Paphnutius

ON ST. PAPHNUTIUS, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR IN EGYPT,

About the middle of the IV century.

HISTORICAL-CRITICAL COMMENTARY.

Paphnutius, bishop and confessor, in Egypt (S.)

BY J. S.

§ I. The glorious confession of the faith of S. Paphnutius, his monastic life, his episcopate.

[ ] Since concerning S. Paphnutius there come to be disputed almost more things than to be narrated, I have determined first to gather his deeds, [The Saint's beginnings unknown: nor is it established whether in his youth he was a monk.] that from them the things which are afterward to be discussed may receive light. Saint Paphnutius was born in the III century, and is said to have been by origin an Egyptian, but his birthplace is not more nearly assigned. Of the Saint's deeds in boyhood or youth we have nothing certain, unless perhaps he was a young man when he began to suffer for the glorious confession of the faith. Baillet indeed at the XI of September makes our Paphnutius in his youth a monk under the discipline of S. Antony, then a bishop, and only then at last a confessor; but he is manifestly deceived, or certainly writes things contrary to the Life of S. Antony, which alone he praises. For Paphnutius was already a confessor when he was leading the monastic life with S. Antony, as we shall presently see from the Life of that Saint. And so the Saint was a confessor before his episcopate, and after his confession he was a monk. Nevertheless it can be doubted whether he was also a monk before his confession: for Socrates, bk. 1, chap. XI, writes that Paphnutius had no experience of marriage, inasmuch as he had been brought up from boyhood in a monastery, and was celebrated by all for his singular chastity, he says. But these words are in some measure suspect, both because Socrates brings them forward for his own purpose, as we shall see in §4, and because no one else makes mention of Paphnutius's upbringing in a monastery. Moreover Paphnutius could have been a stripling or a young man when he confessed the faith: and so not even from Socrates's words, if admitted, could it lawfully be inferred that he was a monk before his confession. Wherefore it cannot certainly be said what S. Paphnutius did before he suffered for Christ.

[2] The year in which S. Paphnutius first confessed Christ cannot certainly be assigned. [Many confessors in the year 308, an eye torn out and a leg crippled, sent to the mines,] Nevertheless I think that the torments which he suffered for Christ can probably be fixed about the year 308. For Eusebius, bk. 8, chap. 8, p. 330, has thus: When the storm of the persecution against us had raged continuously down to the sixth year, out of the confessors of the divine religion, of whom an innumerable multitude had long been living in the Thebaid, in the place which is called Porphyrites from the name of the marble which is quarried there, nearly a hundred men, three lacking, together with women and quite young children, were sent over to the governor of Palestine … All of whom, when they had confessed God the maker of all and Christ, Firmilianus the governor, who had succeeded Urbanus, ordered — as though by the emperor's command — to have the bends of the left foot together with the sinews themselves cut out with white-hot iron, and their right eyes first indeed to be pierced with points together with the membranes and pupils, then to be burned through with a cautery down to the very roots. After this he sends them to the mines of the province of Palestine, to be worn out with labors and hardships. Nor indeed did we see these alone endure punishments of this kind; but also, out of the Palestinians, those whom we reported a little before to have been condemned to the contests of boxing; because, namely, they endured neither to receive rations from the prince's treasury, nor to be exercised in daily preliminary bouts after the wonted manner of boxers. For which cause, being brought not only before the procurators but before Maximinus himself, when by their endurance of hunger and of scourges they had declared their unconquered constancy in the confession of Christ, they bore the same things as those of whom we have spoken; certain other confessors being joined to them in the city of Cæsarea itself. After these, then, certain others who had been seized at Gaza while they were assembling to hear the readings of holy Scripture; a part of them endured the same mutilations of eyes and feet as those above. Thus far Eusebius in Valois, in those things which are added as a supplement to the eighth book.

[3] But since S. Paphnutius suffered the same things which many here are read to have suffered together, [others not long after were subjected to the same penalties: S. Paphnutius was visited with the same penalty,] it becomes likely that he was of their number, and was condemned to labor in the mines of Palestine. Nevertheless he could also have been of the number of those of whom, at the end of the same chapter, Eusebius has thus: No long time after, again out of Egypt a hundred and thirty Athletes, noble in the confession of the Christian faith, having already before in Egypt endured the same mutilations of eyes and feet as those above, were by command of the emperor Maximinus condemned and led away, a part to the mines of the province of Palestine, a part to those of Cilicia. Now let us hear Rufinus, bk. 1, chap. 4, where he speaks thus of the Paphnutius who was at the council of Nicæa: There was besides in that council also Paphnutius, a man of God, a bishop from the parts of Egypt, a confessor from among those whom Maximinus, their right eyes having been dug out and the left ham cut, had condemned to the mines. With these others afterward to be praised agree. And so, since the sixth year of the persecution, in which he says that this began, coincides for the greater part with the year 308, and partly also with 309, I have warned that these things are most probably to be fixed about the year 308.

[4] But lest anyone stick fast because Eusebius speaks of mutilations of feet, while Rufinus speaks of the ham being cut, and think that different kinds of punishments are signified, I add another passage of Eusebius, bk. 8, chap. 12, of which the writers speak variously, where he observes that that kind of punishment was devised when the judges, despairing of being able to add anything to so many hardships (of the Christians), and now weary of slaughters, when satiety and loathing of blood had seized them, turned themselves to that specious — as indeed they thought — clemency and humanity. Then he explains the same punishment in these words: Thenceforth therefore it was ordered that our people's eyes should be torn out, and one of their legs crippled. For such was their humanity: this seemed to them the gentlest kind of punishment against us: so that on account of this mildness of impious men the number can now in no way be reckoned, both of those whose right eyes were first indeed dug out with iron,

and then were burned with a cautery; and then of those whose left hams were crippled with white-hot iron, and who afterward were condemned to the copper mines which were in the province, not so much for the sake of doing work as of vexation. This rendering of Valois is less genuine, because it as it were distinguishes between those whose one eye had been torn out and those whose one ham had been crippled, by saying Then of those, etc., and again, Then of those, as if some had been visited only with this punishment, others only with the other; whereas in the Greek text it is clear that both torments were inflicted on each man.

[5] and probably remained in the mines down to the year 311. But what is said rather obscurely of the crippling of the feet or legs, and is variously expressed, was a punishment of this kind. That the left foot — by which the leg and thigh together are to be understood — might be made useless, they burned the sinews with white-hot iron at the ham, which is called the upper bend of the foot. Hence among the Latins some said that the ham of these confessors was cut, others that it was excised, others that it was crippled, others explained the matter otherwise: but no mutilation of feet or of other members is designated, but only the burning of the ham, whose sinews were burned through, and so of necessity they became lame. Visited therefore with these penalties, S. Paphnutius was sent to the mines, that he might labor there. Further, he probably remained there down to the year 311, when Galerius Maximian, pressed by pains, promulgated an edict that the persecution should cease, as Eusebius has, bk. 8, chap. 17. And since Maximinus was unwilling openly to resist this edict, although he afterward renewed the persecution, he himself with a bare word commanded the rulers subject to his rule to restrain the persecution against our people, says Eusebius, bk. 9, chap. 1. After these things also those noble champions of the sacred religion, freed from the hardships of the mines, began each to return to his own country: and through the cities that lay on their way they went joyful and eager, filled with a certain incredible gladness and inexplicable confidence; on the same testimony in the same place.

[6] Dismissed from the mines, S. Paphnutius led a monastic life, After S. Paphnutius had been freed from the miseries of the mines, he practiced the monastic life under the discipline of S. Antony. We do not know, however, whether he betook himself thither at once: but we find in the Life of S. Antony, written by S. Athanasius, that Paphnutius was a monk before he was a bishop. For in the most recent edition of the Works of S. Athanasius, vol. 1, p. 840, it is reported that parents set out with their sick daughter to S. Antony, but remained outside the mountain with Paphnutius, confessor and monk, until other monks should approach Antony and inform him of the coming of the sick girl and her parents. That this may be better understood, I observe that the disciples of S. Antony had a monastery on a mountain near the Nile, which is everywhere called by S. Athanasius the outer mountain, and elsewhere also Pisper or Pisperi. But Antony himself with some others usually lived on another mountain, thirty miles distant thence toward the Red Sea, which is called the inner Mountain in Athanasius. And so Paphnutius dwelt with most of Antony's disciples at Pisperi, or the outer mountain, and there that sick daughter was healed, Antony not even then coming to the outer mountain or to her.

[7] Evagrius the presbyter, who made the Life of S. Antony Latin from the Greek in such a way that he now and then explained some things more at large, speaking of S. Paphnutius indicates more clearly that he is the same as ours. dwelling on the outer mountain under the discipline of S. Antony. For among us at the XVII of January in the Life of Antony, chap. 14, he has thus: Her (the daughter's) parents remained outside with their crippled daughter, with the blessed confessor and monk Paphnutius, who, his eye having been dug out for Christ under the persecutor Maximian, gloried greatly in such a disfigurement of his body. The same Evagrius, who wrote after the death of S. Paphnutius and was nearly his contemporary, presently calls him S. Paphnutius, and then again Blessed Paphnutius. Which observation will not be useless below. Further, that the Paphnutius of whom we treat is designated by the words of Evagrius, is evident from the eye dug out, although Evagrius is silent about the crippled ham, as certain others did whom we shall praise below. Nor does it matter at all that Evagrius places his confession under Maximian: for although Paphnutius seems to have suffered these things by order of Maximinus, and therefore some name Maximinus, Galerius Maximian was alive at that time, and then held the first place among the emperors, and was the chief author of the persecution. For this cause the confession of Paphnutius could equally be placed under Maximian or under Maximinus.

[8] Tillemont, vol. 10, in the SS. Paphnutii, pp. 43 and 44, doubts [This Paphnutius is other than the Paphnutius the anchorite, whom Palladius mentions,] whether Paphnutius the confessor, of whom we read in the Life of S. Antony, is the same as Paphnutius the bishop. But I answer that no other Paphnutius has become known to us whose eye was dug out for the confession of Christ, besides ours. And since our Bishop was known to S. Athanasius, he seems to have called Paphnutius the disciple of Antony Confessor for no other cause than that he might distinguish him from disciples of Antony of the same name, and show him to be the same as our holy Bishop. This, however, Evagrius did more clearly, when he said the eye was dug out, and when he called him Blessed and Saint, showing by those titles that Paphnutius had died, and that with a reputation of sanctity, when he was writing. Hence improbable is the opinion of Tillemont, put forward hesitantly, by which he would make Paphnutius the confessor the same as him of whom, in Margarin de la Bigne, in the Bibliotheca Patrum, vol. 7, col. [ ], Palladius speaks in §57: And we saw also the place of Paphnutius the anchorite, a great man and endowed with virtue, who not so very long ago was consummated in the region which is about the Heracleots of the Thebaid, of whom many have narrated many things. Tillemont believes that this man died about the year 380; and that rightly enough. But Evagrius made the Life of S. Athanasius Latin before the year 370, as is proved in the prefatory Notice to that Life in the last edition of the Works of S. Athanasius. And so, since Paphnutius the confessor had died before Evagrius was writing, this reason alone shows him to be different.

[9] [and from others of the same name: of these two especially famous are to be distinguished.] The same reason shows that S. Paphnutius, confessor and afterward bishop, cannot be confounded with certain other monks or anchorites, although these too lived in the time of S. Antony. Such is Paphnutius, surnamed Cephalas, whom S. Antony praises among us in vol. 2 of January, p. 145: for he at least lived down to nearly the end of the IV century, as can be gathered from Palladius, praised there in the Annotations, who dealt with him. Most celebrated in Cassian, Conference 3 and Conference 18, chap. 13, is Paphnutius, surnamed Bubalus; but he too is most clearly distinguished from our Confessor, because he was still living in the time of Cassian, that is, about the end of the IV century. Tillemont in the Paphnutii doubts whether Paphnutius Cephalas is not the same as Paphnutius Bubalus. But I cannot doubt that the two are different. For, to omit other reasons for brevity's sake, the difference of surname distinguishes them, and Paphnutius Cephalas was with S. Antony, so that he seems to have led his life in the monastery of Pisperi or on S. Antony's own mountain. But Paphnutius Bubalus lived in the Scetic solitude with S. Isidore the abbot and others, as Tillemont himself reports. Wherefore that Paphnutius probably never saw S. Antony, since the Scetic solitude was far distant from Antony's monastery. Finally there are not a few other anchorites of the same name, but our S. Paphnutius is distinguished from all even by the sole title of confessor: for I do not find that title attributed by the ancients to any other Paphnutius.

§ II. The Saint's episcopate, and his deeds in it, especially in the council of Nicæa and the conventicle of Tyre.

[ ] Made bishop, he attends the council of Nicæa, famed for miracles, That S. Paphnutius was made bishop before the council of Nicæa, held in the year 325, at which the Bishop was present, I hold for certain, although someone has contradicted it. But it is uncertain how long before the said council he was a bishop, and of what city in Egypt or the Thebaid he administered the chair. But that Paphnutius the bishop was present at the council of Nicæa Rufinus testifies, in his continuation of Eusebius's Ecclesiastical History, bk. 1, chap. 4, writing thus: There was besides in that council (he treats of the Nicene) also Paphnutius, a man of God, a bishop from the parts of Egypt, a confessor from among those whom Maximinus, their right eyes having been dug out and the left ham cut, had condemned to the mines. But in him there was so great a grace of virtues, that signs were done by him no less than of old by the Apostles. For he both put demons to flight by a word only, and healed the sick by prayer alone. But he is also said to have restored sight to the blind, and to have recalled paralytics to steadiness of body. Whom Constantine held in such veneration and affection that he often embraced him when called within the palace, and caressed with eager kisses that eye which had been torn out in the confession of the faith.

[11] where he is treated with wonderful honor Socrates, bk. 1, chap. 8, treating of the bishops of the council of Nicæa, thus proclaims two of them: There were among the bishops two of most celebrated name, Paphnutius from the upper Thebaid, and Spyridion the Cyprian. Then he treats of them separately, and of Paphnutius indeed he writes this in chap. XI: Paphnutius, then, was bishop of a certain city in the upper Thebaid, a man so pious and dear to God that admirable signs were wrought by him. His eye had been dug out in the time of the persecution. And the emperor greatly regarded the Man, and frequently summoned him to the palace, and kissed his eye that had been dug out. So great was the piety and reverence in the prince Constantine. And let this be said by us of Paphnutius in the first place. What he subjoins, since it gives room for no small controversy and is much suspect of falsity, I shall for the present let pass here, and shall give and examine in §4. Sozomen, bk. 1, chap. 10, reckons Paphnutius among the confessors in these words: Paphnutius, finally, an Egyptian, through whom God is said to have wrought many miracles, granting him to drive out demons and to heal various diseases. Further, both that Paphnutius and the Maximus (of Jerusalem) mentioned above were of the number of those confessors whom Maximinus had condemned to do work in the mines, when he had first dug out their right eyes and cut their left hams. And in chap. 23 he hints that he was at the council.

[12] Theodoret, bk. 1, chap. 7, treats of the chief bishops of the council of Nicæa, by the emperor Constantine; and reckons various confessors among them, and among these Paphnutius, in these words: Of others (of the bishops gathered at Nicæa) the right hams were cut: of whose number was Paphnutius the Egyptian. Gelasius of Cyzicus in the History of the council of Nicæa agrees with the aforesaid, and writes more fully of our Saint in bk. 2, chap. 9: There was

among them that great and holy Paphnutius, bringing no little adornment to the assembly of confessors and bishops, an Egyptian by race, a man of God, of those whom Maximinus, his right eye having been dug out and his left ham cut, had condemned to the mines. But in him so great a grace of God shone out, that miracles were done by him not less than those which were once done by the Apostles. For he put demons to flight by a word only, and healed many sick by prayer: but he also bestowed sight on the blind, prayers being poured out to God; and restored to paralytics their natural firmness, bringing it about that their limbs, made sound, performed their offices. Him the emperor held in the highest honor, and often embraced him when called within the palace, and now and again kissed his eye that had been dug out: so great among the pious emperor was the authority and favor of holy men.

[13] Photius in the Bibliotheca, published in Greek and Latin, col. [ ], gives excerpts from the Acts of SS. Metrophanes and Alexander, as many testify, though his name is not now among the subscribers. prelates of Constantinople of that time, and there has thus of Paphnutius: At this council there was present also S. Paphnutius the admirable, an Egyptian by nation, but by his contests a confessor (whose right eye Maximian, the enemy of Christ, tore out, and cut the sinews of the left elbows — nay rather, of the left ham, as it is in the Greek — and condemned him to the diggings of the mine), a man who wrought many supernatural works: whom also the most pious emperor treated with every honor, and could not be satisfied with kissing the place of the right eye that had been dug out. With these things about S. Paphnutius, and his presence at the council of Nicæa, two other writers plainly agree, whose Opuscules Combefis published in the Auctarium of the Greek Fathers, part 2; namely Gregory, presbyter of Cæsarea, in the Oration on the Fathers of the council of Nicæa, there at col. 554, and an Anonymous writer in the Acts of Nicæa, col. 579. From the agreement of so many writers, especially since no one of the ancients has contradicted them, we rightly conclude that S. Paphnutius was present at the council of Nicæa as a bishop, and indeed is reckoned among those who shone out beyond the rest. It matters nothing, therefore, that his name is not found in the subscriptions as they exist today: for this is common to Paphnutius with not a few others who certainly were present at that same council, yet are not now read as subscribed to the Acts of the council. It is known to the learned that there were far more bishops at the council than there are now names found subscribed to the Acts.

[14] [He is present at the conventicle of Tyre, where with others he defends S. Athanasius,] In the year 335 was held the notorious conventicle of Tyre, in which the Arians and the Meletian schismatics tried to overwhelm S. Athanasius with calumnies. It does not please me to transfer hither the whole history of that conventicle, since the deeds of that conventicle, both at Tyre and at Jerusalem, can be read everywhere in the historians, and among us at the 2nd of May in S. Athanasius. And so I shall only set forth what S. Paphnutius did there for S. Athanasius. First, with the rest of the bishops of Egypt who had come together at Tyre with S. Athanasius, he gave a letter to Flavius Dionysius the count, in which the Catholic bishops complain of the insolence of the Eusebians against the Catholics, and of their wicked machinations, especially because they had sent some of their own crew into the Mareotis to renew the calumnies against Athanasius. To this letter Paphnutius subscribed among the other Egyptian bishops, as may be seen in S. Athanasius, vol. 1, p. 196, of the most recent edition. Dionysius the count had been sent by Constantine to the council of Tyre to take care that order should be kept there; but he was wholly given over to the party of the Eusebians; and therefore by this and other letters the Catholics could effect little.

[15] and draws S. Maximus away from the party of the Eusebians: Further, that the Paphnutius who subscribed the aforesaid letter is the same as our S. Paphnutius is gathered from Rufinus, bk. 1, chap. 17, where he reports another notable deed of Paphnutius in this manner: At the same time Paphnutius the confessor, of whom we made mention above, was present (at the council of Tyre), knowing the innocence of Athanasius. He, when he had seen Maximus bishop of Jerusalem — who together with him had been a confessor with an eye dug out and a ham cut, but out of exceeding simplicity suspected nothing of the wickedness of the priests — sitting with the rest whom the stain of faction had joined together, not fearing to go into the midst of the assembly, said: Thee, O Maximus, with whom I have one and the same badge of confession, with whom my mortal light, likewise dug out, has won for me a clearer sight of the divine light: thee, I say, I will not suffer to sit in the council of the malignant, and to enter in with those who do wickedly. And laying his hand upon him and raising him from among them, and instructing him on each point, he thenceforth joined him in perpetual communion with Athanasius. Sozomen, bk. 2, chap. 25, also speaks of the deed of Paphnutius reported; but only briefly.

[16] probably he was present also at the council of Sardica. How long after that time S. Paphnutius survived, I find recorded by no one. But I do not see that Paphnutius's age at that time was so great that he could not have survived down to the council of Sardica, celebrated in the year 347. Wherefore, since at the council of Sardica there were three bishops named Paphnutius from Egypt, as we learn from the letter of that council, to which three Paphnutii are read as subscribed among the other bishops of Egypt, in S. Athanasius, vol. 1, p. 169; it appears likely enough that S. Paphnutius was present at that council too. Hence Baronius at the year 447, num. XI, and Tillemont, vol. 8, in S. Athanasius, art. 49, assert without hesitation that S. Paphnutius the confessor was present at the council of Sardica. I should prefer, however, to say that this is exceedingly likely, but not altogether certain: for from the subscribed name alone it cannot be made altogether certain, because that name was common to many in Egypt.

[17] S. Athanasius in the History of the Arians to the monks, vol. 1, p. 387, reviews many bishops but he seems other than the one whom the Arians afterward cast out of his see. whom the Arians about the year 356 had driven into exile or had compelled to flee, and among these, whom he calls old bishops, he reviews also Paphnutius. Hence someone might suspect that S. Paphnutius the confessor is designated by Athanasius, who certainly at that time, if he was living, was an old bishop. But this seems to me less probable, both because he is not called a confessor by Athanasius, who in the same History, p. 350, commends Sarapammon and Potammon with that honorable title, and because we have seen that there were two other Paphnutii at the council of Sardica, so that one or other of these was probably compelled by the Arians to flee. I therefore rather believe that S. Paphnutius had died before that persecution of the Arians; and therefore I have fixed his death, with a latitude of some years, about the middle of the fourth century.

§ III. The name of S. Paphnutius inserted in the Roman Martyrology, and in certain others: his sanctity is vindicated from certain objections of a modern writer.

[ ] [The Saint's name inserted in the Roman Martyrology: perhaps it is in the Coptic also:] The Most Eminent Baronius inserted the memory of S. Paphnutius the confessor in the Roman Martyrology with this eulogy: In Egypt, of S. Paphnutius the bishop, who was one of those confessors who under the emperor Galerius Maximian, their right eye having been dug out and their left ham excised, were condemned to the mines: afterward under Constantine the Great he contended strenuously against the Arians for the Catholic faith, and at last, enriched with many crowns, rested in peace. Baronius assigns no ancient Martyrology in which he found the name of S. Paphnutius the bishop: nor have we found it in any old Fasti of the Latins or of the Greeks. Nevertheless in the Prætermissi at the IX of February our Elders observed this: S. Paphnutius, inscribed in the same Coptic Calendar, with no other note added whereby he might be recognized. Moreover in the sacred Fasti of the church of Alexandria, which Job Ludolf published, at the XI day of the ninth month, that is, at the VI day of our May, there occurs likewise the bare name Paphnutius. Wherefore it is likely that in one place or the other, and perhaps in both, our holy Confessor is designated: for the other Paphnutii who have deserved the title of sanctity are for the most part martyrs or anchorites: but to martyrs the title martyr is generally added, and to anchorites the word abba.

[19] the title of Saint given him from the 4th century. But whether it be the same Paphnutius who is celebrated in the praised Fasti of the Egyptians, or in each place another; it is certain that S. Paphnutius was rightly inscribed in the Roman Martyrology, just as his eulogy was inserted in the Catalogue of the Saints by Peter de Natalibus, bk. XI, chap. 33. This is abundantly clear from the eulogies which we have already given from Rufinus, Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret, and from several others, since those writers testify that our Paphnutius was not only notable for the confession of the faith, but shone also with miracles. Nor did Paphnutius the confessor lack the title of Saint: for Evagrius the presbyter already in the IV century in the Life of S. Antony called Paphnutius Saint and Blessed in that sense in which we now name him Saint. Gelasius of Cyzicus attributes to him the title of Saint, so that he probably was honored in Egypt with an ecclesiastical cult. And these things could and ought to have moved Baronius the more to insert the name of S. Paphnutius in the Roman Martyrology, the purer from every stain the reputation of this Saint has been: for by none of the ancients was Paphnutius ever accused of any fault, so far as we can know.

[20] Combefis doubted without cause about the faith of Paphnutius: François Combefis in the Auctarium of the Greek Fathers, part 2, col. 595, discourses much of Paphnutius the confessor, and contends that it is not improbable that he is the same as a certain Paphnutius, a monk and favorer of the Meletian schism, whom he asserts likewise to have been a confessor. Baronius in his Annotations on the Martyrology had said of our S. Paphnutius the confessor: This man is far other than that Meletian Paphnutius, although he too was a confessor, of whom S. Epiphanius writes in the Panarion, heresy 68. Combefis answers: That the matter stands thus, as Baronius will have it, "he himself has said it": for he proves it from no monuments. But this was not to be proved by Baronius there, since the deeds of both, reported in his Annals, show them far different. It does not please me to transfer hither the whole disputation of Combefis, which is exceedingly prolix. It will be enough, in a matter so clear, if we shake out his chief arguments: for I do not fear to say that not even the least shadow of probability appears in the opinion of Combefis, so that I would dispatch the whole disputation in a few words, had not Florentini in the prefatory Admonitions to the Hieronymian Martyrology, p. 51, said that Combefis used reasons not to be despised. For such his reasons may seem, when they are not compared with the ancient monuments.

[21] for that schismatic Paphnutius, to whom some have given the title of confessor, The chief foundation of Combefis is that that Meletian monk was a confessor, as Baronius himself also and others have asserted. But that very foundation is plainly ruinous, and will not be able to stand. I deny that that Meletian Paphnutius is rightly called a confessor, or ever

was called a confessor by the ancients. The passage of S. Epiphanius already assigned, heresy 68, chap. 5, which alone can be brought forward for that glorious title of the schismatic monk, has thus in Latin in Petau's edition: Of these (the envoys of the Meletians who were being sent to the emperor) the chief were a certain Paphnutius, a great man and an anchorite, whose mother had once confessed Christ, but he too had in some part undergone the same confession. The Latin words have that he was in some part a confessor: which certainly would not have been said of S. Paphnutius, whose eye had been torn out for the confession of the faith, whose sinew of the left ham had been burned through, who had been condemned to labor in the mines. And so the Latin words alone show that ours is other than that Meletian.

[22] But the Greek words show more clearly that he was not a confessor except on account of his mother's confession: was not a confessor, as is shown from S. Epiphanius.

ἦν

δὲ

Παφνούτιός

τις

μέγας

ἀνὴρ

ἀναχωρητὴς,

καὶ

αὐτὸς

ὑιὸς

ὁμολογητρίας

τυγχάνων,

παραψάμενος

καὶ

αὐτὸς

ποσῶς

τῆς

ὁμολογίας.

I shall render it into Latin word for word: And there was a certain Paphnutius, a great man, and he himself was the son of a mother who had confessed the faith, himself also in some measure a sharer of the confession. Why does S. Epiphanius celebrate that Paphnutius from his mother's confession, and say of him only that he was in some measure a sharer of the confession, if he believed him to have been a confessor properly so called? Combefis himself seems to have seen on how weak a foundation that confession of the schismatic Paphnutius rested, since he did not adduce the words of S. Epiphanius from which some moderns, not sufficiently skilled in the Greek tongue, gathered it. And so it is far more probable that that Paphnutius was not a confessor, but only was in some measure a sharer of his mother's confession, whether on account of services then rendered to his mother, or on account of some inconveniences endured because of his mother's confession, or because he grieved with his mother, or because a mother's honor redounds also upon her son, or finally for some other cause. This at least does not seem to be doubted, that S. Epiphanius would not have spoken so slightly of his confession, had he believed that there had been inflicted on him for his confession the torments which we know S. Paphnutius endured. Wherefore the very foundation on which the whole engine of Combefis is built plainly falls to the ground: and the words themselves of Epiphanius abundantly distinguish the schismatic from the Saint.

[23] The reckoning of time shows this no less effectually. Besides, S. Paphnutius was a bishop while that schismatic was a monk: For that Meletian Paphnutius was nothing but a monk or anchorite at that time in which Epiphanius narrates that he with others was sent to the emperor after the death of Meletius and after the council of Nicæa. But S. Paphnutius was then a bishop: for he was present at the council of Nicæa as a bishop. He is therefore far different from that Meletian monk. Combefis saw that this rightly followed. But he denies that the Paphnutius who was at the council of Nicæa was a bishop. Namely, that anonymous writer, on whom he writes observations, is silent about the episcopate of Paphnutius, and only says: There was present at the synod the admirable Paphnutius, an Egyptian indeed by race, but by his contests a confessor, etc. And upon these words he thus comments: So nearly all the rest call him, except Rufinus and Socrates, who write "bishop." This was the place for so naming him, if indeed our anonymous writer had acknowledged him as bishop. Then he brings forward many words by which he strives to persuade us that that Meletian Paphnutius was the man who was present as a monk at the council of Nicæa. But the inconsiderate writer does not reflect, while he extenuates the virtues and glorious deeds of Paphnutius the confessor, and with a pen not kindly enough drags them to the worse part, how contrary he is to the very anonymous writer from whom he takes his argument: for he not only narrates what was endured by Paphnutius for the confession of the faith, but adds of the same: A man plainly the worker of many admirable works and virtues. Nor does he alone proclaim the miracles of Paphnutius the confessor; but this very thing is done by Rufinus, Socrates, Sozomen, and the other writers praised before, and then especially when they narrate that he was present at the council of Nicæa. Who therefore out of all these could have believed him to have been a schismatic?

[24] which with plainly inept arguments But let us examine the very criticism of Combefis, who denies that Paphnutius was a bishop while he was present at the council, because that anonymous writer does not give him the title of bishop. Meanwhile he confesses that he is named bishop by Rufinus and Socrates; Theodoret also, bk. 1, chap. 7, reckons Paphnutius among the bishops, although he does not join the title of bishop to his name. Let all the learned now judge whether we ought to believe those who speak or those who are silent. Rufinus and Socrates call him bishop: Theodoret, naming bishops only, reckons Paphnutius among them. Combefis also confesses that Sozomen hints that Paphnutius the confessor was a bishop, where he treats of the council of Tyre, bk. 2, chap. 24. What, I ask, can the silence of two or three writers, later in age and inferior in authority, effect against the agreement of these — especially since these gathered their matter from the writings of the former, and so omit the title of bishop only in such a way that they do not deny the episcopate, but merely pass it over, content to report other honors of Paphnutius? Let us hear the anonymous writer of Combefis, who, after he had treated of Paphnutius, presently mentions S. Spyridion thus: But venerable Spyridion also graced this choir. There likewise the title of bishop is omitted, although afterward he hints that he was a bishop, in order to extol his humility in feeding his sheep. Gelasius of Cyzicus, bk. 2, chap. 9 and 10, calls neither Paphnutius nor Spyridion bishop. That observation of Combefis, therefore, about the title of bishop being omitted by some in the case of Paphnutius, has no force.

[25] Combefis wishes to deny. Equally useless is another observation of his, by which he attempts to make it likely that the bishop Paphnutius who was present at the council of Tyre is other than our Confessor. In the letter of Athanasius, he says, not a word of the confession, but the bare name of Paphnutius, reckoned among the other bishops. But what forbids us to say that there was another Paphnutius? I answer that Rufinus forbids it, praised at num. 16, who says: At the same time Paphnutius the confessor, of whom we made mention above (namely bk. 1, chap. 4, where he also calls him bishop, although here he is silent about the episcopate), was present at the council of Tyre, of which he treats. But that in the letter of Athanasius, or rather of the bishops of Egypt, nothing is read of the confession of Paphnutius the bishop, but his bare name is set among the bishops, just as there precedes the bare name of Potamon, who also was a confessor, Combefis could not prudently object, since those names are there read only as subscribed to the letter, and since it would not be seemly for a subscriber to use the title of confessor. Rather he ought to have learned from this that S. Paphnutius did not vainly glory in that title, as he himself rashly and without any foundation suspects.

[26] His last observation against S. Paphnutius The last observation of Combefis, which remains to be examined, is directed against Paphnutius the disciple of S. Antony, whom I showed at num. 7 to be the same as S. Paphnutius the bishop, and whom he attempts to confound with his Meletian. He observes that Paphnutius in the Greek Life of S. Antony is simply called Paphnutius the confessor: but that there is added in the old Latin edition, who, his eyes having been dug out for Christ (more correctly among us, and in the last edition of Athanasius, his eye having been dug out) under the persecutor Maximian, gloried greatly in such a disfigurement of his body. Then he subjoins: That is praise of a preceding deed, not of a present disposition; so that Athanasius could have written thus even of the Meletian, when he was not yet a Meletian, namely, when he was joined with Antony, and not even yet at the time of the Nicene synod, after which, and after Athanasius was bishop, we begin to read of the Meletian. Then that glorying could have been evil, and could have cast the incautious spiritual man headlong into the pit of pride. What forbids that those stigmata of the Lord Jesus, by which Paphnutius had won so great admiration in the council of Nicæa, and his past life under the discipline of the great Antony, drove him into schism, etc.? I am ashamed to add more: nor without shame could I report suspicions so frivolous.

[27] I answer therefore that there are many things which forbid us to believe that Paphnutius the confessor at last fell into schism. lacks every foundation, as is proved. First, S. Athanasius forbids it, who would not honor a schismatic with the glorious name of confessor, or would at least add something of his later lapse. Secondly, Evagrius the translator of Athanasius forbids it, who would not name a schismatic who had died some years before, first blessed Confessor, then holy Paphnutius, and thirdly blessed Paphnutius: which titles he is not wont to set even to the name of Antony himself, whereas he never names Paphnutius without the title of Blessed or Saint. Thirdly, Rufinus, Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret, Gelasius of Cyzicus, and others forbid it, who would not so magnificently proclaim the confession, virtues and miracles of S. Paphnutius, by whom he would not be called a man admirable, great, Holy, divine; if he had been among the leaders of the Meletian schism, if he had been a shameless calumniator and impostor, such as was that Meletian monk Paphnutius, whose letter about Arsenius having been found is recited in Athanasius, vol. 1, pp. 183 and 184. Fourthly, the episcopate of S. Paphnutius forbids it, to which he had already been raised while that Meletian — whether he be one man or two — was still a monk. Fifthly and finally, that glorious confession of Christ forbids it, for which he lost his right eye and had his left leg crippled, which I have shown above cannot be attributed to the Meletian Paphnutius. What Combefis has brought forward besides either does not pertain to our matter or has already been abundantly refuted.

§ IV. It is asked whether it is likely that S. Paphnutius in the council of Nicæa opposed a law on the continence of priests and deacons.

[ ] Socrates, bk. 1 of the History, chap. XI, treating of the presence of S. Paphnutius at the council of Nicæa, Socrates writes that Paphnutius dissuaded the Fathers of Nicæa from a law after what was given at num. XI, adds this: But what was done by his counsel for the advantage of the Church and the honor of the clergy I shall now set forth. It had seemed good to the bishops to bring a new law into the Church, that whoever had been chosen into the sacred order — that is, bishops, presbyters and deacons — should abstain from intercourse with the wives whom, while they were laymen, they had joined to themselves by the right of matrimony. And when, this matter having been proposed in public, the opinions of each were asked, Paphnutius, rising in the midst of the assembly of bishops, cried out vehemently: That this heavy yoke was not to be imposed on clerics and priests: saying that marriage is honorable and the bed undefiled; lest by excessive severity they should rather bring harm upon the Church. For that not all could bear the discipline of so strict a continence: and that perhaps it would come about thence that the chastity of each man's wife would by no means be guarded. And he called chastity the coming together of a husband with his lawful wife. That it was enough that those who had been enrolled in the clergy should, according to the ancient tradition of the Church, no longer take wives: yet that no one should be separated from her whom he had before, when he was a layman, lawfully married. And these things he said, himself not only inexperienced in marriage but of woman's

intercourse wholly inexperienced; inasmuch as he had been brought up from boyhood in a monastery, and was celebrated by all for his singular chastity. For the rest, the whole assembly of priests assented to the words of Paphnutius. Accordingly, the discussion of that matter being dropped, they left it to the judgment of each to abstain from intercourse with their wives, if they wished. Thus far Socrates.

[29] on the continence of the higher clergy, and that some assented to him. Sozomen, bk. 1, chap. 23, has thus: And when they (the Fathers of Nicæa) were deliberating among themselves about this matter (namely about the laws to be made), it seemed good to some that a law should be passed that bishops and presbyters, and likewise deacons and subdeacons, should not lie with the wives whom they had married before they were consecrated. But Paphnutius the confessor, rising, contradicted, and calling marriage honorable, and saying that the coming together of a husband with his own wife is chastity, gave counsel to the Synod that it should not pass a law of this kind. For that the thing was hard to endure: and that perhaps an occasion of incontinence would thence be furnished both to them and to their wives. But that the ancient tradition of the Church is this, that those who, being celibate, had been promoted to the sacred order should thereafter not take a wife: but that the married should by no means be separated from their wives. And these things indeed Paphnutius urged, though himself without experience of marriage. And the Synod approved his counsel, and passed no law on that matter: but willed that it should be at each man's judgment, and not of necessity. From these the same matter was briefly transferred to the Tripartite History, bk. 2, chap. 14. The same things Gelasius of Cyzicus writes in the History of the council of Nicæa, bk. 2, chap. 32; and Suidas in the Lexicon at the name Paphnutius.

[30] [Various opinions of the learned about the aforesaid story: Noël Alexandre defends it,] The learned of later centuries, who have wished to use some criticism, that they might separate true from false, have gone off into very various opinions about that deed which Socrates first attributed to Paphnutius. The Most Eminent Cardinals Baronius and Bellarmine judged it to be a fable, because the account of Socrates seems to conflict with the ecclesiastical discipline of that time. And their opinion many Catholic writers have followed, whose catalogue it would be long to weave. On the other hand, some heterodox men have fought for the truth of the deed reported by Socrates, and to their side have come over most of the writers addicted to Jansenist dogmas. Nay, some Catholics too have wished to stand for Socrates's account, judging that it is not contrary to the ecclesiastical laws of those times. Noël Alexandre in the Ecclesiastical History of the fourth century, dissertation 19, fights for Socrates and the writers who followed him, against Baronius and Bellarmine, and, that disputation being finished, subjoins a second proposition to be confirmed by many authorities, which is conceived in these words: Although the Nicene synod determined nothing about the celibacy of the clergy, nevertheless in its times bishops, presbyters and deacons kept perpetual continence out of the discipline of the Church, established by long usage derived from Apostolic times, which Siricius and afterward other Pontiffs, and councils, strengthened by their decrees and canons, etc.

[31] This proposition, as to the first part, he proves by the authority of Eusebius of Cæsarea, [deriving the continence of priests from discipline, not from law, as others do more rightly.] of Cyril of Jerusalem, of Epiphanius, of Gregory of Nyssa, of Origen, of Jerome, and so from their words concludes: From all which it is established that in the times of the Nicene synod, and long before Siricius, bishops, presbyters and deacons kept perpetual continence out of the discipline of the Church established by long usage and from Apostolic times. The second part is by many authorities excellently confirmed so far as this, that it is shown clearer than light that the law about the continence of priests and deacons was from the times of Siricius frequently inculcated and renewed. But in no way does Alexandre prove that Siricius was the first who made this law for priests. Nay rather, the words both of Siricius himself and of the other Fathers which he alleges clearly show that the aforesaid law is much older. Wherefore far more probable is the opinion of Baronius and Bellarmine, who show that it came about not only from custom but also from law that from Apostolic times bishops, presbyters and deacons observed perpetual continence: and this opinion among the writers of our century Thomassin also excellently established in the Old and New Discipline of the Church, part 1, bk. 2, chap. 60.

[32] Now let us examine whether Socrates's account seems credible, But for whatever cause continence was kept, Socrates's account is not likely: and can stand with the perpetual continence observed by those very men on whom Paphnutius is said to have been unwilling that it should be imposed, whether they kept continence from law, or from custom or discipline only. Paphnutius, protesting against the law on continence that was to be passed, said, says Socrates, That this heavy yoke was not to be imposed on clerics and priests. But, if we believe Alexandre, the priests and higher clerics then bore, and had borne from the time of the Apostles, that yoke. But if we embrace the more probable opinion, that yoke had been imposed from the very times of the Apostles. With what likelihood, then, is Paphnutius feigned to have spoken thus? With what likelihood is he written to have added: For that not all could bear the discipline of so strict a continence; when they did bear it, whether from custom or from law? With what likelihood is he feigned to have said: Perhaps it would come about thence that the chastity of each man's wife would by no means be guarded; since the condition of the wives would remain the same, whether the said law were passed in the council or omitted? For it made no difference to the wives whether their husbands kept perpetual continence from discipline or from law. With what likelihood are these words attributed to Paphnutius: That it was enough that those who had been enrolled in the clergy should, according to the ancient tradition of the Church, no longer take wives: yet that no one should be separated from her whom he had before, when he was a layman, lawfully married; since the ancient tradition of the Church, as Alexandre himself confesses, is directly contrary to that fictitious tradition?

[33] And so all these things have not even a shadow of likelihood, because they make a holy Man, and a perpetual cultivator of virginity, at once a liar and more contrary to the continence of bishops nor can it stand with the words of S. Jerome, than Jovinian himself, the enemy of virginity, was contrary to it. For S. Jerome thus addresses Jovinian in bk. 1: Certainly thou confessest that he cannot be a bishop who in his episcopate begets children. Otherwise, if he be caught, he will not be held as a husband, but WILL BE CONDEMNED AS AN ADULTERER. Either permit priests to perform the works of marriage, that they may be the same as virgins and as husbands: or, if priests are not permitted to touch wives, they are holy in this, that they imitate virginal modesty. Finally, a most open fiction is what follows in Socrates: The whole assembly of priests assented to the words of Paphnutius. Accordingly, the discussion of that matter being dropped, they left it to the judgment of each to abstain from intercourse with their wives, if they wished. I call this a most open fiction, because the Fathers who flourished a little after the council of Nicæa clearly teach the contrary, as I shall show in a few words.

[34] or of S. Epiphanius, who wrote in the same century. S. Epiphanius, who was a stripling or a young man when the council of Nicæa was held, in Heresy 59, chap. 4, has thus: Nay, besides, him who still lives in matrimony and gives himself to begetting children, even though he be the husband of one wife, yet by no means does (the Church) admit to the order of deacon, presbyter, bishop, or subdeacon: but only him who has restrained himself from intercourse with one wife, or has been bereaved of her: which happens especially in those places where the ecclesiastical canons are accurately kept. But indeed in some places presbyters, deacons and subdeacons still beget children. I answer that this is not done by the authority of the canon; but on account of the sloth of men, which at certain times is wont to act negligently and to connive, etc. Would that Saint write this, if a most celebrated council had left it free to each — not even bishops excepted — to use a wife married beforehand, or to abstain from her, at his own judgment? S. Jerome, who was born a few years after the said council, in the Letter to Pammachius, or in the Apology for the books against Jovinian, near the end speaks thus: Christ a virgin, Mary a virgin, dedicated to both sexes the beginnings of virginity. The Apostles either virgins, or continent after marriage. Bishops, presbyters, deacons are chosen either virgins or widowers, or at any rate after the priesthood chaste for ever. Socrates therefore is deceived, in my judgment at least: for I cannot square his words with the testimonies of these Fathers.

[35] and whom Alexandre does not reconcile with Socrates. Let us hear whether Noël Alexandre could reconcile all those things, as he has attempted to do. The Saints Epiphanius and Jerome, he says, are about eighty years from the time of the Nicene council, in which interval of time the discipline could have varied. Nevertheless it is known to the learned world that S. Jerome had already flourished and written under S. Damasus, Pope, who preceded S. Siricius, and that Epiphanius was older than S. Jerome. Moreover, if we believe Alexandre, from the times of the Apostles down to Pope Siricius the continence of the clergy was observed in the same way, namely from the discipline of the Church. And so that answer does not cohere well enough with the opinion by which he will have S. Siricius to have been the first who gave that law about the continence of the clergy. For certainly Epiphanius wrote before Siricius. And Jerome wrote many things before Siricius, and he does not speak of a new matter, but of an old one. While therefore he strives to reconcile Socrates with Epiphanius and Jerome, he is himself little consistent with himself. For if there was no law about these matters before the council of Nicæa, if none was passed in that council, if none before Siricius, the praised Fathers ought not to have spoken thus.

[36] But from the very letter of Siricius, which is extant in Labbe, vol. 2 of the Councils, col. [ ] and following, Siricius vehemently inveighing against incontinent priests, let us see whether he could so write, if that law of the continence of priests, about which we dispute, had not been passed before him. That holy Pontiff in chap. 7 speaks thus: Let us come now to the most sacred orders of the clergy, which, to the injury of venerable religion, we have found so trodden down and confounded throughout your provinces, at thy charity's information, that we must say with the voice of Jeremiah: Who will give water to my head, etc.? What is the cause of so great grief, he presently subjoins in this manner: For we have learned that very many priests of Christ and levites, after the long times of their consecration, have begotten offspring both from their own wives and also from base intercourse, and defend their crime with this plea, that in the old Testament the faculty of begetting is read to have been granted to priests and ministers. Let him now tell me, whoever he is, that follower of lusts and teacher of vices, etc. It is worth while to observe a few things on the alleged words of Siricius. First, the Pontiff treats with the same severity those who had begotten from their own wives, and those who had begotten from base intercourse. Secondly, he bears it most grievously that they defended their crime by the example of the old Law.

Thirdly, why were those followers of lusts, as the Pope names them, driven to have recourse to the old Law, if, as Socrates says, the Fathers of Nicæa left it to the judgment of each to abstain from intercourse with their wives, if they wished: for they would much more strongly have alleged a most celebrated ecumenical council.

[37] And so Siricius the Pontiff in that letter did not make a new law, teaches that the law of their continence is most ancient. but renewed an old one. And this he traces back to the will of Jesus, who willed that the Church, whose spouse is beautiful in form, should shine with the splendor of chastity, that on the day of judgment, when he shall come again, he may find her without spot or wrinkle, as he appointed through his Apostle. By which sanctions, he says, all we priests and levites are bound by an indissoluble law, that from the day of our ordination we should devote both our hearts and our bodies to sobriety and modesty, etc. Here Siricius acknowledges a most ancient law about these matters, just as before Siricius S. Epiphanius acknowledged it, praised at num. 34. From all these things, then, it is permitted to conclude, against Noël Alexandre, that the law about the continence of the higher clergy was in force before Siricius: but that Socrates's account of the intervention of S. Paphnutius is not likely, whether the said clergy kept continence from law, or from the discipline of the Church alone. But what can in any way be objected against the continence of the clergy, I have examined and refuted in the Dissertation to be prefixed to this volume on the year of the birth of S. Gregory Nazianzen, whom some have wished to have been born in the time of his father's priesthood, but altogether improbably.

[38] Wherefore one thing remains, that I should show how little credit Socrates deserves in these matters, The whole account of Socrates, since it seems to have arisen from whom others have adopted that fable. Socrates, bk. 1, chap. 10, reports various things about Acesius, bishop of the Novatians, whom he says to have been present at the council of Nicæa, and there to have dealt with the emperor Constantine. He teaches also whence he had learned these things, writing thus: These things neither Eusebius Pamphili nor anyone else committed to writing. But I received them from a man by no means untrustworthy, who indeed was of very advanced age, and related those things which he himself had seen done in the council. Presently after this account of Acesius follows chapter XI on Paphnutius, which we are partly examining. Socrates could have had the presence of Paphnutius at the council from Rufinus. But the history, or fable, which we are examining, since it is read as written by no one before Socrates, he doubtless received from the same old man from whom he says he received what is reported of Acesius. Certainly in chap. 13 he praises the same witness again, and further indicates what sort of man he was: But who it was that told me of him I shall say accurately; nor shall I dissemble anything, although I understand that this will be a cause of offense to some. A certain Auxanon, a presbyter of the church of the Novatians, was very long-lived. Who came to the Nicene synod together with Acesius, while still quite a stripling (in Greek κομιδῇ νήπιος, quite a little child), and related to me the things which have been said above about Acesius. He prolonged his life from those times down to the principate of Theodosius the Younger, and told me, when I was quite a young man, about Eutychian (of whom he there treats).

[39] from a man of almost no credit, who, decrepit, Hence we have most probably the origin of the whole fable. For, although Socrates does not say that he heard from Auxanon the deed which he attributes to Paphnutius, yet since he reports it almost midway between two other things heard from Auxanon, we can scarcely doubt that he had the same man as author of this little tale also. And so the studious reader will now be able to see on how frail a foundation the whole structure of Socrates rests. Valois in the Annotations on Socrates, bk. 1, chap. 10, observes that Auxanon must have been of decrepit age when he narrated all those things to Socrates; and, holding the whole history of Acesius suspect of falsity, thus concludes: Let the reader therefore estimate how much the testimony of a decrepit and heretical man is to be valued. Tillemont indeed, vol. 6, in the Council of Nicæa, art. 17, does not acquiesce in the censure of Valois, and adopts without difficulty the whole account of Acesius which Socrates narrated. But in this matter he departed far from his own rigid criticism, and considered too little how inept and improbable Socrates's account is. For νήπιος, in Latin infans, and indeed κομιδῇ νήπιος, quite an infant, as Socrates has at the beginning of chapters XI and XIII, was that Auxanon when he is said to have come to the council and to have heard those things there. But lest anyone should suppose that Socrates meant by that word to hint at a much greater age, I observe that the same Auxanon in chap. 13 is again called very young, where his stay with Eutychian is treated of, which is said to have happened afterward. The Greek words are νέος ὢν πάνυ, that is, since he was very young: others would say, quite a stripling. He was therefore a boy or a stripling when Socrates says that he was present at the council.

[40] is said to have narrated the things he had heard as a boy, But now let us not ask whether a stripling was admitted to the council of Nicæa: let us freely grant that to Socrates and Tillemont, although it is not very likely. But, if Auxanon in his youth was present at the council, shall we also believe that he was so near to the emperor Constantine and to bishop Acesius that he could hear their mutual conversations, and after eighty or at least seventy years correctly relate them to Socrates, then a young man? Or shall we believe without any doubt that Socrates retained in memory so accurately all those things which as a very young man he had heard from Auxanon, that in afterward narrating them he did not depart from the truth by a nail's breadth? Neither of these will Tillemont's criticism persuade me, much less both together. Nevertheless, that Socrates's account may be true, it is necessary both that Auxanon narrated true things to him accurately, and that he himself inserted them into his History without alteration or exaggeration.

[41] Certainly it appears to me far more likely that that Auxanon was either an impostor or a trifler, and who narrated other fictions to Socrates, who narrated some fables to the young Socrates, either for the sake of trifling or of imposing on him. Fabulous or lying beyond doubt are the things which in chap. 13 he narrates from Auxanon's account about Eutychian, a Novatian monk: for no Catholic will believe that a Novatian monk shone with miracles, as Socrates says he understood from the same Auxanon. No prudent man will admit as true what he there narrates about a prison opened by Eutychian by divine power, and about the chains of one detained in it falling off of their own accord, and that indeed in the presence of the keepers of the prison, who were unwilling to open the prison; and finally about life obtained by entreaty for one who is said to have been guilty of aiming at tyranny, with the emperor Constantine, inasmuch as he greatly venerated Eutychian, says Socrates, citing Auxanon, who related that he had been present at all these things. Who would not see that all those things are fabulous? Who would not recognize that Auxanon narrated magnificent things about himself to Socrates, but clothed with no color of truth? He was a boy at the council of Nicæa, a young man with a monk working miracles, with him he then went to Constantine, that pardon might be obtained for a traitor who had first been freed from his chains by divine power in the presence of the keepers: nay, Constantine also is said to have made much of a Novatian man. Nothing in these things is likely. And so Tillemont could have confirmed by the example of Auxanon what he rightly observes about Socrates in vol. 6 of the Emperors, in Theodosius II, art. 37, writing thus: He seems not to have distinguished sufficiently the writings and persons to which he ought to give credit, and for that cause to have mingled so many errors into his History.

[42] Wherefore there is no need to stir up very many other errors of Socrates in order to pass judgment on the deed which he attributes to Paphnutius. it seems to be rejected as fictitious, For since that deed is not recorded by Rufinus, and was most probably related to Socrates by Auxanon, who narrated other little fables to him; and since it neither suits S. Paphnutius nor is consonant with the ecclesiastical discipline of that time; and finally since it is reported with plainly improbable circumstances; I can scarcely doubt that it is altogether fictitious, and the invention of some Novatian impostor, of which sort Socrates has not a few. But that Sozomen also narrated the same, and other later writers after them, makes nothing for the confirmation of the deed, because Valois has already observed in the Annotations on chap. XI that Sozomen borrowed his matter from Socrates. And from these some more recent writers afterward narrated the same. Tillemont indeed in note 20 on the Council of Nicæa does not altogether acquiesce in Valois, who disapproves this deed: yet he confesses that the authority of Socrates and Sozomen for maintaining that history is of no great weight. But Tillemont believed it could be doubted whether the law of the continence of priests was universal at the time of the council of Nicæa, and afterward in the IV century, and out of that doubt he was unwilling to call that intervention of Paphnutius certainly false, but speaks of it hesitantly in many places.

[43] unless perhaps from some like deed an error crept upon Socrates. I said that I scarcely doubt that that whole account of Socrates is fictitious, because it is most likely that it is a mere fiction, thrust upon an over-credulous man by a Novatian impostor. If anyone, however, should prefer to suspect that something could have been done at the council of Nicæa by Paphnutius, from which Socrates seized occasion to narrate the aforesaid, so that what the Saint there did or said was not altogether fictitious but ill set forth; I should not wish vehemently to resist such a suspicion. For example, let it have been proposed in the council that wives married before the episcopate should be altogether excluded from the houses of bishops, just as by the third canon women brought in besides are excluded; and let S. Paphnutius have dissuaded this, lest those women should in other men's houses be exposed to a greater danger of incontinence than in episcopal ones: such a counsel of Paphnutius could have been narrated to Socrates so corruptly that he believed Paphnutius to have been unwilling that the higher clergy should be compelled to be separated in bed from their wives. But that very thing appears to me less probable for the reasons brought forward before; and I rather believe it to be a mere fiction. But in no way can I doubt that it is false that the council of Nicæa left it to the judgment of each to use their wives or to separate themselves from them. For the words of Epiphanius and Jerome alleged above do not permit us to believe this. The objections of some, discussed, see in the Dissertation prefixed to this volume.