Julian

ON SAINT JULIAN, BISHOP OF TOLEDO IN SPAIN

YEAR 690.

Preliminary Commentary.

Julian, Bishop of Toledo in Spain (Saint)

Section I. The cult of Saint Julian, his era, his Acts.

[1] Saint Julian, Bishop of the Metropolitan See of Toledo (for the title of Archbishop was still unknown to all of Spain in his time, as is luminously proved by the great volume of Spanish councils, His name inscribed in the Martyrologies on the day before the Nones: to each of which one or more Metropolitans subscribed) — that he died on the day before the Nones of March was written by Felix, who, after Sisebert was removed within three years, held the place of Julian. On that day all the Martyrologies before Baronius, both handwritten and printed, commemorate him, as many as have entered his name — most famous throughout the entire Christian world on account of his works of outstanding learning — into the sacred calendars: Usuard, Maurolycus, Galesin, and others. To these add the very ancient manuscripts of the Cassinese and Vallicellian Libraries, and the Calendar of the Church of Carthage according to Tamayo. But the Roman Martyrology, as we have it revised and augmented by Cardinal Baronius, at March 8, says of him: "At Toledo in Spain, the deposition of Blessed Julian, Bishop and Confessor, most celebrated for sanctity and learning." Usuard had written that he was most famous among the inhabitants of that place; Maurolycus, "of much fame among the inhabitants."

[2] It has pleased us, however, to follow the Roman Martyrology, because the Church of Toledo, the feast at Toledo on the day after the Nones: to which his cult particularly pertains, celebrates the annual festive solemnity on the eighth day of March, as all the Calendars of that Church, new and old, Missals, and Breviaries attest. And indeed, to designate the most solemn rite by which it should be performed, it is added in the Mixed-Arabic rite that it is a feast of six copes. Indeed, this very custom of the Church of Toledo makes us suspect that either Felix himself or his copyists, not deliberately but by a slip of the pen, wrote "the day before the Nones of March" where "the day after" should have been written; and that thence the error flowed into the Martyrologies of the external Churches, rather than into the Church of Toledo, which had adopted the celebration of Saint Julian's feast before Felix wrote anything about him. The Church of Piacenza, however (as John Tamayo de Salazar reports in his work on Saint Epitacius), venerates this Julian on February 14, at Piacenza on February 14, under a common Office and this prayer: "Lord our God, direct our acts in your good pleasure, and grant that, through the intercession of your blessed Confessor and Bishop Julian, we may happily arrive at the homeland of eternal life."

[3] Tamayo thus transcribed his Acts from Felix, but besides certain sepulchral epigrams attributed to Gudilanus, Archdeacon of Toledo, the Acts interpolated by Tamayo, his dearest companion, to Wamba, the holy King, and to Quiricus, his predecessor (which may rightly be denied to be Julian's), he also inserts certain other things, resting on insufficiently proven authorities: such as the following from the Chronicle of Liutprand, number 134, that the coronation and anointing of King Erwig, elected on October 15 by the votes of all the Palatines, was deferred to the following Sunday and performed by Julian, then still an Archpriest or Archdeacon. For Quiricus, either overtaken by death, or ill (as is commonly said), or leaving the Archbishopric of Toledo on account of the crime and imposture of Erwig, sought a monastery with Wamba; where he laudably spent the remainder of his life with the King, says a certain Lanfranc quoted by Higuera. Badly supplemented by Julian Perez: "On November 20 Saint Quiricus, Bishop of Toledo, dies... Julian composed the sepulchral poem." This Saint Quiricus, after the death of the glorious King Wamba (he should have said abdication, if he could have lied consistently: for Wamba is said to have survived in the monastery nearly as long as Erwig reigned), worn out by weariness and disease, had Julian, Archdeacon of the Church of Toledo, consecrated as Bishop of Toledo and his coadjutor.

[4] Similarly from Lanfranc, Tamayo took the statement that in the Era 719, the year of Christ 681, on the eighth day before the Kalends of January, in the church of Saint Mary the Greater of Toledo, the holy man Julian, now made a Priest, was consecrated in the presence of all his nineteen Metropolitan Bishops, the Palatines, and King Flavius Erwig: that is, on Christmas Day itself of the year 680, says Jerome de la Higuera in his commentaries on Liutprand. The consequence of this would be to accept the beginning of the year from the feast of the Lord's Nativity or its vigil, as is proved to have been customary in many Churches by innumerable manuscript Martyrologies, begun from the eighth or ninth day before the Kalends of January. Tamayo finally adds from Lanfranc that Julian sat on the Patriarchal throne for ten years, two months, and nine days; rightly suspect to us, and died in the fifth year of the glorious King Egica.

[5] These and other similar things are rightly suspect to us because they are internally inconsistent. For first, between December 25 of the year 680 and March 6 of the year 690, only nine years intervene, plus more than two months and twelve days. Second, the very Chronicle of Liutprand, number 148, places the beginning of King Egica's reign in the year 688. For it says that in that year, the first of King Egica, on the fifth day before the Ides of May, the fifteenth Synod of Toledo was held: and this is established from the Acts of that Synod itself. It would follow therefore that Julian died in the third, not the fifth, year of Egica. The same additions are also suspect because they disagree with the chronological reckoning with which Felix, Julian's successor, concludes his eulogy of Julian. For Felix's text reads (inaccurately transcribed by Liutprand, or rather by Higuera under the forged name of Liutprand): "He held the dignity of the priesthood for ten years, one month, and seven days... and in the third year of Prince Egica, on the day before the Nones of March, in the Era 728, he closed the last day of his life."

[6] The testimony of Felix, however, writing about a matter that took place before his eyes, is rightly of greater weight with us: especially since the Acts of the twelfth Council of Toledo so support it as to overthrow entirely the fictions of the Pseudo-Liutprand. For that Council began to be celebrated on the fifth day before the Ides of January, in the first year of King Erwig... and was concluded on the eighth day before the Kalends of February, in the Era 719, that is, the year of Christ 681. Julian was made Bishop at the beginning of the year 680, In the first session of this Council, an instrument of cession is presented by Erwig, by which King Wamba, having assumed the monastic habit, transfers all his right to Erwig; likewise the notification of the said Wamba, in the name of the honorable and most holy Brother Julian, Bishop of the See of Toledo, by which he both separated him and instructed him that he should with all diligence anoint the said Erwig. Julian was therefore a Bishop before King Erwig was anointed by him; and he was so before December of the year 680, since Erwig was anointed in October of that year, as Lanfranc himself states; and even if he did not state this, the matter itself requires that some interval be given for the Bishops to be summoned to the Council.

[7] having sat for ten years, one month, and seven days, Wherefore we determine thus: that upon the death of Quiricus before the end of the year 679, Julian was appointed and consecrated on the day before or after the Kalends of February of the year 680; that he died on the day before or after the Nones of March 690; and that he thus spent precisely the whole of that time in the Pontificate that Felix, the irrefutable witness, describes. I consider that this Felix was the author not only of this eulogy in which Julian's Acts are described, as Miraeus holds, but of the whole or nearly the whole supplement which we have, under the name of Ildephonsus, Felix continued the supplement to Isidore, appended to the book of Saint Isidore on illustrious men after Jerome and Gennadius, published by Miraeus. It bears the name of Ildephonsus only because it was begun by him: for as it says in the eulogy, "Ildephonsus also wrote many other things, which, on account of various occupations of affairs and troubles, he left some begun and some half-finished." Had this little work not been among these, it would undoubtedly have been enumerated among his finished works by the author of that eulogy. Therefore Ildephonsus did not carry that work down to his own person, as Miraeus holds (for then he would have left it finished), nor did Julian continue what had been begun scarcely begun by Saint Ildephonsus — otherwise it would by no means have been omitted by Felix from that most exact catalogue of books written by Julian — but Felix carried on to its conclusion what had been advanced to a certain point.

[8] The same Felix, says Julian Perez in his Chronicle, number 363, wrote twelve Lives which were added to the Chronicle of Saint Ildephonsus — ineptly calling that supplement of Isidore which we have discussed a Chronicle, and calling eulogies of a few lines Lives. While no syllable of that booklet makes it probable that these are by Felix, we need a more weighty authority for it to seem plausible. Felix presided over the sixteenth Council of Toledo, He presided over the Councils of Toledo XVI and XVII. convoked in the sixth year of Egica, in the Era 731, on the sixth day before the Nones of May; and probably also over the seventeenth, which met the following year on the fifth day before the Ides of November — although the subscriptions missing from the Acts of that Council do not attest this to us. In what year he left the See vacant by his death for his successor Gundericus, under whom the eighteenth synod was held, I dare not define from the testimony of Lanfranc or Higuera alone, who places it in the year 700.

Section II. The Councils of Toledo held under Julian; his doctrine approved.

[9] Councils celebrated by Saint Julian. Moreover, of that praiseworthy zeal by which he looked after the affairs of the kingdom and the Church through the convocation of Councils, Felix had an illustrious example both from other predecessors and from Saint Julian; under whom, within the space of a decade, the Bishops of Gothic Spain and Gaul came together at Toledo three times and celebrated the twelfth, thirteenth, and fifteenth Council — to which is added the fourteenth, of the Province of Carthaginensis alone. The Acts were published with the utmost accuracy and care from the authority of several manuscript codices by Garcia Loaisa, Bishop from Canon of the Church of Toledo, tutor of King Philip III of Spain. Since in these Councils certain matters were treated concerning the sound doctrine of our Julian, and these have been explained most confusedly by Loaisa, Pope Leo sends the Acts of the Sixth Synod to Spain, Tamayo, and others, it is useful to explain their sequence briefly. To curb the spreading Monothelite heresy in the East, the sixth Ecumenical Synod had been convoked at Constantinople under Pope Agatho; whose Acts, brought to them by a courier of the Roman Pontiff, the Fathers of the fourteenth Council of Toledo, assembled in the fifth year of Prince Erwig, in the Era 722, with letters: that is, the year of Christ 684, testify. Together with these same acts, they acknowledge having received the invitatory letters of the grace of Leo, Pontiff of ancient Rome, through which the whole order of the proceedings and the proceedings of the orders lay open to their understanding, clearly as they were enacted. In the gracious course of that letter, moreover, all the Bishops of Spain were invited to this end, that the aforesaid Synodal decrees which he had sent should also be upheld by the authority of their own confirmation, and should be made known and disseminated through them to all under the kingdom of Spain.

[10] to which Julian replies with an Apologetic work, But since it was impossible for the Bishops, having recently dispersed from a General — that is, of the whole nation — Council (namely the thirteenth, celebrated in the immediately preceding year, on the day before the Nones of November), to be assembled so quickly, especially during winter, they excuse themselves, saying that it had sufficed for them at that time, satisfying the Roman Pontiff with the responses of an apologetic defense, to confirm those very acts and to set forth the sense of their faith in the purest elucidation of words... Which, when they had been sent to Rome by the legates of Spain, they now say it remains that from this Provincial Synod all the Provinces of Spain should learn what they received from Rome, what they responded to what they received, in order for a General Council to be celebrated in the matter of faith according to the decrees of the Canons: as was done in the Era 726, the year of Christ 688, the first of King Egica, in that Council which is numbered the fifteenth among those of Toledo. To Julian, therefore, after the dissolution of the thirteenth Council, the Synodal Acts we have mentioned had come, together with the letters of Pope Leo, to which he replied with an Apologetic defense response, which, presented and approved at the fourteenth Provincial Synod, was summarily inserted into its Acts, to be communicated to all the Provinces of Spain and to be further refined by synodal examination.

[11] These things are evident from the Acts of the Councils. But to whom shall we say Leo's letters were directed? to whom the letters were directed, From a manuscript parchment codex of the Royal Monastery of Saint John of Toledo, three letters under the name of Leo are produced by Loaisa: the first inscribed to the Bishops of Spain, the second to Bishop Quiricus (evidently as Primate of all Spain), the third to Count Simplicius. But, as Baronius rightly observes, among the twenty-five Palatine Counts who subscribed to the thirteenth Council, and the seventeen who subscribed to the fifteenth, not one is found with that name. Quiricus had departed this life not seven years before Leo was made Pontiff (which escaped Baronius through a lapse of memory) but nearly three full years before. And to whom could it seem credible that his death had been unknown to the Roman Curia for so long a time?

had written "the day before the Nones of March" where "the day after" should have been written; and thence the error flowed into the Martyrologies of the external Churches, rather than into the Church of Toledo, which had adopted the celebration of Saint Julian's feast before Felix wrote anything about him. The Church of Piacenza, however (as John Tamayo de Salazar reports in his work on Saint Epitacius), venerates this Julian on February 14, at Piacenza on February 14, under a common Office and this prayer: "Lord our God, direct our acts in your good pleasure, and grant that, through the intercession of your blessed Confessor and Bishop Julian, we may happily arrive at the homeland of eternal life."

[3] Tamayo thus transcribed his Acts from Felix, but besides certain sepulchral epigrams attributed to Gudilanus, Archdeacon of Toledo, the Acts interpolated by Tamayo, his dearest companion, to Wamba, the holy King, and to Quiricus, his predecessor (which may rightly be denied to be Julian's), he also inserts certain other things, resting on insufficiently proven authorities: such as the following from the Chronicle of Liutprand, number 134, that the coronation and anointing of King Erwig, elected on October 15 by the votes of all the Palatines, was deferred to the following Sunday and performed by Julian, then still an Archpriest or Archdeacon. For Quiricus, either overtaken by death, or ill (as is commonly said), or leaving the Archbishopric of Toledo on account of the crime and imposture of Erwig, sought a monastery with Wamba; where he laudably spent the remainder of his life with the King, says a certain Lanfranc quoted by Higuera. Badly supplemented by Julian Perez: "On November 20 Saint Quiricus, Bishop of Toledo, dies... Julian composed the sepulchral poem." This Saint Quiricus, after the death of the glorious King Wamba (he should have said abdication, if he could have lied consistently: for Wamba is said to have survived in the monastery nearly as long as Erwig reigned), worn out by weariness and disease, had Julian, Archdeacon of the Church of Toledo, consecrated as Bishop of Toledo and his coadjutor.

[4] Similarly from Lanfranc, Tamayo took the statement that in the Era 719, the year of Christ 681, on the eighth day before the Kalends of January, in the church of Saint Mary the Greater of Toledo, the holy man Julian, now made a Priest, was consecrated in the presence of all his nineteen Metropolitan Bishops, the Palatines, and King Flavius Erwig: that is, on Christmas Day itself of the year 680, says Jerome de la Higuera in his commentaries on Liutprand. The consequence of this would be to accept the beginning of the year from the feast of the Lord's Nativity or its vigil, as is proved to have been customary in many Churches by innumerable manuscript Martyrologies, begun from the eighth or ninth day before the Kalends of January. Tamayo finally adds from Lanfranc that Julian sat on the Patriarchal throne for ten years, two months, and nine days; rightly suspect to us, and died in the fifth year of the glorious King Egica.

[5] These and other similar things are rightly suspect to us because they are internally inconsistent. For first, between December 25 of the year 680 and March 6 of the year 690, only nine years intervene, plus more than two months and twelve days. Second, the very Chronicle of Liutprand, number 148, places the beginning of King Egica's reign in the year 688. For it says that in that year, the first of King Egica, on the fifth day before the Ides of May, the fifteenth Synod of Toledo was held: and this is established from the Acts of that Synod itself. It would follow therefore that Julian died in the third, not the fifth, year of Egica. The same additions are also suspect because they disagree with the chronological reckoning with which Felix, Julian's successor, concludes his eulogy of Julian. For Felix's text reads (inaccurately transcribed by Liutprand, or rather by Higuera under the forged name of Liutprand): "He held the dignity of the priesthood for ten years, one month, and seven days... and in the third year of Prince Egica, on the day before the Nones of March, in the Era 728, he closed the last day of his life."

[6] The testimony of Felix, however, writing about a matter that took place before his eyes, is rightly of greater weight with us: especially since the Acts of the twelfth Council of Toledo so support it as to overthrow entirely the fictions of the Pseudo-Liutprand. For that Council began to be celebrated on the fifth day before the Ides of January, in the first year of King Erwig... and was concluded on the eighth day before the Kalends of February, in the Era 719, that is, the year of Christ 681. Julian was made Bishop at the beginning of the year 680, In the first session of this Council, an instrument of cession is presented by Erwig, by which King Wamba, having assumed the monastic habit, transfers all his right to Erwig; likewise the notification of the said Wamba, in the name of the honorable and most holy Brother Julian, Bishop of the See of Toledo, by which he both separated him and instructed him that he should with all diligence anoint the said Erwig. Julian was therefore a Bishop before King Erwig was anointed by him; and he was so before December of the year 680, since Erwig was anointed in October of that year, as Lanfranc himself states; and even if he did not state this, the matter itself requires that some interval be given for the Bishops to be summoned to the Council.

[7] having sat for ten years, one month, and seven days, Wherefore we determine thus: that upon the death of Quiricus before the end of the year 679, Julian was appointed and consecrated on the day before or after the Kalends of February of the year 680; that he died on the day before or after the Nones of March 690; and that he thus spent precisely the whole of that time in the Pontificate that Felix, the irrefutable witness, describes. I consider that this Felix was the author not only of this eulogy in which Julian's Acts are described, as Miraeus holds, but of the whole or nearly the whole supplement which we have, under the name of Ildephonsus, Felix continued the supplement to Isidore, appended to the book of Saint Isidore on illustrious men after Jerome and Gennadius, published by Miraeus. It bears the name of Ildephonsus only because it was begun by him: for as it says in the eulogy, "Ildephonsus also wrote many other things, which, on account of various occupations of affairs and troubles, he left some begun and some half-finished." Had this little work not been among these, it would undoubtedly have been enumerated among his finished works by the author of that eulogy. Therefore Ildephonsus did not carry that work down to his own person, as Miraeus holds (for then he would have left it finished), nor did Julian continue what had been begun scarcely begun by Saint Ildephonsus — otherwise it would by no means have been omitted by Felix from that most exact catalogue of books written by Julian — but Felix carried on to its conclusion what had been advanced to a certain point.

[8] The same Felix, says Julian Perez in his Chronicle, number 363, wrote twelve Lives which were added to the Chronicle of Saint Ildephonsus — ineptly calling that supplement of Isidore which we have discussed a Chronicle, and calling eulogies of a few lines Lives. While no syllable of that booklet makes it probable that these are by Felix, we need a more weighty authority for it to seem plausible. Felix presided over the sixteenth Council of Toledo, He presided over the Councils of Toledo XVI and XVII. convoked in the sixth year of Egica, in the Era 731, on the sixth day before the Nones of May; and probably also over the seventeenth, which met the following year on the fifth day before the Ides of November — although the subscriptions missing from the Acts of that Council do not attest this to us. In what year he left the See vacant by his death for his successor Gundericus, under whom the eighteenth synod was held, I dare not define from the testimony of Lanfranc or Higuera alone, who places it in the year 700.

Section II. The Councils of Toledo held under Julian; his doctrine approved.

[9] Councils celebrated by Saint Julian. Moreover, of that praiseworthy zeal by which he looked after the affairs of the kingdom and the Church through the convocation of Councils, Felix had an illustrious example both from other predecessors and from Saint Julian; under whom, within the space of a decade, the Bishops of Gothic Spain and Gaul came together at Toledo three times and celebrated the twelfth, thirteenth, and fifteenth Council — to which is added the fourteenth, of the Province of Carthaginensis alone. The Acts were published with the utmost accuracy and care from the authority of several manuscript codices by Garcia Loaisa, Bishop from Canon of the Church of Toledo, tutor of King Philip III of Spain. Since in these Councils certain matters were treated concerning the sound doctrine of our Julian, and these have been explained most confusedly by Loaisa, Pope Leo sends the Acts of the Sixth Synod to Spain, Tamayo, and others, it is useful to explain their sequence briefly. To curb the spreading Monothelite heresy in the East, the sixth Ecumenical Synod had been convoked at Constantinople under Pope Agatho; whose Acts, brought to them by a courier of the Roman Pontiff, the Fathers of the fourteenth Council of Toledo, assembled in the fifth year of Prince Erwig, in the Era 722, with letters: that is, the year of Christ 684, testify. Together with these same acts, they acknowledge having received the invitatory letters of the grace of Leo, Pontiff of ancient Rome, through which the whole order of the proceedings and the proceedings of the orders lay open to their understanding, clearly as they were enacted. In the gracious course of that letter, moreover, all the Bishops of Spain were invited to this end, that the aforesaid Synodal decrees which he had sent should also be upheld by the authority of their own confirmation, and should be made known and disseminated through them to all under the kingdom of Spain.

[10] to which Julian replies with an Apologetic work, But since it was impossible for the Bishops, having recently dispersed from a General — that is, of the whole nation — Council (namely the thirteenth, celebrated in the immediately preceding year, on the day before the Nones of November), to be assembled so quickly, especially during winter, they excuse themselves, saying that it had sufficed for them at that time, satisfying the Roman Pontiff with the responses of an apologetic defense, to confirm those very acts and to set forth the sense of their faith in the purest elucidation of words... Which, when they had been sent to Rome by the legates of Spain, they now say it remains that from this Provincial Synod all the Provinces of Spain should learn what they received from Rome, what they responded to what they received, in order for a General Council to be celebrated in the matter of faith according to the decrees of the Canons: as was done in the Era 726, the year of Christ 688, the first of King Egica, in that Council which is numbered the fifteenth among those of Toledo. To Julian, therefore, after the dissolution of the thirteenth Council, the Synodal Acts we have mentioned had come, together with the letters of Pope Leo, to which he replied with an Apologetic defense response, which, presented and approved at the fourteenth Provincial Synod, was summarily inserted into its Acts, to be communicated to all the Provinces of Spain and to be further refined by synodal examination.

[11] These things are evident from the Acts of the Councils. But to whom shall we say Leo's letters were directed? to whom the letters were directed, From a manuscript parchment codex of the Royal Monastery of Saint John of Toledo, three letters under the name of Leo are produced by Loaisa: the first inscribed to the Bishops of Spain, the second to Bishop Quiricus (evidently as Primate of all Spain), the third to Count Simplicius. But, as Baronius rightly observes, among the twenty-five Palatine Counts who subscribed to the thirteenth Council, and the seventeen who subscribed to the fifteenth, not one is found with that name. Quiricus had departed this life not seven years before Leo was made Pontiff (which escaped Baronius through a lapse of memory) but nearly three full years before. And to whom could it seem credible that his death had been unknown to the Roman Curia for so long a time?

[12] differing from those found in Loaisa: Rightly therefore the most eminent author of the Ecclesiastical Annals judged the letters published by Loaisa to be spurious; and we might rightly also wonder at the same Loaisa who, after having so accurately collected the Spanish Councils, established in his chronological index that the twelfth Council of Toledo took place in the year of Christ 681 according to evident truth, and yet did not compare this index of his with the chronology of the Roman Pontiffs, before writing in his notes to the fourteenth Council that Quiricus was still the Bishop of Toledo when Peter the Regionarius set out for Spain, namely in the year 683 or 684, of which Leo held the Pontificate for only ten months. But who could so forget himself as to write in the chronological catalogue of the Bishops of Toledo that Saint Ildephonsus wrote the Life of Bishop Quiricus — namely the predecessor of his successor, immediately named by himself in the same catalogue — should anyone wonder that he so shamefully blunders in reconciling dates?

[13] it is credible that Benedict privately attached other letters to these As for the letters of Benedict, likewise produced by Loaisa, unless they were copied from the same codex as the former ones, there is nothing to make them suspect of falsehood — not the unusual title by which Benedict writes of himself as merely a Priest and, in the name of God, Elect of the Holy Apostolic See. For since the election took place on August 20, and in those times the Pontiff elected by the Roman Clergy was not ordained before the Emperor's confirmation, it is credible that the messenger destined for Spain by Leo but delayed by his intervening death was dispatched immediately after the election by Benedict, before the Imperial letters of Constantine had been brought, by which not only was the election confirmed, but it was additionally granted that the person elected to the Apostolic See should without delay be ordained Pontiff forthwith, as is found in Anastasius the Librarian. Certainly, the letters of Leo and the Synodal Acts were brought after the dissolution of the national Synod, as is established; it is likewise established that the Apologetic response was given to Peter the Regionarius, to whom the first letter of Benedict is addressed, admonishing him to hasten to complete the office of piety he had undertaken, adorning it with vigilance and diligence. And that this same man returned to his homeland in the same autumn in which he arrived, the Provincial Council convoked on November 14 of the year 684 compels us to believe — which mentions the response sent to Rome before it met, as we saw above. The same Peter could have brought to King Erwig the letter that survives; yet the said council was not obliged to mention it, since it had not been directed to the council; nor to make any mention at all of Benedict himself, since Peter came with letters and on the commission of the deceased Leo, and Benedict, not yet consecrated, had commanded nothing by Pontifical authority to anyone.

[14] Having therefore left these letters in the possession of their truth, I return to Julian, whose that first Response was; which Felix, weaving the catalogue of his writings, calls the Apologetic of the faith, directed to Benedict, Pope of the city of Rome. "In that book of the response of our faith, however," who in Julian's response found one point, says Julian, "which we had sent to the Roman Church through Peter the Regionarius, this first chapter seemed to the said Pope Benedict to have been incautiously put by us, where we said according to the divine essence: 'The will begot the will, just as wisdom begot wisdom.' That man (namely Peter the Regionarius), passing over this with a careless cursory reading, supposed that we had used these very names in a relative sense, or according to a comparison with the human mind. And therefore by his annotation he was ordered to admonish us thus, saying: 'By the natural order we know that the word derives its origin from the mind, just as reason and will do; and they cannot be converted so as to say that just as the word and the will proceed from the mind, so also the mind proceeds from the word or the will.' And from this comparison it seemed to the Roman Pontiff that the will could not be said to come from the will. We, however, said not according to this comparison with the human mind, but according to the essence: 'The will from the will, just as wisdom from wisdom'; for in God, to be is the same as to will; to will is the same as to know — which, however, cannot be said of man," etc.

[15] and a second point, "Passing also to the second chapter, in which the same Pope thought we had spoken incautiously, professing three substances in Christ the Son of God: just as we shall not be ashamed to defend what is true, so perhaps some will be ashamed to be ignorant of what is true. For who does not know that every man consists of two substances, namely soul and body?... Wherefore, the divine nature united to the human nature, they can be called both three substances properly and two substances properly: but it is one thing when the whole man is expressed through the property of each, another when the whole is understood from a part." There was also a third, indeed a fourth chapter, noted at Rome: but these were so derived from the second chapter that Julian, responding to them in the Council, says nothing other than that he had anticipated not only their meaning but their very words from the books of the Blessed Ambrose and Fulgentius, and that this was evident from the testimonies of the same authors adduced in defense of the second chapter.

[16] Julian testifies in the said fifteenth Council that in noting these chapters Benedict used singular modesty and prudence, he noted them modestly: in these words: "For the strengthening of which matters, two years before this, the Roman Pope Benedict of blessed memory had admonished us by the communication of his letters: which, however, he did not take care to note down in his writings, but enjoined his man (that is, his Procurator) to note them verbally. To which a suitable and sufficient response had already been given to him that same year." And this is that other Apologetic concerning the three chapters, and Julian satisfies him with a second Apologetic, about which the Roman Pontiff seemed to have raised doubts in vain; which the fifteenth Council of Toledo, assembled from the whole Spanish nation, inserted into its Acts in the Era 726, that is, the year of Christ 688, in the first year of King Egica.

[17] Liutprand, as cited by Higuera, reports that in the following year Julian sent the council proceedings, decrees, and poems to Pope Sergius and the Emperor, was this sent in the year 689 to Sergius and Justinian? and received letters from both. The chronicle of Julian, of similar quality, has the same in similar words: "Julian sends the Apologetic with expositions to Pope Sergius and poems to the Emperor Heraclius Justinian: they respond with an elegant letter." Tamayo recites the poems to both, whose credibility rests with their authors. I fear that the date of the fifteenth Council of Toledo, after which most authors conceived the Apologetic book to have been sent (though the matter was not yet sufficiently examined), forced these new fabricators to think of Pope Sergius and the Emperor Justinian. That the poems were fabricated with the utmost audacity and no less imprudence is manifestly detected by anyone who reads the last distich addressed to the Emperor Justinian: "Long live Caesar; adore the commands which Benedict gives / Willingly; thus you too will be a happy Caesar." For Benedict had departed from life and the Pontificate in the year 685; Justinian the Younger had not acceded to the Roman Empire until the following year; he had no business with the Monothelites, which is indicated in the poem — Constantine Heraclius had had much; and it was therefore more just for Julian to congratulate him on their suppression. This Constantine is joined with Sergius by Julian Perez in an equally shameful error, being a full 45 years younger than Sergius, who had departed from life and the empire.

[18] Wherefore, if we wish to tell the truth, it must be said that from Rodrigo, Bishop of Toledo around the year 1210, who did not clearly enough distinguish the time of the sending of the Apologetic from the time of the fifteenth Council, the occasion was taken for inventing these things. the occasion for this fabrication. For he speaks thus in book 3, chapter 14: "In his time the Bishop Julian, called Pomerius, descended from Jewish stock, like flowers of roses from among thorny hedges, produced, remains illustrious in all parts of the world in the doctrine of Christ; who also, born of Christian parents, remained splendidly educated in all prudence at Toledo; where he was afterward also adorned with the Episcopate."

Section III. The fervor of piety in Julian; the false surname of Pomerius.

[19] Enough has been said about the doctrine of Saint Julian. Let us learn the holiness equal to his learning, and the most tender feelings of interior devotion in treating divine matters even in familiar conversation (since other virtues were passed over in silence both by himself and by others), from that letter in which, to the most holy and of all men most intimate to him, with Idalius, Bishop of Barcelona, Idalius, Bishop of the See of Barcelona, he dedicated the three books of the Prognosticon, or On the Future Age. In this letter he speaks thus: "That day, bright with the glorious reception of all the redeemed, on which this year, while we were together in the royal city, we received the feast of the Lord's Passion with a festive ardor of hearts — who could unfold it with feelings worthy of recollection? On that occasion we sought the fitting silence of so great a festivity, and entered a more secluded place of retreat: there, to be drenched by the showers of the divine Passion, we were received, each on our separate beds, where, while we were touched more deeply by the dart of eternal light, the sacred reading was taken up in our hands. We read in divine silence: we were then searching out the secrets of the Lord's Passion, with the concordances of the Gospels gathered together."

[20] intent on reading about the Lord's Passion, "But when we came to a certain desirable passage in the reading (which I am now unable to recall), we were shaken, we groaned, we sighed; a certain sublime jubilation arose in our minds, and suddenly we were drawn up to a certain height of contemplation. Tears welling up diverted the effort of reading; a shared grief rejected the book; and waited to be enriched only by the gift of mutual conference. What divine savor touched our spirits there, what sweetness of supernal charity, having stolen into mortal minds, poured itself out — who could explain it in writings, or suffice to explain it in the utterance of a worthy voice? after wondrous feelings of tender piety For you were then, I confess, my Lord and most holy Brother, wasted with the contortions of gouty pain, but far more uplifted by the hope of divine contemplation. I believe that then every pain of bodily torment fled from you, when that divine conversation began to be carried on between us. There I then felt most fully how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together, when that oil of the Holy Spirit, which descended from our head to

the hem of his garment — which we perhaps then were — had descended, and was illuminating us with the great fire of needful inquiry.

[21] He resolves to write a book of Prognostica "Invited therefore by these banquets of food, we began to inquire between ourselves how the souls of the dead are situated before that final resurrection of bodies: and so by mutual conference we might learn what we would be after this life; so that, thinking vividly and truly about this matter, we might flee the present with as much more certainty as, searching out the future, we might learn with greater eagerness. From this matter, therefore, certain small questions arose, which by their diversity touched our minds not lightly; but, unable to arrive at the best solution or definition of these in the brevity of perception, the spirit of us both alike was aroused, that whatever came to us as a question about this matter should be noted down by a running pen."

[22] which was the cause of confusing him with Julian Pomerius Thus was conceived, thus was born, that most illustrious work, which is contained in the great Library of the ancient Fathers, Cologne edition, volume 7; and it brought it about that for several centuries, during which the monuments of the holy Fathers lay undigested and confused, this Julian, Bishop of Toledo, was confused with Julian Pomerius, a Moor by nation but ordained a Priest in Gaul, of whom Gennadius of Marseilles writes in his work on ecclesiastical writers, chapter 98, before the year of our Lord 500: "He lives to this day, in a manner of life worthy of God, with a fitting confession and rank." Isidore, chapter 12, says the same man, besides his greater work (whose subject Gennadius had reviewed), "wrote three books on the contemplation of the future life": and that he called it by a similar name, Prognosticon, Baronius asserts in his notes to the Roman Martyrology on this day. Deceived therefore by this homonymy of both the work and the author, among others Rodrigo of Toledo, book 3, chapter 13, writes where he treats of the reign of Erwig: "In his time the Bishop Julian, called Pomerius, descended from Jewish stock, like flowers of roses from among thorny hedges, produced, remains illustrious in all parts of the world in the doctrine of Christ; who also, born of Christian parents, remained splendidly educated in all prudence at Toledo; where he was afterward also adorned with the Episcopate."

[23] although this man is more than two hundred years older than the other Which assuredly neither Rodrigo nor anyone else would have believed, if he had been able to read the Prognosticon of Julian, Bishop of Toledo, itself: for he would have found in it not only that Saint Gregory is often cited, who is known to have lived nearly a century and a half after the time of that Pomerius, but also that the authority of Julian Pomerius himself is invoked more than ten times, as one who had been excellently versed in the same subject — not to mention that in the same work Julian calls Eugenius, Bishop of Toledo, his teacher. That the excellent commentary against the Jews which follows the preceding treatise in the same volume of the Cologne Library belongs also to this man, and not to Pomerius, is made manifest both by the era of King Erwig, to whom it is inscribed, and by the end of the work, where the author, collecting the times from the beginning of the world to the Incarnation of Christ, says that from that point to the very day of his writing, six hundred and eighty-six years are counted. Therefore those who presided over the Cologne edition prudently deleted the surname of Pomerius, which the Parisian editions had; and by the same prudence they could have deleted it from the eulogy of Saint Ildephonsus, the surname of Pomerius attributed to Bishop Cixilanus, prefixed by way of preface to his works in the same volume and published by us on January 23, whose author, as they have it, is Julian Pomerius, Deacon of the Church of Toledo.

[24] Lest you suppose, however, that this is our Julian, the memory of Sisebert, who succeeded Julian, and of Urban and Evantius, who departed around the year 751, prevents it: but neither do the manuscript codices, from which Tamayo de Vergas sent us this encomium, altogether support calling him Julian, for in them we read Cixilanus instead of Julian. He was Bishop of the city of Toledo around the year 770, and could have known personally Urban and Evantius, whom he mentions, who were accustomed to relate many things about the affairs of Saint Ildephonsus; he could also have delivered this encomium to the people in a sermon while he was still in the rank of Deacon. and to Urban Melodius, with no better right. And here observe that the aforesaid Urban is twice called by Pelagius, Bishop of Oviedo, a celebrated writer of the affairs of his time (namely the eleventh century) (as Tamayo Salazar says), a veteran Melodius of the Cathedral of Toledo, a teacher, and one sufficiently distinguished for the pursuit of holiness; but never a Bishop — which, however, Tamayo asserts on October 4, "by the consensus," he says, "of all other writers both ancient and modern." We pay no attention to the more recent authors he cites; but among them we have the one who alone is cited as ancient, Julian Perez, whose assumed mask of antiquity will not easily impose on learned men, when at number 369 he writes: "Julian surnamed Pomerius, who is also called by others Urban, successor of Sinderedus" (still living, as the same Tamayo is forced to admit, and therefore he feigns that he resigned the episcopate), "Archbishop of Toledo, or according to others Chorepiscopus, departed for Rome, his homeland." Behold the name of Pomerius torn from one true person into four, while all affix it to some person from Toledo, but each to different ones.

[25] That an epitaph was set up for the holy Bishop Julian, about whom we are speaking, by one of his successors, anyone would easily persuade us; Julian's epitaph. but not that it is the one which Tamayo has in elegiac verses as if written by Felix: for this, equally with another sepulchral poem of that Urban discussed above, and all others of this kind found in Tamayo, the subject itself and the style declare to be the work of one and the same Poet and fabrication. Wherefore, passing it over, I proceed to the eulogy of undoubted authority, to be faithfully produced from the ecclesiastical writers of our Aubert Miraeus; in which all things are so consonant with the truth as the things which the credulity of more recent writers has added on top are dissonant from it.

LIFE

Author: Felix, Bishop of Toledo, successor of Julian.

From the Appendix to the book of Saint Isidore on Ecclesiastical Writers.

Julian, Bishop of Toledo in Spain (Saint)

BHL Number: 4554

AUTHOR: FELIX THE BISHOP.

[1] Julian the Bishop, a disciple of Eugenius the Second, Metropolitan of the Province of Carthage, following his preceptor in the fourth place after Quiricus of blessed memory, attained the Pontifical summit of the royal city; The homeland of Saint Julian of which city he was a proper citizen, and in the principal church of the same city he was washed in the streams of most holy baptism, and there he was nurtured from the very beginnings of infancy. friendship with Saint Gudilanus When he had reached the age of boyhood, he was so bound by the bond of companionship and joined by the union of inseparable charity to his colleague of holy memory, Gudilanus the Levite, that their inviolable charity showed them to be one, and the unity firmly established in both demonstrated that not two souls but one dwelt in them. So great was the communion of the unanimity they had attained between them that, according to the history of the Acts of the Apostles, in two bodies there was thought to be but one heart and one soul. love of solitude in both They stood provident in counsel, united in resolution, harmonious in praiseworthy action; and, inspired by the divine Spirit, they delighted in enjoying the good of the theoretic, that is, the contemplative life of repose. But because it was otherwise in the judgment of the supreme deity, their devotion was nonetheless frustrated.

[2] Although they had by no means completed the course of the desired journey, they did not, however, cease from the pursuit of pious devotion: and while they would have preferred to benefit only themselves as fugitives, and similarity of virtues they afterward began to strive with growing aspirations for the salvation of their neighbors. For they were of laborious virtue in teaching their subjects, desirous of their advancement, fervent in the service of God, zealous in the desire for the beauty of the house of the Lord, ready in obedience to their elders; and if it were possible to obtain the profit of all virtues, they strove with the more ardent spirits. Therefore, by the dispensation of the divine judgments, Gudila the Deacon of holy memory, on the sixth day before the Ides of September, by the event of grievous death, after the death of his companion, in the eighth year of Prince Wamba, closed his last course with a worthy confession of God. His dear body rests honorably buried in the monastery of Saint Felix, which is dedicated in the village of Cabense, by the ministration of his most beloved companion. Julian is made Bishop After his departure, therefore, with some intervening lapse of time, after Quiricus of holy memory, the same distinguished Julian obtained the Primacy of the aforesaid city, to be proclaimed with as great a title of praise as, supported by the aid of diverse virtues, he marvelously ordered the Church of God in his times.

[3] Indeed, that I may unfold from what time he began to shine through the warp and woof of pious governance: from about the seventeenth year of Prince Ricisuind, after the death of his predecessor Ildephonsus of divine memory, and through the whole time of Wamba's reign, to the third year of the reign of the most glorious King Egica, he shines with all the gifts of an excellent Bishop, holding the honor of the Levitical, Presbyteral, and Pontifical rank, he obtained a celebrated name. For he was a man full of the fear of the Lord, supreme in prudence, cautious in counsel, outstanding in the gift of discretion, exceedingly devoted to almsgiving, devout in relieving the oppressed, most ready in the assistance of the wretched, discreet in interceding, energetic in settling disputes, fair in foreseeing judgments, sparing in sentence, singular in the vindication of justice, praiseworthy in disputation, constant in prayer, wonderful in the rendering of divine praises; so that if perchance anything of difficulty, as is wont, should occur in the divine Offices, he was most easy in correcting it, vehemently attentive to the sacred lamps, outstanding in the defense of all the Churches, watchful in governing his subjects, firm in restraining the proud, prepared in supporting the humble, generous with due authority, rich in the good of embracing humility, and in general conspicuous for the probity of all his character: so abounding in piety that there was no one placed in straits whom he did not wish to help; so overflowing in the one charity that he did not cease to render anything good from charity to anyone asking it of him. In short, he so preferred to show himself dear to God in all things and helpful to all men, that he would both please God in all ways, and, if it were possible, satisfy men on account of God with a devout mind: to be accounted equal in worthy merits to so many noble preceding men, in that he was inferior to them in no part of the body of virtues.

[4] He provides for ecclesiastical discipline. He therefore preserved the well-established ecclesiastical orders in the see of his governance with more solicitous care; he usefully corrected those that were corrupted; he instituted with prudent disposition those that were wanting; and concerning the Offices he composed very many things in sweet-sounding melody. And now, since he shone, filled with the abundance of the Holy Spirit and endowed with the affluence of an irrigating spring, learn from this point, reader, the sum of his books, which God through him brought forth for the profit of his Church. He writes many books. For he composed a book of the Prognostica of the future age, directed to Bishop Idalius of blessed memory, having at the beginning the letter which was directed to him, together with a prayer. The work of this codex is divided into three books; of which the first, concerning the origin of human death,

was published; the second concerning the souls of the dead, how they are situated before the resurrection of their bodies; the third concerning the final resurrection of bodies.

Likewise a book of Responses, directed to the one mentioned above, in defense of the canons and laws by which Christian slaves are prohibited from serving under infidel masters.

Likewise the Apologetic of the faith, which was directed to Benedict, Pope of the city of Rome.

Likewise another Apologetic concerning the three Chapters, about which the Pontiff of the city of Rome seemed to have raised doubts in vain.

Likewise a booklet on Remedies for Blasphemy, with a letter to Abbot Adrian.

[5] Likewise a book on the Proof of the Sixth Age, which has at the beginning a prayer and a letter to the Lord King Erwig. This same codex is divided into three books; for the first of them has very many testimonies from the Old Testament, by which, without any computation of years, Christ the Son of God is plainly declared not to be about to be born, but already born; the course of the second book proceeds through the displayed teaching of the Apostles, which clearly shows Christ to have been born of the Virgin Mary in the fullness of time, not in years counted from the beginning of the world; the excursus of the third book also shows by true testimonies that the sixth age, in which Christ was born, is undoubtedly at hand; in which the five past ages of the world are distinguished not by years but by an appointed limit of generations.

Likewise a book of diverse poems, in which are hymns, epitaphs, and numerous epigrams on diverse subjects.

Likewise a book of very many letters.

Likewise a book of sermons, in which is a small work on the vindication of the house of God and of those who take refuge in it.

[6] Likewise a book of Contraries, which he wished to be annotated with the Greek title Antikeimena, divided into two books; the first contains dissertations on the Old Testament, the second on the New.

Likewise a book of history, concerning what was done in Gaul during the time of Prince Wamba.

Likewise a book of sentences briefly and summarily collected from the Decade of Psalms of Blessed Augustine.

Likewise excerpts collected from the books of Saint Augustine against Julian.

Likewise a booklet on divine judgments, collected from the sacred volumes, at the beginning of which is a letter directed to the Lord Erwig, in the time of his Comitship, for the said booklet.

Likewise a book of Responses against those who persecute fugitives to the Church.

Likewise a book of Masses for the entire cycle of the year, divided into four parts; in which he emended and completed some that had been corrupted and left half-finished through the neglect of antiquity, while others he composed entirely.

Likewise a book of prayers for the feasts which the Church of Toledo was accustomed to celebrate through the entire cycle of the year, partly produced by the pen of his own genius, partly also corrected with care where it had been corrupted by ingrained antiquity, he gathered into one and left for the use of the Church of God out of love for holy religion.

[7] the time of death. He held the honor of the prelacy and the dignity of the priesthood for ten years, one month, and seven days; and, overtaken by the inevitable descent of death, in the third year of Prince Egica, on the day before the Nones of March, in the Era seven hundred and twenty-eight, he closed the last day of his life: and thus in the basilica of the most glorious Virgin Leocadia he was buried by the lot of the sepulcher.

p These words, in which Felix summarily expounds the argument of the whole work, are the very words of Julian in his letter to Erwig. This work also survives in the aforesaid volume 7 of the Library of the Fathers and is entitled Against the Jews. It is remarkable that Tamayo, who could not be ignorant that the books which survive in volume 4 of the Library of the Fathers, second Parisian edition, are the same as those in the aforesaid volume 7 of the Cologne edition, wished to deceive the reader and to abuse the authority of Bellarmine, as if he recognized some work of Julian omitted by Felix.

q Certain epigrams of Saint Julian are recited by Father Jerome de la Higuera in his notes to Liutprand as drawn from a manuscript codex of Saint Justa, says Tamayo.

r John Brassicanus published this from a manuscript of Buda at Basel in 1530, and Henry Sachs from a manuscript of Fulda at Cologne in 1532, without the name of the author. But Andrew Schott, one of ours, recognized its parentage and saw to it that it was restored and inserted in volume 15 of the Library of the Fathers, Cologne 1612.

s Andrew du Chesne also published this in appendix 1 of volume 1 of the writers of French history from a manuscript of the Monastery of Moissac; from which should not be separated the judgment promulgated against the perfidy of tyrants, which is appended in the same place from the same codex as a separate work.

t To these Tamayo adds I know not what, unworthy of so great a name, from Julian Perez, number 359, where he says: "Saint Julian, who was afterward Archbishop of Toledo, continues the chronicle of the Kings of the Visigoths from Athanaric to Erwig; the rest was added by the Archbishop of Toledo to the end." Evidently this Julian, whoever he was, had seen a certain series of the Gothic Kings, which Andrew du Chesne published from the same Moissac manuscript in the same volume, by an anonymous author, contained in a single folio; and he embellished it with the illustrious name of Bishop Julian, although it extends thirty years beyond the holy man's lifetime.