Nicephorus

ON SAINT NICEPHORUS, PATRIARCH OF CONSTANTINOPLE,

AD 828.

Preliminary Commentary.

Nicephorus, Patriarch of Constantinople (St.)

[1] This day is celebrated with the veneration of St. Nicephorus, Patriarch of Constantinople, among both Latins and Greeks. Concerning him, the records of the Roman Martyrology have this: At Constantinople, of St. Nicephorus, Bishop, who, as a most vigorous champion of ancestral traditions, Sacred veneration constantly opposed the Emperor Leo the Armenian, an iconoclast, for the veneration of holy images; by whom, condemned to exile, he spent fourteen years there enduring a long martyrdom, and departed to the Lord. Molanus, Felicius, Canisius, Ghinius, and others also treat of him. This day is, as is read below in the later Acts, memorable for a twofold reason: March 13 on account of the translation, that he was then cast into exile, but especially that his sacred body, brought back to Constantinople and placed by the hands of St. Methodius in the most celebrated Church of the Apostles, in a newly built tomb, was deposited on this third day before the Ides of March. The Greeks in their printed and manuscript Menaea celebrate on this day the same translation of the body, with an encomium drawn from the same Acts. But his primary solemnity is performed on the second of June, on which day, and June 2 as his feast day, stripped of this mortal life in exile, he departed gloriously to immortal and eternal blessedness. What the Greeks then present with a long and illustrious encomium and celebrate with various odes and hymns is contained in the earlier Acts. Following the example of the Greeks, he is referred to the same day by Molanus in the Supplement to Usuard and by Ferrarius in the General Catalogue.

[2] As we said, we give a double set of Acts. The earlier, hitherto unpublished, were written by Ignatius, Acts hitherto unpublished, by the author Ignatius, according to Suidas, a Deacon and Guardian of the Vessels of the great Church of Constantinople, then made Secretary of the Metropolitan of Nicaea. This same Suidas adds that he wrote the Lives of Tarasius and Nicephorus, holy and blessed Patriarchs, and many other things, as we said on the twenty-fifth of February in the Life of St. Tarasius, a contemporary, in which he asserts that he was a disciple of the latter, was practiced in the poetic art and composing verses, recorded his sacred discourses taken down with a swift pen in a codex, and finally was present at his death. St. Nicephorus succeeded Tarasius, whom Ignatius calls his father, and acknowledges himself as his son at the beginning of the Life, and again at the end pours forth from singular veneration all the feelings of his inner soul, and deplores that he was once drawn into the error of heresy, and indicates that he was led back to the way of truth by his patronage and example. Some things about him are contained in the translator's letter to be given shortly. Moreover, we give these same Acts divided, as is our custom, into chapters and numbers, and illuminate them with more copious annotations from ancient writers. The later Acts were written by Theophanes, Priest and Provost, others written by Theophanes, Priest and Provost, in which those things pertaining to his life and exile are briefly touched upon, because they had been accurately narrated by the said Ignatius; but what was afterwards accomplished in the solemn translation of the body is related by this contemporary author, as we gather from the epilogue, where he approaches the shrine of the translated body with desire and invokes its aid, that the holy Church might be able to persevere in the tranquility which it had then obtained under St. Methodius. We gave on March 12 the Acts of St. Theophanes, also a Priest and Provost, and indeed an illustrious writer, but whom we said to have died around the year 820, at which time Nicephorus still survived in exile. This Theophanes of ours is therefore a different and somewhat younger person; whose Greek composition on St. Nicephorus was found in the Venetian library by Aloisius Lipomanus, published by Lipomanus, and, rendered into Latin by Pietro Francesco Zino, was published in the seventh volume of the Lives of the Holy Fathers for this thirteenth of March; and from him by Surius, which we adorn with new labor.

[3] The age of St. Nicephorus: St. Nicephorus was born after the conventicle of Copronymus, around the year 758; he was ordained Patriarch on the twelfth of April, on Easter day itself, in the year 806; he presided over his Church for nine years less one month; he was sent into exile on the thirteenth of March in the year 815; he lived in exile for thirteen years; he died holily on the fourteenth year of his exile, on the second of June of the year 828; his body was brought back from exile in the year 846. All of which is established below from the Acts themselves. The books written by him are enumerated, after others, by Philippe Labbe in his Dissertation on Ecclesiastical Writers, whom the curious reader may consult. writings: Very many things from his Confession of Faith sent to Pope Leo, as well as from his writings against the Iconoclasts, are cited below in the Acts. The great Theodore the Studite was familiar with St. Nicephorus, whose letter sent to him in exile we give here, which is as follows:

[4] Letter of St. Theodore the Studite to him. When I have very often desired to come to the sacred presence of Your Beatitude,

to write to the sacred eminence of Your Beatitude, I desisted from the undertaking, partly hindered by the consideration of my own unworthiness, partly also impeded by the weakness born of my afflictions. But now, making light of both and trusting in the Trinity, I, a wretch, say these things: Rejoice, true conqueror of impiety, who complete the course of faith with the four-horse chariot of virtues. Hail, great sun of orthodox teaching, by the rays of whose confession the whole world is illuminated. Hail, champion of truth, shining with the beauty of virtue after the manner of the ancient Saints. You left your exalted throne for the sake of Him who humbled Himself even unto death, the death of the Cross. You left the services and delights of the Archiepiscopate, and preferred to be exercised by various hardships in the manner of Confessors rather than to enjoy the temporary pleasures of sin. And certainly, since you did not live by those things, even while you were among them, mortifying your members through a life lived in Christ, you endured the deprivation of a holy mother, stripped of all your dear brothers, and of everything at once. Nor do I yet mention your reproaches, similar to the reproaches of Christ -- the attacks launched by Emperors, the vexations, the straits, and, as it were, the suffocations. By night you were led away with Christ; for having been betrayed, you too were banished and confined to the border of a hill, O Martyr of Christ. But well done -- how all things have turned to your good! Lift up your eyes around from the watchtower of your mind, and see your sons

-- your sons, or rather your sheep, good shepherd, though scattered in body, yet united in spirit, occupying nearly the whole of your Church in various places, and by the splendor of your confession, like stars, showing the light of the orthodox faith to those who dwell in the nocturnal darkness of heresy: some indeed offered to God through athletic consummation; others fighting without any fear of present things, but strengthened by your prayers which move God. This is the glory of your Church; this is the badge and symbol of martyrdom, which the following age, receiving it, will glorify God in you, as now. Many encomiums will be spoken to you who fight for the image of Christ. But forgive me, imitator of God, because I have dared from love to say these things; grant me your sacred prayers, that I may not cease to be your least son, who am the most useless of all because of my sins. So much from St. Theodore the Studite to Nicephorus. From here, about to proceed to the Acts of St. Nicephorus, we preface the letter of the Reverend Father Francis Combefis of the Order of the Friars Preachers at Paris, sent to us at the church of St. Mary of the Annunciation.

[5] Letter of the translator, Your February, produced by your labors and seen by me in three great volumes, has prompted me to strive to contribute some auxiliary work also for the expected March; and if I had anything stored up from the Acts of Saints which you might lack, to supply it with a more ready spirit for the benefit of the Christian cause and for the glory of Christ and the Saints. Among these there occurred in particular the Life and contest of the most holy Confessor, Archbishop and Patriarch of Constantinople, Nicephorus, written by Ignatius, Deacon and Guardian of the Vessels of the Great Church, a contemporary of the same Nicephorus, and a not unpolished or less than accurate author -- a gift, namely, from Leo Allatius, a most learned and dear friend, from the Roman codices, while he, meditating some work on Nicephorus and his monuments clearer than the light, repaid something in exchange for the five books of the illustrious Confessor George Metochites which he had received from me, with which he splendidly enriched the second volume of his Orthodox Greece from the Royal codices. I have rendered the Greek of Ignatius as clearly as possible and with the faithful work of a translator. Not obscurely does the author himself reveal that he once suffered violence and communicated with the heretical image-breakers, although he never in his heart departed from the truth of the faith and the sound understanding of the Church concerning their veneration. Such was the violence of Leo and then of Theophilus in harassing the pious faithful, that it almost prostrated even those who could seem to be pillars; nor were there many whom that monstrous ruin did not involve, wherever the majesty and dominion of the Roman Empire in the East extended. How great a matter this was, the pious Theodora's

restoration, the "restoration of the icons," is declared by the Acts inserted in the Greek ecclesiastical books for the Sunday of Orthodoxy, and long since extracted by me from those same books; namely when also the most holy Confessor Methodius, as a new light shone forth and the darkness of heresy was dispelled from the earth, was placed on the see of Constantinople as a worthy Shepherd and successor of Nicephorus, after the wolves and usurpers had been driven from it. At which time also Ignatius, led by repentance, placed this monument as a pillar of commemoration for Nicephorus. I praise his judgment about the works of Nicephorus, by whose light he foretells that that darkness of error will be dispelled. Nor is there doubt that they contributed much to dispelling the same, after the opportunity to read them was granted to lovers of truth by the clemency and piety of the Emperors; nor do I think they will be less useful now for scattering the mists which new darkeners of the truth have called back from hell in the same cause, if ever, by the gift of the most merciful God to His faithful and to the Church, they come forth to the public with the light in which they were written, with the weight of their authorities, the force of their arguments, and the brilliance of their style -- which may perhaps be expected to be provided by Maximus, given the same auspices.

LIFE

By the Author Ignatius the Deacon, his disciple.

Nicephorus, Patriarch of Constantinople (St.)

BY IGNATIUS THE DEACON, FROM GREEK MANUSCRIPTS.

PROLOGUE OF THE AUTHOR.

[1] If, Hearers, the time of tears did not call to contrition of heart, Mourning for the death of so great a man, and the pangs of sorrow did not suppress the feelings of the mind, the discourse, running perhaps on a level path and with a favorable current, might have fulfilled, as far as it was able, though not adequately for the dignity of the subject, yet according to its own capacity, what it intended. But now, beset inescapably by such great assaults of evils and passions, as if sluggish in loosening the tongue for festive praise, it has preferred a dirge; and failing to compose praises, it has yielded entirely to sadness. But who, pray tell, has intervened? What cause has struck such grief and turmoil, and cast darkness upon the mind? Surely the departure of our divine and God-filled Father, and the fact that he has been snatched from us -- the extinction of the most luminous star and Morning Star of the Church; the loss of the one who would sound forth as a herald of the worship of God alone; the silencing of the voice of the most brilliant trumpet, arousing to true faith; the concealment of the most precious treasure of spiritual doctrine; the cessation of those lips whose marvelous swiftness was directed at the prey of stupid and most vain unbelief, now that they are dead. He, I say, who truly obtained his name from "victory," although by the human condition he was conquered by death, impedes the vigor of the discourse: has made the tongue sluggish for praise. This is the thing which has rendered mute the power of discourse; this has summoned the mind to the discordant lamentation of a dirge. Therefore, unless the charge of ungrateful nature deterred me -- for the reason, namely, that a son should embrace silence when his father has died and pass over carelessly such a great miracle which can be covered by no bushel of oblivion -- I would certainly have been about to impose this counsel upon myself: that I, whom a cloud of ignorance covers and whom, like that ancient people, the storm of sin keeps at a distance, should by no means approach the virtue of the man or touch any part of it, lest, making bold with an unworthy attempt like a beast, I should be struck and overwhelmed by stones and javelins. Nevertheless, once the smallness of my soul has been exposed and the desire of my heart blazes within, since I know that what comes from manly effort is acceptable to God, I have cast myself, as far as was permitted, yet his virtue extorts it, into the praises of the most celebrated Father, as into a deep whirlpool. May the divine power, through your supplications to him, grant that one may seize the pearl that lies hidden in him and emerge with a sound mind, and exchange for us who desire them incorruptible riches. I would be unjust to myself if, having taken up the subject of discourse from him, I did not repay him with that service which consists in the art of speaking.

[2] Come, therefore, setting aside for a while our mourning and dirge, let us approach our discourse, and let us propose the deeds of the divine man throughout his life, as a kind of common picture of virtue, to those zealous for equity and honor. For they will be both a delight and a benefit to all The Life is proposed to true Catholics, to whom the love of the good is above all a concern, and to whom the teaching of the sincere faith is pleasing; because they openly display the power and strength of truth, and cut the sinews of those who aim at it less rightly. For the discourse will embrace and relate, from monuments gathered from all sides, not only what great things he accomplished by his illustrious character and rightly ordered life, but also how much he labored even unto blood for the defense of truth. I would wish, and would be most grateful, to have as my hearers all the children of the orthodox faith -- all, I say, whom the Church has filled at her breast, trained by the teaching of the better ones, with spiritual and solid food, for the discernment of good and evil. But I drive far away and remove those who, devoted to a perverse opinion, have thought otherwise than the Father; as those who vainly attempt to shake the foundation of the Church, and who, to speak in the words of the Prophet, have sold their hope for a lie; for those who are ill-disposed toward the man and meditate anything sinister against him

[5] For it happened at that time that, when Constantine had been assumed to the helm of Empire, Theodorus the father was a secretary of the Emperor Copronymus, Theodorus filled the role of scribe or notary and served in the royal secrets; who, while he shone with the most pure light of right confession and faith in God, not unlike another Abraham, was assailed with a grave calumny before that most savage enemy, namely on the grounds that he held Christ in His image, the immaculate Mother, and all the Saints in veneration. The tyrant therefore, on account of the veneration of images, who, hating the truth, could not endure to hear such things, swelled with anger and ordered the man to appear immediately and to plead his case on the charges which rumor had spread. He, as if summoned to a banquet rather than to plead his case as one accused, showed openly that the matter was indeed so, as the Emperor had heard. When the matter was thus certainly ascertained, the Emperor, since the man's confirmed constancy, as if a kindling, set ablaze the wickedness of his soul, with unusual threats

assailed Theodorus with threats, he is beaten, and also condemned him to beatings as if guilty. Perceiving that the man was softened not at all by these, he took away his cloak and the insignia of his rank, and punished him with a very harsh exile.

[6] he is sent into exile: Afterwards, after some time had passed, he ordered the man to be brought back from Molina (for this was the fortress assigned to his exile) and to be employed again at court; hoping, I think, that, worn down by the harsh ordeal, he had learned what the Emperor thought worthwhile. he is recalled, In reality, however, he found him resisting more firmly than adamant, superior to all threats and aggression against him, and prepared to endure whatever other harsher trials his mind could devise, should the occasion arise. For he pursued these things with an eager spirit, constant in the faith, and considered it better to be adorned by the wounds of Christ than to deviate in any way from the Ecclesiastical law and Apostolic and Patristic tradition, which quite fittingly and duly established that Christ our true God, in the manner in which He is man, expressed in painted colors, is to be adored. When the holy man had confessed with his mouth unto salvation and had abundantly declared that he sided with the party opposing the Tyrant, tortured in various ways he was summoned to other kinds of torments; having endured these with the greatest strength of soul, he was cast into exile at Nicaea in Bithynia. In that place, for the remainder of his life, again sent into exile at Nicaea, where he died: having lived religiously and become for all a standard of strong soul in maintaining the true faith, he departed to that blessed rest and to a life extended into long ages; about to receive the rewards of his labors when deeds shall be judged through the account of his life.

[7] The wife who had been joined to him by divine law, as being a religious woman His mother was everywhere his husband's companion, who loved God and her husband, followed him in all things -- in dangers, in exiles, in hardships, in the right hand and left of righteousness (to speak as the Apostle says 2 Cor. 6:7): that is, in sorrowful things as well as in joyful. For since they were, as it were, a pair mutually spurring each other on to better things and to the contests of virtue, they had grown together no less in spirit than in the union of their bodies. She, after her husband had died a blessed death, spent not a few years with her son, as a widow she saw St. Nicephorus when he had recently taken up the study of the liberal arts and had become no ignoble writer with hand and ink. For he was chosen as a Secretary, to serve the Emperors in what the Latin language calls "a Secretis." Indeed, the fortunate Mother saw this son born of her placed on the candlestick of the supreme priesthood like the brightest lamp, always bearing a clear light before our paths, and she received from him the honor and reverence due to parents according to God, even into her old age. appointed imperial Secretary, Meanwhile, counting the fleeting things of the world as spiders' webs with a pious resolve, this strong woman devoted herself to the practice of the monastic life, and Patriarch: and strenuously laboring in it, having conquered the adversary and worthily completed the course of her profession, she died and received the crown of immortality. embracing the monastic life, she dies holily There, taken up with the Virgins into the bridal chamber, she joyfully leads the choirs and keeps her lamp of good works always lit and shining with oil. O son, to whom a favorable recommendation has come from such great piety of parents! O parents, to whom it fell to obtain a son of such great virtue and praise, and so distinguished!

[8] But let this discourse about the Just One's parents, which has been far too brief to match their merits, suffice thus far. Now it remains to tell how he built himself up above the foundation of virtue, and how, to speak in the Prophet's words, he arranged ascents in his heart. Ps. 84:6 Although the discourse trembles, fearing that it may not fulfill its duties worthily enough, St. Nicephorus, stirred by this example, even though a fair-minded listener would not require what is fully worthy and deserved. And so, condensing the abundance by a certain narrow and subtle method, which renders counsel lacking and poor, I shall try to discern one thing among his many right deeds, and to declare to you the whole from the part, as a lion from its claw.

[9] The Emperor and the Court therefore held him as a kind of divine ornament and glory, a man eloquent at court, famous and illustrious in speech, more than King Philip held the most eloquent orator of the Athenians. For he was no babbler or chatterer who would compose his words, speech, and manner to the modes of flattery, and seek praise by speaking to please. Rather, composing his discourse from reason, he delivered his speech in such a way that he did not so much soothe the listener with elegance of diction and ornament of words, as he openly declared and urged what was worthwhile and useful upon one who was negligent and lax about salvation. he prudently inculcates sound doctrine. And so, when some part of those who during this time governed the scepters of the Roman Empire had suffered shipwreck around the sound faith, he calmed, as far as he could, the tempest stirred up by them. For the tradition, formerly flourishing in the blameless Church by Apostolic and Patristic decree -- namely, of painting and venerating holy images -- they attempted to abrogate by a proud enterprise (as if fear had seized them lest they should see Christ, marked with the attributes of bodily properties, similar to themselves) and advanced against its beauty with one battle-line and assault. against the Conventicle formerly gathered under Copronymus: For defiling and blotting out the manly figure of God and every image of Him, Christ our true God, who through the flesh bore our weaknesses, and the corporeal memorials of His most immaculate Mother, as well as of the Saints who have been illustrious from of old, they held a local assembly apart and, to speak truly, a Council

CHAPTER II

The monastery built by St. Nicephorus. His manner of life there, his various branches of knowledge and virtues.

[12] But since he knew a more secret and sacred precept, He aspires to the monastic life: which commanded him to attend to himself and to devote himself to God alone (for thus may one be drawn from earthly things and already be carried toward God), he tried with all his zeal to withdraw to the desired quiet of the monastic life; beseeching and employing every manner of supplication to bring those who on the contrary drew him to the business and turmoil of the world, to the point where they would not prevent him from having his wish fulfilled. And indeed he prevailed, and soon obtained what he greatly desired. Therefore, scorning the annoyances of the forum and the tumult of affairs, and in seclusion he loves poverty: and bidding farewell to the insignia of his dignity crowned with wool, and to all things that invite softness and delights and bodily pleasure, he migrated to a certain cave in the region of the Thracian Bosporus, bringing nothing besides the sheepskin of Elijah -- that is, poverty -- to a similar Carmel. Poverty, I say, which first builds a dwelling for virtue; which whoever possesses is endowed with incorruption and embraces the angelic way of life. choosing a rough and uncultivated place, Having obtained this as the companion and associate of great undertakings, that dealer in great things, who had long valued it above all others more than the gems of Ophir and the threads of silk, withdrew, as has been said, to a new Carmel: one, namely, which by its very situation and the difficulty of the place presented something deformed, whose inaccessible and steep summit of the ascending mountain was scarcely suitable for any crops because of its barrenness, and suffered from extreme dryness and scarcity of water, which had to be conveyed there, since the very benefit of irrigation from the clouds was lacking because of the declivity of the place.

[13] But why bring forth at greater length the hardness of the soil and the inconveniences of the location, when anyone who visits the place can more clearly learn the nature of the locality and estimate and conjecture with his own eyes, beyond all power of speech, how it has been changed from what it was since that time? For, as if stripping off a worn and ragged garment, he removed that horror and uncultivated appearance of the soil, and by the fertility of the clod laid aside the name of barrenness; what was formerly arid began to be irrigated by heavenly rain through fissures and veins of the earth receiving each other underground, he transforms it into a fertile place: and, made rich by alternating abundance, it surpassed the court of Alcinous and the golden plane tree of Xerxes in delightful appearance, as much as truth is more beautiful and of greater honor than fabulous inventions. Moreover, consecrated with shrines of Martyrs, in which their fierce contests are brilliantly expressed with various artistic embellishments, it beautifully imitates the paradise of God, to speak with Scripture. For who would not marvel at its sufficiency for the sustenance of life and its apt arrangement as a dwelling, even before experiencing it? He therefore decreed that it should be a monastery of sacred men who would worship God with constant praises, and he established a monastery of men there: with whom he himself, joined in a perpetual community, devoting himself day and night to prayers and sacred canticles, and delighting in the manner of the best abstinence, applied his mind to divine readings and disciplines. He could not bear even to hear by name a Syracusan table or one more lavish with delicacies, using more sparingly those foods which would somehow suffice to sustain life.

[14] But since mention has been made of the sacred disciplines, I think it will not be unwelcome or foreign to my purpose to recall how great was the man's diligence and excellence in them. For to the study of the divine Scriptures he added the resources of secular literature, both to be able to persuade more easily in teaching and to become more ready in refuting errors. For just as it is the virtue of the law to profess a comprehension and certain knowledge of the just and the unjust, so that it may equally repay the worthy retribution to each according to whichever he has followed, he embraces the studies of both kinds of literature: so also the perfection of learning requires the knowledge and skill of both. Not, however, that we should, God forbid, place them on an equal scale; for a handmaid would not compete with her mistress in equal honor, nor would the son of the handmaid, to recall the words of Abraham, have been heir with the son of the free woman. Gal. 4:30 How great he was in Grammar and its parts and aids, an accurate Grammarian and Poet, by which the correct way of writing is distinguished from that which is defective, the Greek language is corrected, and the basis of verse is regulated, is clearly known to those who even moderately master that art. And touching also the many-voiced lyre of the Rhetoricians, an eloquent Rhetorician, how sweet he was in words and pleasant in eloquence, anyone may easily perceive; for eliminating far from his discourse superfluous garrulity, boasting of words, and whatever tends toward the inept fictions and trifles of the Sophists, he sought sweetness and grace from the distinctness and purity of his composition.

[15] As for his grasp of the fourfold Mathematics, a subtle Mathematician, which consists of continuous and discrete terms (for the mathematical object either moves and produces Astronomy; or is immovable and constitutes Geometry; or again exists in proportion and certain comparison and produces Music; or finally is free of such proportion and produces Arithmetic), he was so profoundly exercised in it that, as if cultivating all things as one and one as all, he bore the palm in everything. He tuned the lyre of Music -- not such as Pythagoras of Samos, nor like the seducer Aristoxenus -- and a Musician, but that nobler one of one hundred and fifty strings; and always playing it, he drove away from his subjects the disease from which Saul once suffered, and the most cruel tyrant himself

drove away from his subjects and soothed the most cruel tyrant himself, enslaved to the Spirit of error and most obstinately raging against the mystery of Christ's incarnation, and preserved his flock safe from that pestilence.

[16] Having given the most diligent attention to these four handmaids of true knowledge, a supreme Philosopher he then proceeded on an easy and sure path to the mistress herself, namely Philosophy, and her precepts and speculations. For he carefully investigated what and how great her terms are; what is their property; what is the subject; what is the predicate, as they call it, and whether it applies to all or to none, or in whole, and similar things. What the elements mean in these matters; and whether they agree with those called Physical and Geometrical only in sharing a name. How many propositions, and by what method they are converted; what the force of negation is; what substantive words are; what the circumstances, and to what they correspond in a certain proportion; what is indefinite in them; how many modes of syllogisms; what and how many figures; what is hypothetical, what is syncategorematic or simple, and how one is distinguished from the other; whether all can also be proved by reduction, as they call it, to impossibility; how and in how many ways these are mixed; how they are concluded and resolved; what the composition of fallacies is; what a sophistical syllogism is, and by what method it is both fallacious and plausible; what kind consists of a single assumption; how a dialectical syllogism, taken in its proper sense, concludes those things which seem and have the appearance of truth, and what the reduction of these is; what necessity demonstration has to capture truth from inferior premises; what are the problems, axioms, and things similar to axioms among these; what receives matter, mixtures, and combinations; what are the first principles of Physics that cannot be demonstrated; what rest is; in how many ways "same" and "different" are said; where; in relation to something; how; when; whether the progression of principles is continuous or does not end in a continuum; what is the mover; what is organic force; what is generative force; what is the antecedent, what is that which has been produced, and by what medium; toward what does something tend -- spontaneously or by violence? What contains the qualities, from what kind of privation are these said to exist, and whether absolutely nothing comes from nothing; what things and how have their origin and essence from contraries; and how again they are destroyed and likewise perish by contraries.

[17] in such great learning, most humble, Having investigated these and other things of this kind with a keen mind and the greatest vigilance, as far as was permitted, and having tasted with the tips of his lips the usefulness of these things, he cultivated a most praiseworthy silence and exhibited that modesty of the senses -- that is, humility -- which carries one up to heaven. For the perfect knowledge of a man is this: that with a grateful sense he ascribe perfect knowledge to God and know that he has by no means comprehended things as they are according to their essence. Thus, having attained the knowledge of the disciplines by the force of his nature, the inclination of his mind, and the aid of divine grace, he strove no less to advance toward true virtues. For he did not think that his proven labor in those disciplines would be an obstacle to his virtue; rather, using the appropriate path and sequence, he extended himself with great progress toward both, having attained the highest perfection in each.

[18] Joining chastity, which is contrary to nature, to abstinence and parsimony of food, from the knowledge of disciplines he is spurred to virtue: chaste and sober, he crushed the swelling of unbridled lusts pressing upon the navel of the belly. Maintaining a mind calmed from all anger by his innate gentleness, he showed himself gentle and sweet to all, having banished the appearance of an angry countenance. For his fury was not like the likeness of a serpent; it was directed entirely against the dragon alone, who alone has been the author of our ruin. mild and sweet, The contempt of money, by which men are prepared for the resources of the spiritual life, he did not hide in a barrel like that Cynic Philosopher, a contemner of money, but by constant distribution to the poor he showed with a broader spirit that he despised money and declined the path by which it is acquired. For having opportunely attained that summit of virtue, generous to the poor: so that he did nothing for the sake of display, and strong in that respect with an undisturbed conscience, he not only directed his right hand to the works of almsgiving averse to vainglory: but also confidently entrusted knowledge of it to his left -- since he had advanced to such a point that no movement of this insatiable malady tickled his mind.

[19] Wherefore, in accordance with the insistent command of the Emperors, the divine grace willed that he should act as curator of the great hospital in the Royal City, curator of a hospital: in order that by this office and function it might prepare him for that to which, to say it in a word, by a special dispensation, it was going to entrust the governance of the Catholic Church. But these things, and about these things, let other writers tell, who out of love and desire, like bees from the most blooming garden, may gather his excellences and, by the power of their discourse, store up their quality for the delights of the honeycomb -- that is, of divine emulation. For I think the supply of those things which pertain to this will never fail, since they are more numerous and

great, and of such a kind that one does not allow one to be preferred to another, since all have reached the highest degree. But we, taking care that prolixity may not become tedious to the listener, let us proceed, with God being propitious and favorable, to what follows.

CHAPTER III

The election and ordination of St. Nicephorus as Patriarch of Constantinople.

[20] Recently indeed Tarasius, that Morning Star of the Church that knows no setting, After the death of the Patriarch St. Tarasius, who, governing the vessel of the faith most admirably, had made it superior to the raging storm of heresy and had most happily brought it into port, laden with the cargo of right belief, migrating from this mortal state to a better lot, had been gathered to the Fathers as a Father, a Patriarch

to the Patriarchs, because he had entered the Patriarchal See and rank for the sake of defending the truth; a Saint among Saints, because he had accomplished holily what is holy as long as life remained; a most perfect man, a true Pastor among true Pastors, because imitating the Prince of Pastors, Christ, and calling and knowing his sheep by name, and driving away wolves with the staff of his sermons, he guided them to the fold of right confession and faith. This, then, was that heavenly man, who on earth, as far as was permitted, had led a life equal to that of the Angels, who, when he had placed the reins of the Priesthood and his soul together into the hands of God, a worthy successor sought by his prayers asked God, I believe, with a pure supplication, that a worthy Pontiff might be created and that an illustrious herald of the Church joined to Christ might shine forth. For since by many labors and sweat he had rooted out the thorns and thistles of heresies that had grown in her, and had removed scandals from the midst, with the Spirit as his guide, and renewing the field of faith with the plow of reason, had sown in good and fertile soil -- not along the path or upon rock or among thorns, but in such soil as Scripture calls fruitful of a hundredfold crop -- the divinely transmitted symbols of the Lord's dispensation: therefore even after death, having already departed this life, he desired and endeavored to see a man who would foster his cultivation. God gives St. Nicephorus: Nor was he frustrated in his wish; for God, who is always found by those who seek and opens the door to those who knock, and always fulfills true prayers with His divine finger and spirit, pointed out Nicephorus, worthy of the sacred anointing, to him who at that time governed the scepters of the Roman Empire and bore the same name as himself.

[21] With a diligence inferior to none, the Emperor diligently worked to place over the widowed Church such a bridegroom as would be capable of holding fast the faithful word in teaching, by the sagacious care of the Emperor Nicephorus, and of following in the footsteps of the one who had recently fulfilled the office of Pastor most wisely. Wherefore he also referred the matter to all the Priests and monks, and those he knew to be the leading and most outstanding among the Senators: so that to the most just election by the many, which the assent of the divine Spirit would ratify, he too might add his own suffrage. But they (for being men, they could not entirely guard against doing something to curry favor), dissipating the dissension that had arisen, dissolving their mutual concord by dissension, each designated and drew to himself a different person -- not the one whom the foreknowledge of the divine will had designated, but the one whom each person's own preference shaped and persuaded should be preferred. But to the Emperor, the keen judgment of mind which he possessed suggested Nicephorus as the leader of the flock; and he compelled all to turn their eyes to him, and presenting his virtue, recalling the man's excellent gifts: namely, his very great power of eloquence both sacred and secular, his modesty and gentleness of character, and the integrity of his conscience toward all, most remote from any offense. Finally, as if with a cloud, enclosing the ears of all with those continual utterances of the royal mouth, he is acclaimed Patriarch by all: compelling no one, he drove all, as if into a net, into one opinion; for thenceforth Nicephorus is acclaimed Patriarch by the lips and mouth of all.

[22] he is brought from the monastery: Therefore the Emperor sends messengers to announce and command that, setting aside all hesitation and without delay, he should present himself to the Imperial City. And he, who held praiseworthy obedience more valuable than blameworthy disobedience, although reluctant, immediately followed the men who guided his journey. When the Emperor accomplished what he had been striving for and beheld face to face the one for whom he longed, he spoke to him, as they say, in these words: The Emperor's oration To me indeed, O man most acceptable to God, if it were permissible to hold God's commandments in small regard and, neglecting their practice, to administer public affairs, there was at hand a certain seductive and broad way by which I might appoint over the Imperial City anyone I met, commendable not by any prior merit to become a Pontiff, but only by his willingness. But since, instructed by the divine teachings of Scripture, I know what manner of man the future Priest ought to be, and especially he whose office it is to promote others to such a rank -- namely, one sublime in virtue and blameless in lips, who guards knowledge and, bearing the refined law in his mouth, is heard as an Angel of the Almighty Lord -- I fear that, despising that sacred admonition, I may bring upon myself the penalties of negligence and the curses directed against my own head. Now therefore, since God entrusts to you the citadel of the Priesthood and the reins of this heavenly stadium, do not, I beg, reject the vocation; he is encouraged to accept the Patriarchate: but entering upon the divine contest, look rather to what concerns the common salvation. For we know that you, following your and our common teacher Paul, have not fought against the air by beating it, nor have you run your course in such a way as not to lay hold; but rather you have arrived at the perfection of those whose proven virtue, by prior mortification of the body, has shone forth above gold. 1 Cor. 9:23 Do not pray to God solely for your own salvation; nor emulate, which is your concern, the shortcut of the monastic life, but strive that all may attain salvation. Consider the most beautiful bride, the Church, whose obedient ear may the pearl of right and most pure decrees adorn; whose head may the crown of graces, shining wonderfully with the eloquence of the Fathers as if with most precious hairs, nobly encircle; whose breast may the definition and rule of the seven divine Councils, like a golden necklace mystically hanging from the neck, magnificently adorn -- which Church, finally, surrounded by all glory from within, may shine, adorned with the varied garment of sacred and venerable images, by evangelical reason. We must take care lest some adulterer in his morals betroth her to himself, who, sowing the tares of heretical offspring in her, may adulterate the beauty of her true children; and, feigning sound faith with the gentle fleece of a sheep, may hide within his soul the wolf of unbelief and distrust, and drive the flock into rough mountains and places which the Lord does not visit. Since, therefore, you have Christ, the Lamb of God, our true God, as the helper of your pastoral skill, and His Cross as your staff with which to support the flock so that it may walk on the right path of faith, do not reject the vocation, nor, by spurning our suppliant prayer, presume to provoke God's wrath against you.

[23] He, wounded in spirit by the Emperor's admonitions and arguments, as if by javelins coming from the heart, he himself proposes the heavy burden of the Patriarchate, said: But to me, Emperor, he seems worthy to be placed over the rational flock who has no connection with earthly things and in whose soul a fixed love of attaining the heavenly realms is settled, with no carnal affection holding him back; who has been found by no means liable to those dire threats pronounced by the prophetic mouth against Pastors; who, after the example of Christ, the Prince and sole Pontiff of Pastors, is prepared to lay down his life for the flock; who does not enter the fold of the Church to slaughter and destroy through furtive doctrines by some way other than through the door; who looks to this one thing: to give life and keep the flock safe and make the sheep fruitful in the folds of faith; who divides himself to match every disposition and character of his subjects in step, appearance, and zeal, and becomes various and unlike himself in his pastoral solicitude for the care of individuals; whose foot finds its better use in correcting and kindly supporting those who fall, but employs it more rarely for wounding, though innocently, for the preservation of the soul; who, finally, lies open to no wounds of distrust and contrary passions. Jer. 23:1; John 10:11 Since, therefore, I am untrained and unequipped for this warfare, and he declines: I do not wish to throw myself against invisible battle-lines arrayed against me, which provoke constant fighting and are implacable. For since I am flesh, I am not fit to wield spiritual arms against those whose assault and attack no one, however cautiously he guards on every side, can sufficiently know.

[24] Then in turn the Emperor: No reason or pretext for contradiction remains for you as the Emperor urges, to refuse the sacred yoke of Christ; for He Himself, as I was just saying, who is the Word, will come as an aid in the pastoral office and will give courage, making what hitherto seemed difficult entirely smooth and easy. Therefore Nicephorus, who had always yielded to all divine counsels, he acquiesces: he puts on the monastic habit, obeyed the Emperor who persuaded him with such weighty arguments, and asked him that he might be permitted to exchange his lay garb for the angelic institution and discipline of the monastic habit -- intending, that is, to add to his hitherto careful life a more careful life, and to his labors, in which he had already nobly served, a greater completion of labors. The Emperor assented, and wished the shorn hair of the sacred head to be received the hair shorn by the Emperor's son: by the ruling hand of his son, as a notable ornament of the purple in which he shone, in ambitious service; for it was fitting that the hair grown from the summit of divine virtues should be attended upon by the highest peaks of supreme dignities, and that the glory of the one who was about to ascend to the apex of the supreme Priesthood should be made illustrious by the homage of eminent glory. With the divine initiation of monasticism preceding (as that sacred Bishop and wise Dionysius teaches), and with the Sacerdotal consummation applied according to the prescription of the sacred Canons, he receives Holy Orders: through a series of certain degrees, the adornment of Pontifical consecration finally followed. But when and how, I approach to tell.

[25] Meanwhile the Emperor and the Senate that attended him in his majesty, gathered in the greatest church for the celebration of the solemn rites of the awesome Resurrection, while lights sparkling with golden splendor abundantly bathed that sacred choir, on Easter Sunday he is ordained Patriarch, and with snowy light proclaimed the splendors of that immortal glory, and when the whole throng of the Church, gleaming in white garments, had assembled, Nicephorus, holding in his hands that divine tome of the faith which he himself had formerly written and proven by the confession of heart and mouth, and offered to his Clergy with solemn acclamation, approached the divine imposition of hands; holding in his hand the book on the faith written by himself, calling upon it as an incorruptible witness and declaring that he wished, if he had ever violated any of the things written in it, to stand with this true and sincere profession and worship at the coming of the great God and our Savior. And after the divine mysteries had been celebrated over it, he placed it and depositing it on the altar: behind the sacred table, as something to be consecrated and destined to receive strength and authority from God by the very sanctity of the place. He is thrice acclaimed "Worthy" by the people: When the celebration of the Sacraments had been completed by divine inspiration and direction, the people, crying out, answered "Worthy upon worthy" with a triple acclamation. Thence ascending to the apex of the sacred See, as to a lofty watchtower, which the wondrous

Habakkuk spiritually designated, and proclaiming the good of peace to all the people, he wishes them peace, and in turn receiving the prayers for peace, he himself, officiating for them, continued what remained of the divine service to be performed. Hab. 2:11

CHAPTER IV

Heresies opposed by St. Nicephorus: monastic discipline reformed: the Synodical letter to Pope Leo III.

[26] Thus God, who measures out grace to the humble, decreed that he too, when he was held by the love of spiritual ascent, should assume the supreme dignity of the Church.

Having attained this dignity and beginning to build worthily according to the Gospel, he secured the safe foundation of the faith. For he found the Church in a tranquil state, because already before, with the heresy of the iconoclasts subdued, as has been said, the scandals of heresy had been deleted and purged by the Synodal diligence of the Fathers, and he himself thereafter tolerated the sea of the Church in quiet serenity, fearing no adverse blast of heresy against her. Wherefore, impelled by zeal, he entered upon another path against the discordant heresies of the unbelievers, whose recently revived madness presumptuously dared to celebrate mysteries worthy of every execration; he agitates against Jews and ancient heretics, namely against the Jews and Phrygians, and against those who, following the delusions of Mani, offered the muddy cup of unbelief to the foolish. Writing, therefore, in a fuller style, he composed a book declaring their discordant religion and superstition to the Emperor, showing that it could injure and infect the entire body of the commonwealth like gangrene, once the license to do as they pleased had been seized. And by this petition humbly offered, he so struck down the God-killing Jews, the monstrous trifles of the Phrygians, and the dreams of the Manichaeans, that they did not dare to utter unspeakable things even with their lips, but muttered the delusions of their error in hiding and in corners. For by the Royal edict and censure, the confidence to speak and act openly was taken away, and the impious were brought to such a point that they did not dare to do anything even in secret.

[27] Thus, with the storm of the wicked heretics gradually subsiding, he reforms monastic discipline: the right faith of our true confession, shining clearly, afforded the Church of God its sabbath rest. Since the things outside were rightly arranged for him, he conveniently turned his attention to those within -- namely, to the careful discipline of the monastic institution. Certain men who had embraced or were about to embrace that heavenly kind of life had thought to build monasteries neighboring the dwellings of sacred Virgins, moved either by the consideration of kinship or by some other sort of connection. And these men could indeed easily avoid manifest cohabitation with them; yet they could not entirely escape the suspicion of hidden thoughts. For all things were common to them -- both estates and resources -- quite contrary to what had once been practiced among the faithful. For those early believers, by their noble renunciation of things, preferred what was common; but here, by the evil community of all things, it was brought about that these things were not properly renounced. And there was a certain confusion of the exalted institution, to such a degree that any woman who had professed virginity was held suspect of defilement by all. That most pure mind, therefore, considering these things within itself, without any delay provided that no evil and dangerous chance should occur, and that nothing should degenerate into shameful

in which are parts of the honored wood placed in the figure of the Cross; then a white tunic and a seamless chestnut-colored cloak, a stole and semichenium variegated with gold, which, ingeniously wrapped in a linen cloth, he had ordered to be sealed with a lead seal. Encolpion. By encolpion Baronius understands the pectoral cross accustomed to be hung at the breast; and for semichenium he notes in the margin that the Greek reads encheirion, which could signify a hand-cloth, a mappa, or, as it is called in sacred usage, a maniple.

CHAPTER V

The Empire of Leo the Armenian. The persecution begun against the veneration of images and St. Nicephorus.

[30] The Adversary, considering these things -- he who always envies the good, Leo the Armenian stirred up by the devil, who brings crashing waves upon those who stand firm, who measures out implacable hatred against calm and firm peace, who perversely sews the rotten rags of heresies onto the tunic of faith which admits no tear -- did not suffer he overturns the entire state of Empire and Church: the state of the Church and Empire to be seen governed any longer in tranquil order. But devising tumults equal to his audacity, he stirred up an implacable war against both -- not sharp weapons and swords

forging, as is the practice of those who exhaust bodies in war; but sharpening on the whetstone of his wickedness tongues taught to meditate malice, he arrayed his battle-line for the peril of souls and brought forward a proud Emperor who had recently seized the tyranny, named Leo -- Leo, I say, a man such that, displaying a manifold chameleon of various impiety, as if the very acclamation by which he was hailed as Emperor had taken away all sound sense from him, he immediately endeavored to draw into communion with his impiety as many as were of sounder mind. As regards his race and lineage, he was of the stock of those who afflicted ancient Israel under Moses' leadership, and he now showed the new Israel things more dire than the Amalekites -- more cruel than Sennacherib, more detestable than Rabshakeh, more shameful than the belly-slave Nabuzardan.

[31] This man was driven headlong into the pit of tyranny against the Emperor who had most excellently deserved of him (for he had been honored by him and appointed leader of the first cohort and standard-bearer of the Orders or Themes, as they call them), counting as nothing both the honor received and him who had conferred it. For in an expedition undertaken against the Huns who were infesting Thrace and bringing great devastation to its cities, Leo, being the first cause of the defeat in it, promoted to honors by the Emperor Michael: gave cause for the entire army to take flight. The Emperor then held the City, frustrated in the victory and advantages he had hoped for from the campaign; but Leo, the cause of the defeat inflicted on his army: suborning the people with words tending toward sedition and soothing and deceiving them with empty hope, seized supreme power by tyrannical force. Having gained it, he flew with remarkable speed to the Imperial City; and received within the walls (which would that it had never happened!), the wretch was led in the customary pomp of his retinue into the palace, about to depose from his dignity his predecessor, a man more illustrious for his innocent simplicity than for the purple. That predecessor, when he perceived Leo roaring and raging with bestial ferocity against the principate, tore the garment in which he shone as Emperor, and having his hair shorn, and having removed him from the Empire, he exchanged his golden habit for a dark one and enclosed himself with his wife and children within the sacred precincts. This scarcely at last bent Leo's mind he banishes him into exile: from taking more cruel measures against him; and exiling him more quickly than one can say, he was intent on this one thing: to place the royal diadem upon his own head.

[32] The divine Nicephorus, therefore, perceiving this calamity and understanding the man's changeable and fickle mind, conceived the thought of drawing him in, so that according to custom he might profess the faith in writing. Therefore, producing a codex containing the written symbol of our blameless faith, [he refuses to subscribe to the creed of faith composed by St. Nicephorus unless crowned,] he offered it to the Emperor through certain Bishops, urging that he should subscribe with his own hand. The Emperor pretended to agree with all the things that

against pious Christians, he is proclaimed Emperor; and the royal palace, openly professing himself an iconoclast, he enters. In the Appendix to Theophanes: Meanwhile the legion of the Orientals (who were the first to flee from the battle), Leo the Armenian, Emperor, over which the son of Bardas the Armenian presided, was in tumult and hailed Leo himself as Emperor with favorable acclamations. Then, with no one opposing, they led him into the City with a dense multitude. When the Emperor Michael heard this, he fled as a fugitive to the church and, having received assurance and become a monk, put off his hair.

CHAPTER VI

Prayers ordered by St. Nicephorus; his subjects encouraged. His approach to the Emperor.

[37] When the Servant of God Nicephorus perceived these things, he employed every kind of supplication to beseech God; St. Nicephorus, having poured forth prayers, beseeching and invoking the Helper to keep the Church pure from defilement, and not to allow the innocent flock to be polluted by the wicked custom and fellowship of the heretics. Wherefore he drew all men to himself, admonished, besought, and exhorted them not to be mixed with the leaven of the heretics; he warned them to flee the abortive offspring of alien doctrine as the poisonous broods of vipers; he admonishes the good, for the wound inflicted by them was not a bodily one which could yield to the remedies of physicians, but the danger was of such a kind that, pervading the recesses and depths of the soul, it rejected the poultice applied only to the surface. Therefore one must not yield to the pressure of the times nor to the violence of power; for although heresy might draw and lead away both the Emperor and the dense crowd of the erring as his companion, yet their power would come to nothing against the Church of God,

you have determined to stir up the doctrine of names. For Rome, the primeval See of the Apostles, did not conspire with you that the venerable Image of Christ should be abolished; rather, she honors it eagerly together with us and delights in such veneration. The authority of the Patriarchal Sees and Councils is undermined: Alexandria, the venerable Sanctuary of Mark the Evangelist, never dared, together with you, to forbid the reverence of the material image of the Mother of God, the Bearer of God; she is the companion of our pious work and agrees with us. Antioch, itself also the most celebrated See of Peter, Prince of the Apostles, did not permit you to treat the images of the Saints with insult; but together with us she guards the ancient, holy, and approved veneration of them. Jerusalem, the illustrious dwelling of the Brother of God, did not give its assent that the traditions of the Fathers should be destroyed. What Priest of the Roman dominion

freely and without violence or fear agreed with your opinion? Which of the Catholic Councils, in which the true symbol of faith was explained by the divine Spirit, sanctioned the same things as you? Deprived of the support of these, no one would have presumed to define the dogmas of the Church and to constrain them. But, O Emperor, do not extend your hand to a heresy that lies on the ground; and do not inspire a voice against the Church on behalf of one that has been condemned to a fitting silence. Let it depart far away with its inventors; let it go to the bad; let it betake itself to Cynosarges; but let the magnificence of the Church, always greater than any comparison, remain. No part of the universal Church, as has just now been intimated in words to Your Royal Majesty, has endeavored to exclude her from the sacred images; none has ever stirred up tumults against her legitimate constitution and the beauty of the ecclesiastical order; for everywhere, steadfast in peace and constancy, she is known to prevail against storms and waves and the very gates of hell. Do not, therefore, send forth doctrines tending toward novelties and tumults against our ancient tradition; for those who, from a zeal for flattery, have learned to speak not the things of the Lord, have come forth as abortive offspring from the womb of murderers. But if some breath of heretical persuasion has overturned your right sobriety (for it is not hidden that even before the

remains fixed upon the good, and keeps undisturbed and pure what it accomplishes. But whoever hears these things in another way, and, straying to the nature of God which is superior to every figure and understanding because of the weakness of his mind, falls away from the understanding of God, and wanders unsteadily through the field of oblivion, so that, plunged as it were in mud around bodies and the earth, he cannot raise himself to the true knowledge of the divinity.

[44] But what if I should show that even the holy men themselves who lived according to the institutions of Moses did not observe that law, and did not abstain from those images of things that are in heaven, on earth, and in the sea -- if indeed the word is to be taken according to the indefinite sense in which you yourself understand it, and the meaning of the law? The Emperor: How, and by what reasoning? Images innocently used in the Old Law: The Patriarch: Does it escape you, O Emperor,

how Solomon, building the temple, fabricated a brazen sea within the precincts of the temple, in which the Priests might wash their hands defiled with the blood of victims? On what base, then, did he suspend so great a work? Was it not on twelve oxen cast in bronze, and placed beneath, upon which he spread out the sea? By what reasoning, then, does he observe the law, making the likeness of an ox in the things he consecrated? By these, I think, he indicated the choir of Apostles equal in number, who, as wise masters skilled in the work of oxen for sowing the word, lift up this world -- that is, the sea -- by the cultivation of piety, and raising it on high, the oxen of the brazen sea cleanse the Priests' hands polluted with the blood of victims and wipe them clean with the most limpid waters of doctrine, so that, led away from those things, they may offer the unbloody sacrifice of the Lord. And what about the lions on Solomon's throne: when he constructed various and far more precious seats -- did he not place in them the figures of lions, so that he fixed some above, where the bend of the arms was, and arranged others below in proper order along the steps? Moreover, the material of the lions was ivory.

[45] But why should I discuss these matters about others, when it is possible to show that the Lawgiver himself, in your sense, did not at all follow his own laws? For do you not know that the propitiatory was fabricated of pure gold, and that he placed it upon the ark, which was also made of gold? Heb. 9:4 But

they are to be condemned; but consideration and examination must be used. The Emperor: By what reasoning do Christians make such images and representations? In what manner do they paint them? The Patriarch: Do you ask, Emperor, He vindicates the Christian religion of images from the error of the Gentiles: whether they bestow upon those whom they delineate and paint with colors that secret essence which surpasses all force of speech and reason? The Emperor: Certainly not. The Patriarch: Do they not consider them to be mortal men? The Emperor: Indeed they do. The Patriarch: What crime is it, then, if, knowing them to be men, we represent them as men with brush and colors? But the singular and distinguished name of God, which it is impossible properly to apply to created things, leaving it in the essence of all things that is supreme (which alone is fitting for Him alone), we do not paint that essence with any figures or outlines (for how

for how can we paint what we have never known with our eyes?), but we use the images and representations of Martyrs and other men illustrious for their holiness -- not so as to consider them gods (for far be it from us to be so debased in our minds and senses), but as the most approved servants of God; and he defends the veneration of saints, both to render them the return of their fortitude, and so that what we ourselves, being subject to sins, are unable to obtain from the supreme King, we may obtain through the interceding suffrage of those who, as the King's attendants and ministers standing near him, plead on our behalf.

[50] from the analogy of the Emperor, who is the image and representation of God, Indeed, if you please, let the argument be weighed with examples drawn from human custom and usage. Do you not yourself confess and admit that God, who created this universe of things, and who, being good and devoted to the tranquility of those navigating the sea of this life, lest they, tossed like a ship deprived of ballast by various factions, be overwhelmed by the waves of the world, has placed upon the earth an Emperor or King as His own image and a likeness expressed in living colors? The Emperor: Indeed so. The Patriarch: He, moreover, who is by no means God, yet in some way represents and imitates God, as far as is granted to a man; and the same, although defined to a certain place and simply a human being, and of his Prefects and Magistrates, nevertheless through other Prefects and Magistrates instituted by him, so fills

have thought the same, and that we do not now run alone into the arena of discourse, but that a numerous and distinguished company of Bishops and monks stands firmly with us on the path of right confession; he offers other Fathers as witnesses of the same faith: behold, they stand at the doors of the court. If you will permit them to enter, you will understand from their own mouths as well that they differ in nothing from our way of thinking.

[55] He assented, therefore, that they should enter, and at the same time he ordered the crowd of Nobles and Princes, who, introduced among the drawn swords of the armed men, with the swords they wore drawn, each according to his rank, to be present -- thinking, the wretch, that he would overthrow the undaunted company by military force. The sacred assembly of the Church, therefore, entered the palaces supported by golden ceilings, exulting with such eagerness as no one could sufficiently express in words; and when the liberty of speaking was offered, as if by divine

prodding, he quickly took the place where the Tyrant had sat down; and in order to hear the Prince of Pastors answering more clearly, as it were, and to strike the tyrant with a syllogism like a boy of immature age, having also taken to himself strength for speaking, they are encouraged by the liberty and constancy of St. Nicephorus: they cast off from themselves all fear and cowardice.

[56] To whom, with a fierce look -- for he was a man of leonine fury -- he said: It is not hidden from you or from any others, as you see, that we have been established by God to fill the role of arbiter and mediator in this most celebrated and rational flock; and we are indeed striving with all our zeal and eager spirits that every offense arising in it may be removed. Since, therefore, there are still those who dispute about the truth of images and about their adoration, and produce many passages of Scripture opposing them, it is altogether necessary that these be resolved, so that what we are earnestly striving for (and we are striving, as you well know, ordered by the Emperor to discuss the veneration of images, that peace and concord of one mind may grow among all) may be completed with the desired outcome. For those, therefore, whose minds are struck by doubt, on account of which they adduce contrary propositions, it is necessary that you prove your conclusion and dissolve their objections. For we have also previously held a discourse about these things with the Prelate here present; and now, brought together in one place, it is necessary that the things which have been proposed should more quickly

CHAPTER X

The constancy of St. Nicephorus in captivity and illness: Letters written: the threats of the Conventicle rejected: anathema pronounced upon them and cast back upon him.

[59] When the most sacred Bishop saw that Leo, having abjured the true faith, St. Nicephorus writes to the Empress, was now of an obstinate mind toward God, he wrote to his wife, and admonishing her about the right religion and faith of Christians, he exhorted her to persuade the Emperor, her husband, to abstain from that most wicked aggression. To the Prefect of the Treasury, He also wrote to the then Prefect of the public treasury, whom the Emperor used familiarly on account of his gift of

and to yield on foot: he is not moved by the foolish promise of restoring his See: by what reasoning shall we drive off the charge of the accusations brought against us? What rank will be decreed for us, who by your judgment are defendants and liable? For who, who is of such power that within the narrow space of a single day he could raise one who has been deposed and is unable to stand even in the lowest rank, to the highest? Do you think us so ignorant and unskilled that we have not searched the divine laws? It is a sin to ascribe such a mark to those who shine with the insignia of the Priesthood. For impiety is always inclined to despise the laws, and is prepared for one single transgression, by which it may drag its followers into the snare and pit of hell. Depart from us, therefore, workers of iniquity; return to your own vomit; seek again the caves and lairs of your brigandage. For it will not be

who has not yet joined himself to him may obtain remission from evils and be delivered from dangers. She is the possession of Your right hand; do not, I beseech, let her become prey to those who seek to devour her. But us, who have cast ourselves into Your judgments, he humbly commits himself to divine providence lead and direct by hand wherever it shall seem good to Your governing providence. You see, Lord, how great a violence presses upon us; do not, I beseech, exclude us from the retribution that comes from it. Do not censure us as inexperienced and less than diligent Pastors; for You are the one and only one to whom it is granted to govern and feed wisely and with all praise of prudence. Let us not be condemned for sloth, as though, given over to it, we had betrayed the useful things of primitive doctrine; for as far as our ability permitted, with the work we could contribute, we have also preserved these things unharmed for You, the firstborn of all creation.

threats. But if these are turned into the assumptions of a new syllogism, they will no longer bring threats but snares, and the consequences of these. For injury precedes destruction; and when you have brought injury together with destruction, we also resolve, with God's help, to seek what remains.

[76] Thus these men, equipped with serpentine prudence, stood in the midst of the chorus of the foolish, pronouncing eloquently; but those, not unlike the council gathered against Stephen the Protomartyr by the malicious, they are trampled and led away, stopped their ears, and before they rushed upon the Saints, they ordered their necks to be trampled upon by the very dregs of the populace. When, therefore, these theatrical and fanatical men had played out this farce as on a stage, they ordered those prostrated on the ground to rise and to return by the way they had come, so that they seemed to be driven away like pigs, with blows struck upon their cheeks and their whole

spread through all, and engendering tumults and civil wars in all provinces and towns. From that time until now it has happened that the disease of civil arms prevailed everywhere.

[81] But not even so did the man's wickedness and malice, taking any rest, impose any truce upon itself; for his swelling and growing spirit, threatening an eruption of the evils it was bringing forth, drew the sword of conspiracy against himself, swelling with anger, not in the midst of battle, not fighting in foreign and barbarian dominions (for even that would have been some slight occasion of praise, for which we might congratulate the wretch as one who had risked himself for his country), but while sitting idle at home and, as he thought, taking the best care of his affairs. For the one who was the author of the entire plot and conspiracy he held in custody and chains, expecting to hold him until,

the love of the monastic life, by which Elijah and John are celebrated, the love of solitude of Elijah and John the Baptist, both before and after his sacred manifestation, he embraced; and having spent very little time in cities, he devoted the greater part of his time to monastic exercise. For he was not unaware that by that worship the soul is purified and freed from every earthly thought; whence he also obtained the free and ready power of censuring, so that he might speak in the sight of Kings, neither doing anything out of shame nor concealing anything for the sake of gaining favor.

[88] the fervor of faith of St. Peter, Who, magnificently enriched with the gifts of grace, shone forth, whose virtue he did not follow by imitation, whose footsteps he did not press? For he showed the greatness of soul and fervor of faith of Peter, the head of the Apostles in the Church; and also that solicitude of Paul for all, and the daily

accept my willing intention, who indeed, trusting in your teaching, have attempted things beyond my powers; and grant pardon to the rusticity of my speech and have compassion on me, understanding that just as one who has reached the mark has unexpected praise, so one who falls short of it may deserve pardon for his candor of soul.

ORATION

On the exile of St. Nicephorus and the translation of his Relics

By the Author Theophanes, Priest and Provost.

He who, a lover of poverty and a worshipper of this city, coming here, died as a pilgrim. And who shows the way to heaven and to salvation, may he grant us to enjoy the celestial realm.

[9] In which it was noted that "Datia" should have been written instead of "Latium" Present condition of the Body: by the one who, with eyewitness fidelity, accurately transmitted everything from Rome, and he attributes the error to the painter's inexperience. He judges, writing in the year 1639, that everything was painted and written about eighty years previously, and in this he is mistaken by at least a quarter of the time, as is clear from the year of Herculanus' ordination. He continues to narrate how he inspected the body, which had been partially consumed by those who, for the sake of religion, seemed to have taken away certain small pieces of flesh. The head, however, cut off from the rest of the corpse, was placed next to it, its much-consumed flesh covered with a veil, with an iron crown added, very ancient and greatly corroded and in poor condition. The Guardian, by whom the documents cited above were collected, adds that in the same chest, besides the sacred body, there is his rosary, two small shells indicative of a pilgrim, a staff, and a small vessel suitable for a traveler's drink -- all of which are preserved with veneration. And the staff, he says, equaling the measure of his body in length, is exactly seven palms long; the flesh of the body, like dried beef, separates into filaments if one tries to remove any. Finally, above the chest and at the foot of the aforesaid image there are many votive offerings, testimonies of graces obtained through his merits, and among these some of modern date.

[10] These are the things we were able to learn about the Blessed Eric from the original letters, and we preferred to set them forth simply in this way; authors concerning him. rather than to transcribe from Wadding's Annals, or their epitome, varied in some circumstances (as almost always happens), so that it might appear more evidently what, how, and when was written about this Blessed One. Besides the authors already cited, Maurus, Abbot of Monteoliveto, treats of him in his Prato Florido; Ferrarius in his Catalogue of the Saints of Italy; Arturus a Monasterio in the Franciscan Martyrology -- all of whom transcribed from the chronicle of Marcus of Lisbon what he has about the abandoned kingdom; sufficiently conformable, at any rate, to the reckoning of the times, since Olaf, born around the year 1340, in the year 1415, if he or his brother had lived, would certainly have been grey-haired and over seventy years old. But to admit that he lived and died as a pilgrim at Perugia, we require firmer arguments than mere congruence of time and a conjecture thought up so many years after his death.

March II: March 14.

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