Stephanus Baluzius, Epistola ad Petrum Valerum Diazium

TWO LETTERS OF ÉTIENNE BALUZE, IN WHICH TWO PASSAGES FROM LACTANTIUS'S BOOK ON THE DEATHS OF THE PERSECUTORS ARE EXPLAINED AND ILLUSTRATED.

(Prefixed at the beginning is the observation of a most learned man on one of those passages.)

To the most illustrious and most learned Pedro Valero Díaz, royal counsellor, Étienne Baluze of Tulle.

From the letter you sent last year to the illustrious and well-known abbot-chamberlain I learned that you are well, most illustrious sir, and that you make mention of me, a mention neither unpleasant nor unprofitable; for you not only speak in a friendly and honourable way of me and my studies, but also point out what seems to you to need emending in a certain constitution of Constantine the Great which is found in Lactantius's book On the Deaths of the Persecutors. I embrace both with the reverence and with the testimony of a grateful mind which I owe you, most learned sir; and therefore I thought it my duty to send you this letter, both to thank you for this kindly disposition of yours towards me, and to use this occasion to enjoy the friendship of the man whom he with whom I spent the better part of my life, a man of immortal memory, Pierre de Marca, archbishop of Paris, esteemed very highly and was accustomed to compare with Antonio Agustín. I call you back, as you see, to the rocks of Brescou, most illustrious sir, where your correspondence with that very great man began; and when he was afterwards taken up into heaven, you were bereft of a great friend, and I of an excellent patron.

I come now to the passage of Lactantius, the emendation of which you have attempted. That it is obscure and mutilated is quite clear, evidently because of the loss of a single word; once this has been supplied, no difficulty, in my opinion at least, will remain. What that word is, the very words of Lactantius seem sufficiently to indicate, but more clearly the Greek version of Eusebius, from which we gather that the word poscendum, or some similar one, must be added in this place, and that it should be read thus: "Also those who have bought, or who shall have obtained by gift, if they think something is to be asked of our benevolence, let them request a substitute, so that they too may be provided for through our clemency." This restoration is confirmed by the words of the first law of the Theodosian Code, On the office of the governor of a province: "If in civil cases they think anything is to be asked." You, however, most learned sir, judge that it should be read and punctuated thus: "And now either those who have bought, or who shall have obtained by gift, if they desire from our benevolence something in substitution, let them request it, so that they too may be provided for through our clemency." And your conjecture is indeed worthy of a learned and erudite man, and has a great deal of likelihood. For the ancients elegantly spoke of vicarious labour, vicarious hands, vicarious love, vicarious punishment, vicarious death, and other things of this kind. Yet that opinion of yours, if

you allow me to speak freely, is not free of difficulty. For besides the fact that you do not supply the word which is missing there, and change the word putaverint into optaverint, which is not permitted without the most evident necessity, the sense seems to require that the Emperor should designate the person to whom the despoiled provincials might present their petitions. But since the charge of the whole collection and transmission bound the Vicar, as is read in the title of the Theodosian Code On the Office of the Vicar, Constantine did nothing foreign to his office when he ordered that those who thought something should be requested from his benevolence in return for the goods which they had been compelled to restore to the body of the Christians should approach the Vicar, namely so that he might refer to the Emperor whatever it might be.

But you, most learned man, say that Lactantius stated expressly that this imperial letter was given to the governor, not to the Vicar, and that its whole wording was directed to the same man to whom the carrying out of the restitution to be made was entrusted; and that it is plainly absurd for the words of the emperor to be referred to some other Prefect who administered justice in that province. But here, unless I am mistaken, it must be observed that the governor's name was not placed at the head of the constitution, since general edicts were customarily inscribed with the names of the Praetorian Prefects, although it was sent to him by Licinius. For he, when by the manifest aid of the divine Deity he had won the victory over Maximinus, as soon as he afterwards entered Nicomedia, intending to render thanks to the supreme God, sent that letter to the governor, so that by his care it might be posted up in that city. But since the name of governor is a general one, and applied to all who ruled the provinces of the Roman empire, Lactantius seems in that place to have understood by Governor either the Vicar of the Pontic diocese or the consular of Bithynia, which is established to have been under the authority of the same Vicar. Therefore, since the highest magistrate in that region after the prefect was the Vicar of Pontica, it would seem we must judge that his own authority was preserved for him in the edict which was ordered to be posted up in the city of Nicomedia, and so that the common reading of that passage of Lactantius should be retained. I open my mind to you, most learned man, and entrust my conjectures to you, ready to embrace readily the opinion which you shall have proved to be true. For a long time now I have been listening for news of the letters of Antonio Agustín, which report said you were going to publish. Great among us are the reverence and authority of that man, and we seize upon his labours most eagerly. Therefore, if that edition has not yet been made, I beg you, most illustrious man, in the name of all those who love good letters, not to prolong our expectation any further. I do not doubt, moreover, that among the letters of Latino Latini you have read several addressed to the same Antonio, others speaking about him, and one also of his own to Latini. But it must be investigated whether there is truth in the suspicion of Latini, writing to Metellus, that Antonio's mind had in fact become estranged from him because, when writing to him at times, he had not given him the most ample titles of illustrious and most reverend persons, in which the Spaniards greatly delighted. For I have observed that Agustín was a despiser of empty things; and accordingly I suspect that there were other causes for which he broke off the exchange of letters which he had with Latini. I leave that whole matter to your judgement, most learned man, and I wish you a long and happy life.

Paris, on the Kalends of May 1683.