr Quesnel no doubt deserves this praise; but the author of the Bibliothèque did not know that this work came from several hands. Fr Quesnel gathered the materials for it over several years, which were furnished to him in part by several learned persons of Paris; but as this Father did not know Latin well enough to compose his work in that language, he composed it first in French, and gave it to be put into Latin to a learned Irishman, who had formerly been of the Oratory, and who was then professing rhetoric in the college of Beauvais. He also composed in French the life of St Leo; and it was translated into Latin by Fr Gérard du Bois, who was then in the house of the Fathers of the Oratory in the rue Saint-Honoré with Fr Quesnel. Fr du Bois changed in this Life some places which seemed to him too harsh against Rome; changes which Fr Quesnel could not approve; but if he had profited by the good counsels which his confrère gave him, he would perhaps not have had the displeasure of seeing his work branded at Rome. For the rest, I advance nothing here of which I have not been well informed: so that one may say of the author of

the edition of St Leo, published under the name of Fr Quesnel: WE ARE LEGION. Thus far Richard Simon, who lived for a long time together with Quesnel in the Congregation of the Oratory, up to about the times of the Leonine edition. Now in this testimony this especially is to be observed, that Quesnel was so bitter and hostile towards the Roman See that certain passages displeased even one of his own confrères, who therefore judged that they should be softened in the Latin translation. But since Quesnel rejected this, nothing in this respect can be said to have been added or exaggerated by the translators; but whatever is read too harsh in that edition is recognized to have proceeded wholly from the mind and opinion of Quesnel himself.

XIX. There were two chief prejudices under which this man laboured, the one in the matter of grace, the other against certain prerogatives of the Roman See. In the matter of grace, how ill he thought is made plain by those things which he afterwards published, and which were proscribed by a solemn Constitution. Some of these he sprinkled into the edition of Leo, but covertly and more sparingly: of which something will be said in several observations on Leo's Sermons and on the second dissertation, on the books On the Calling of All Nations. But against the pontifical prerogatives he ranged more openly and more widely. Yet, though ill-disposed towards these, in order to hide all passion and prejudice he set forth again and again, in most magnificent words, certain protestations of observance, honour and reverence towards the Apostolic See; but in fact he strove to attenuate and diminish its authority by whatever means he could. Indeed Quesnel showed himself so much more prepossessed in this matter than the other men of the same faction, that he himself endeavoured by the emptiest conjectures to traduce as supposititious, or at least doubtful, documents which seemed to favour the Roman prerogatives, although altogether certain. For this cause, as it seems, he judged that there should be expunged, for example, the Council of Telepte with the letter of Pope Siricius, the session of Chalcedon concerning Domnus, and the life of St Romanus, or at least a text which he feigns to have been inserted and intruded into it.

Many other things, which will reveal the man as not well disposed towards the Roman pontiffs, will occur again and again in our observations and also in some annotations: whoever reads these with a fair mind will confess, unless we are mistaken, that it was necessary to oppose some edition to Quesnel's, in which all his lucubrations should be subjected one by one to examination, and be marked opportunely with just censures. This alone displeases, that this business was laid upon those who are less equipped both in erudition and in knowledge. Yet this will make the truth more and more manifest. For if we, who are of small ability, shall have proved how wrongly Quesnel wrote in many things, it will be plain that this was done not by talent, not by art, not by any special help, but by truth itself demonstrating.

XX. Now it remains for us to explain the order of our edition. Quesnel's edition is contained in two volumes. The first comprises Leo's Works, both the genuine and the supposititious. The genuine are the Sermons and the Letters. But the two books On the Calling of All Nations, the Chapters on Grace, and the Letter to Demetrias, or the book On Humility, which Quesnel wrongly attributed to Leo, we place among the supposititious. At the end of the same volume he added the Life of St Hilary of Arles, and some Opuscula of the same. In the second volume he published from the codices the most ancient and most excellent Collection of Canons and Constitutions of the Apostolic See, which he thought should be entitled Codex of Canons and Constitutions of the Roman Church, not because the codices bear this title, but because he supposed this Collection to be proper to the Roman Church, in force in Leo's age, and enlarged by him with many things. Then he subjoined sixteen dissertations on Leo's Works and on the aforesaid most ancient Collection of Canons and Constitutions of the Apostolic See. Finally he printed various readings, notes and observations on the Letters of the holy Pontiff. It is to be noted, however, that Quesnel in the second edition, that of Lyons of the year 1700, added not a few things which were lacking in the first edition, that of Paris of the year 1675. For he inserted certain monuments which came to light after the first edition, namely two Greek letters of Marcian to Leo edited by Arnoldus, one of Eutyches to the same pontiff published by Fr Lupus, a fragment of the Letter of Anatolius of Constantinople, and the Greek text of the Letter of Flavian, which Cotelier gave to the press, and the dissertation of Giovanni Ciampini on the correction of a word in Sermon VII of St Leo on the Nativity of the Lord. Besides, the variants of the Letters from three Barberini manuscripts, which he received afterwards, in the notes or in the marginal glosses sometimes

he applied. He also added not a few things in the dissertations and notes, by which he strove to the very utmost to defend and confirm his earlier opinions, which had been attacked by Lupus, Baluze and other critics.

XXI. We shall divide our edition into three volumes. The first volume will present all the genuine Works of Leo, that is, the authentic Sermons and Letters, in revising and emending which we have used our own codices in such a way that we have also weighed Quesnel's variants. Thus both our own and Quesnel's copies have contributed to the perfecting of this edition. We have prefixed prefaces and admonitions where there was need. The annotations placed beneath the Sermons and Letters will give the reason for the emendations, and will accurately mark the variant readings both of our codices and of Quesnel's, and will illustrate the pontiff's text itself where it seemed to need it. Among these, those notes also will have a place which Quesnel at times attached to the Sermons or Letters themselves, so that nothing of his may be missed. But since he affixed to the Sermons certain notations or postils which demand a longer discussion, for the sake of these we shall publish after the Sermons our own Observations on certain particular passages of the same Sermons; and inserted among these will be found the aforesaid notations or postils of Quesnel, as also the dissertation of Ciampini already mentioned, which pertains to the illustration of a single sermon. The doubtful sermons, or those wrongly fathered upon Leo, some already published but for the most part unpublished, we have relegated to an appendix of the Sermons, in the preface of which, among other things, notice is given of other Sermons which, wrongly ascribed to Leo in some manuscript copies and attributed to one author and another in other codices, did not need to be repeated, since they have appeared among the Works of other Fathers; but we have indicated in what books they have been published. The Letters of Leo will be followed by a dissertation on the lost letters both of Saint Leo to others and of others to Saint Leo, and on other documents pertaining to the letters, arranged in chronological order; where the Leonine fragments that survive will be inserted. There will follow a notice of the decrees which are attributed to Leo in the Liber Pontificalis. Finally an appendix of the letters of Saint Leo the Great will comprise some supposititious letters and other documents pertaining to the Letters, which were not to be placed among his Letters.

XXII. The second volume will present an appendix of the lengthier Works that have been ascribed to Leo. First will be published the Sacramentary, the most ancient of all, called Leonine in the printed editions because it is attributed to Leo. It could not be counted among the certain Works of this pontiff, since neither are all the things contained in it Leo's, nor can the same pontiff with certainty be called the author of its compilation. But since certain Leonine pieces are read inserted in it, on the strength of which it has been adjudged to Leo in the editions, it ought not to be omitted in an appendix in which other Works attributed to Leo had to be published that most certainly contain nothing Leonine. And this was all the more to be done because Quesnel published at the end of the Sermons three prefaces as Leonine, of which two are found in that part of the same Sacramentary which survives, while the third, we believe with probability, existed in that part which has perished. Secondly we shall publish the two books on the Calling of All Nations, the Chapters or Authorities on Grace and Free Will, and the Letter to the virgin Demetrias, or treatise on Humility; to all of which Quesnel prefixed the name of Leo. These we have revised against manuscript codices, by the help of which we have both emended not a few things and also supplied some that were wanting in places. There will be subjoined the Breviary against Heretics (otherwise called the Breviary of the Faith against the Arians), which Father Sirmond published without an author's name: for we have found it claimed for Leo in two ancient codices, a Paduan and a Milanese, which have furnished a number of corrections. Why, however, we have reckoned it not among the Works of Leo but among the supposititious ones will be clear from the admonition prefixed. After these, lest anything be wanting that Quesnel inserted in his edition, the Life of Saint Hilary of Arles and the same man's minor works (two having been added by us) will appear, collated with several manuscript copies and emended. Here the appendix ends. Further, in order that Quesnel's labours may be inserted in our edition, as we have promised, of his sixteen dissertations eleven will be reprinted in this volume, those which pertain either to Leo or to the Works set before; for the remaining five are reserved for the third volume, because they regard the Code of Canons and Constitutions of the Apostolic See, which we have relegated to the third volume. To each dissertation, when the principal thesis proposed by Quesnel has to be refuted, there will be subjoined observations that will serve in place of a critical dissertation. But where only certain things in the dissertations are to be corrected or confirmed, notes placed at the foot of the pages

will suffice. This had especially to be observed with regard to the first dissertation, which describes the Life of Saint Leo; where, although not a few things will have to be corrected and some also added, yet the greater part stands sufficiently firm. This volume will be concluded by the same Quesnel's observations and notes on the Letters of Leo, which, as being rather lengthy, he himself also published after the dissertations; and these, where there is need, we shall emend by other annotations of our own, set out distinctly.

XXIII. The occasion for publishing a third volume separately and making it up to a proper bulk was given by the very ancient Collection of Canons and Constitutions of the Apostolic See, which Quesnel brought to light at the beginning of his second volume under the arbitrary and false title of Code of Canons and Constitutions of the Roman Church. This was published by him from an Oxford manuscript book, rather recent and very faulty: for of the Thuanean copy, older and of the best quality, which he came to know later, he made slight and not sufficiently apt use. We have received from this codex, by another channel, a great deal more. There have been added, moreover, very many things from another book of the same collection, hitherto unknown but very ancient, in the Imperial library; and with these aids we have been able to correct a great many faults and to restore the collection itself to a better and original form. But since, seeking some assistance from other collections also for either correcting or illustrating this collection, we examined at Rome and elsewhere as many manuscript copies of other old collections as it was possible to find, in which it was our lot, not without profit, to discover and review all or nearly all the documents of the said collection, though inserted in scattered fashion, we gathered from this study another and far more excellent advantage. For we came upon in these codices not a few very rare, or even wholly unknown, monuments of the most ancient canon law, which we judge it will be welcome and useful either to bring forth in more correct form or to publish for the first time, after the aforesaid Collection. What these are, and of what use and excellence, is understood from what will be said in the preface to the third volume. Indeed, by this diligent examination of very many manuscript collections it has come about that we have not only detected several unknown and unpublished Collections of Canons, but have also gained much information about the published collections which has escaped even the most recent and most learned writers on these matters, and by which the history of the ancient canon law can be very greatly illustrated. Hence we shall prefix to Quesnel's collection a treatise on the ancient collections and collectors of Canons, both published and unpublished, down to Gratian, in which all these things will be explained at length. Finally, after the ancient documents, there will be published the five dissertations of Quesnel which, since they pertain to the Collection of Canons published by him, we have reserved for this place, as well as our own observations, which, in accordance with the plan we have undertaken, will seem necessary for refuting the same where he has judged wrongly.

XXIV. A distinct account of the individual editions, which would have had a fitting place in a general preface, we have omitted: for this is presented in the preface of Quesnel, which, lest anything of Quesnel's edition be missed, in keeping with the plan of our undertaking, we subjoin directly with a few annotations added. This we point out at the end: that, since at Rome and elsewhere we have heard the complaints of studious men about present-day editions, which, printed in large folio for the sake of magnificence, are awkward for the use of handling and reading, especially at night, we have thought that the form of a small folio, which can be conveniently turned over and read, was to be chosen.