Among the two hundred and forty-four individual texts whose assemblage makes up the so-called Collectio Avellana—a dossier of documents, laws and letters dating from the period from a.d. 367 to 553 and dealing with subjects of schism and of ecclesiastical authority—are to be found two letters that ought not to be there, Coll. Av. 39 and 40. These letters, in fact, ought not to be anywhere, for they had been issued from the scrinia of the usurping emperor Magnus Maximus (r. 383–388). Maximus fought a war against Emperor Theodosius I, a war which Maximus lost. He was executed and subjected to memory sanctions—the so-called damnatio memoriae—a heterogeneous assemblage of penalties designed to conspicuously erase the memory of Maximus from the public record through destruction of his portraits, erasure of his name from inscriptions, the cancellation of his laws, and more besides.Footnote 1
It is these processes of memory sanction that make the survival of Maximus’ letters so unexpected. When an emperor's memory became damned, it became politically toxic, and individuals who had been close to the fallen emperor but had survived the immediate round of executions attendant on his death did well to distance themselves from the deceased whether by conspicuous displays of loyalty to the new regime, by careful attempts to edit their own past, or by a judicious combination of the two.Footnote 2 Destruction of letters written by, to, or about a fallen usurper featured high on the list of priorities here, and such evidence as we have from the period shows that it was a task scrupulously undertaken.Footnote 3 Thus, to find preserved not one but two letters actually authored by a usurper is without precedent, and these texts—one addressed to Emperor Valentinian (Coll. Av. 39), the other to Siricius, bishop of Rome from 384–399 (Coll. Av. 40)—constitute utterly unique survivals from the Roman world. For anyone with even a passing interest in the history of the later Roman empire, they ought to be well known.
That they are not is a product of two interrelated factors. First, the letters tend to be treated as a means to an end, not as an end in themselves, and when they appear at all in secondary literature it is usually as a passing footnote in a wider narrative (either about Magnus Maximus or about Priscillian of Avila, on whom more below) in which the extraordinary nature of these documents is not underscored and in which a considerable contextual knowledge of the events which occasioned them is assumed.Footnote 4 Second, only one of these two letters (Coll. Av. 40, to Siricius) has ever been translated into English, and that with very little commentary.Footnote 5 I suspect that the linguistic barrier which their arch and often highly allusive Latin presents is a significant disincentive to prevent many researchers, especially students, from troubling with them.
As will be seen, these letters present material that enriches our understanding on a wide range of interrelated themes. Foremost is the insight they offer into how a usurping emperor might present his regime and how hostile emperors related to one another and the wider world. Yet they also shine a spotlight on the evolution of papal authority, on the way in which bishops interacted with emperors (and, indeed, exploited inter-imperial dynamics in order to strengthen their own positions), and on the increasingly overt Christianization of the imperial office during the fourth century. The letters elucidate our understanding of the fluid conflict between orthodoxy and heterodoxy in the Western Church, and bear directly on two great and (very differently) controversial figures of the fourth-century Church: Priscillian of Avila, perhaps the first individual in history to be executed for heresy, and Ambrose of Milan, the individual who, more than any other, showed the late Roman world the power that the bishop could now wield, if he had the courage and the nous to grasp it.
The following article is thus an attempt to make this material available to a wider audience. In it, I offer detailed commentary on the dating and significance of the letters, first Coll. Av. 39 and then 40. Following this, I consider the survival of the letters, exploring why and how such potentially explosive documents were preserved, which itself necessitates some consideration of the nature of the Collectio Avellana. Finally, I offer a translation of (based on Otto Günther's 1895 text) and commentary on both of the letters.Footnote 6 Critics may deem this an excessive quantity of text to devote to a mere two imperial letters, but their extraordinary character merits a consideration of this size. The letters are of value to those studying both imperial and ecclesiastical history (and, of course, to those studying the intersection of the two). It ought to be stated again that these letters constitute unique survivals from the Roman world and, as such, they ought to be better known.
COLL. AV. 39: DATE AND SIGNIFICANCE
The first of the two letters is addressed to Valentinian II (r. 375–392), and its heading in the manuscript of the Collectio Avellana, though certainly not a heading it will have borne when it was first sent, reads ‘Letter from the tyrant Maximus to the Augustus Valentinian the Younger against the Arians and the Manichaeans’ (Epistola Maximi tyranni ad Valentinianum Aug. Iuniorem contra Arianos et Manichaeos). This slightly misleading title (our Manichaeans do not appear till Coll. Av. 40, nor are they strictly speaking Manichaeans at all) gives some clue as to the letter's contents, since Maximus, though he never names either Milan or Bishop Ambrose directly, was clearly writing in the wake of the conflict that gripped the city between the Easters of 385 and 386.
This is not the place to rehearse in detail the events of that conflict—not least because they are themselves highly disputed in their minutiae—but a short recapitulation of the key points may be valuable.Footnote 7 Conflict between bishop and court seems to have begun in earnest in the spring of 385, when Valentinian requested that Ambrose hand over to the court and its tame clerics (whom Ambrose and others determinedly refer to as Arians)Footnote 8 the Basilica Portiana in order that it could be used by the court for its celebration of Easter. This Ambrose refused to do, and, though the court ultimately yielded, over the rest of the year Ambrose appears to have been increasingly hounded by the emperor and even threatened with exile. On 23 January 386, in a move doubtless designed to give the next phase of the conflict a firm legal grounding, Valentinian published a law reaffirming that there existed freedom of worship for all who followed the creed established at Rimini in 359 (which included the Homoians, Ambrose's ‘Arians’) and prescribing death to any who opposed this.Footnote 9 Ambrose was then summoned to the consistory, apparently to debate with a Homoian bishop, Auxentius, a summons he very publicly refused.Footnote 10 Finally, as the Easter of 386 approached, the court again requested access to Ambrose's churches, first his own Basilica Nova and then (again) the Basilica Portiana. For the third time, Ambrose openly refused the requests of Valentinian's court. Valentinian's soldiers surrounded the Basilica Portiana where the Nicene faithful were gathered, but the bishop and his flock refused to budge and Valentinian again backed down, withdrawing his soldiers and leaving the bishop triumphant.
Maximus’ letter makes clear from the outset that it is in response to these events that he is writing to Valentinian, and his opening sentence makes reference to ‘the disturbance and convulsion of Catholic law’ (catholica lex), and then enumerates in summary the events of this controversy (39.1). It was certainly after the second (that is, after 386) phase of the conflict that Maximus was writing, for he mentions, among the various outrages reported to him, ‘that a fine has been imposed’ (39.3 multam esse propositam), a reference to a fine of 200 lbs of gold imposed on the Nicene congregation during the Easter of 386.Footnote 11 Maximus claims that ‘rumour’ (fama) informed him of what has been transpiring, and refers to priests ‘being besieged in their churches’ (in the present tense); the tone he strikes is explicitly advisory (implying that the crisis was ongoing), and he makes reference to ‘new edicts’ (noua edicta) issued by Valentinian. Consequently, it would seem safe to assume that this letter was written during the second and final phase of the Easter crisis, that is, during the Easter of 386. Allowing time for news to move between courts, the letter must thus have been composed in the first half of April 386.Footnote 12
The core message of this letter has been variously interpreted, and in what follows I advance my own reading. However, this is not the only interpretation possible.Footnote 13 Regardless of one's position, it is indisputable that to properly understand the significance of the tensions underlying this correspondence, one needs to understand the relationship between Maximus and Valentinian and the grounds for Maximus’ deep-seated resentment of the young emperor.Footnote 14 Maximus, as has been mentioned, was a military usurper. The narrative sources are predictably laconic on the reasons for his usurpation, but from the dark hints we may find contained within them we may infer that Gratian was proving himself incapable of the delicate social, political and military balancing act that was being a Roman emperor (Ammianus recalled the megalomaniacal spectre of the purple-born Commodus).Footnote 15 More clearly articulated, however, are the grievances which Maximus had with Gratian's young half-brother, Valentinian II. In a letter to Valentinian, discussed in more detail below, Ambrose reports Maximus’ own angry outburst: ‘You have mocked me, you and that man Bauto, who wished to rule behind the cloak of a little boy, who sent the barbarians against me.’Footnote 16 In a period in which the Empire was being rocked by the most serious military crisis in living memory, a career soldier such as Maximus could see that the government of Italy was being managed by barbarian generals and by a female regent (Valentinian's mother Justina) under the nominal primacy of a boy who was, in 383, still only twelve years old. What is more (and as we will see clearly within the Collectio Avellana letter itself) Maximus was a deeply committed adherent of Nicene orthodoxy and evidently comfortable with the idea that it was an emperor's duty to protect this creed. Valentinian's mother, Justina, was certainly a sponsor of the Homoian party at Milan, and it is clear that Valentinian himself was likewise supportive of the community and of their right to assemble.Footnote 17 In the Empire's wider geopolitics, this made natural religious allies of Maximus and the Eastern emperor Theodosius (with whom Maximus had a long relationship stretching back into the 360s) at the same time as it associated Valentinian with the Gothic tribesmen who filled not only the Balkans but also the ranks of Valentinian's own armies.Footnote 18
These tensions had very tangible consequences. After Maximus’ seizure of power in Britain in the spring of 383, he had crossed into Gaul. There he had met Gratian's armies near Paris. A five-day standoff was ended by desertions from Gratian's army, as a result of which the younger emperor fled and was apprehended and executed by Maximus’ magister equitum, Andragathius, on 25 August.Footnote 19 Only the skilled mediation of Ambrose, who went in embassy to Maximus’ court at Trier, prevented Maximus’ forces from descending upon Italy in that same year, and Maximus made clear and public to Ambrose his expectation that Valentinian would instead come to his court in Gaul, ‘as a son to a father’.Footnote 20 The prospect cannot have been an inviting one. Maximus had in his possession the still-unburied body of Valentinian's half-brother, Gratian, and should the young emperor have come to Trier his mother would have likely been driven to exile (or worse) and he himself would either have been killed or have been kept at Maximus’ court as a tame legitimator for the new regime. The young emperor thus wisely refused to cross the Alps. In the East, however, Theodosius recognized Maximus as emperor, and a delicate stalemate thus emerged for a period of four years between Maximus’ court at Trier and that of Valentinian in northern Italy, a stalemate broken by Maximus’ invasion of the peninsula in 387 (and Valentinian's flight from it).Footnote 21 The basilica conflict and Coll. Av. 39 fall in the second half of this period, a little over a year before Maximus finally launched his invasion across the Alps.
All of this informs the carefully oblique rhetoric of the letter. Its text is couched in a scrupulously formal and respectful language appropriate to inter imperial correspondence, and Maximus addresses the young Valentinian as ‘Your Serenity’ (serenitas tua), ‘Your Constancy’ (perennitas tua) and ‘Your Clemency’ (clementia tua). Yet behind the thin screen of this proscribed courtesy the tone is at once patronizing and threatening. Maximus opens his letter by counterfactually musing out loud about the fact that, if he were Valentinian's enemy, then events in Valentinian's territory would be playing directly into his hands. No fewer than seven times in a letter of a little fewer than five hundred words does he repeat either that he is not Valentinian's enemy or that he has a deep concern for Valentinian. Indeed, the whole tone of the letter is couched as the guidance of a concerned, even paternal adviser keen to prevent one younger than himself from falling into error. Yet this paternal interest is drawn against the backdrop of ruin, for Maximus wishes to warn Valentinian that he now sails in very perilous waters: ‘It is dangerous, believe me, to test divine things’ (39.4 periculose, mihi crede, diuina temptantur).Footnote 22
Maximus never directly calls Valentinian an Arian or a heretic (though he comes exceptionally close). None the less, he presumes to lecture Valentinian on the proper relationship of the emperor to his Church, and explicitly assumes a considerable ignorance and naïveté on the young emperor's part, drawing attention to Valentinian's inability to live up to the positive example of his departed father (39.5 diuus Valentinus, ‘the divine Valentinian’), and naming what has been happening in the young emperor's territory ‘a certain resemblance to persecution’ (39.6 quaedam persecutionis imago). Across the course of the letter, Maximus moves from generalized declarations of concern for Valentinian to specific criticism, thence to increasingly clear and direct injunctions to alter his behaviour (39.6):
Can it be that Your Serenity, venerable to me, thinks that a religion which has once taken root in the minds of men, which God himself has established, can be uprooted? How much discord will be stirred up from this? How much controversy will arise? How frequent and destructive the insurrections?
The threat implicit in all of this is clear enough, for who does Maximus imagine will be God's avenger on earth if not himself? In enumerating the territories of the western empire that were themselves loyal to the Nicene creed, ‘all of Italy and Africa’ among them (39.4), Maximus reminded Valentinian of the proprietorial eye he was casting over the young emperor's territory. The letter's conclusion was, in essence, a pair of clearly worded ultimata: stop meddling in ecclesiastical affairs and hand back all churches in Italy and Rome to the orthodox party (39.8).
By the dating given at the beginning of this article, Maximus’ threats were unnecessary; the basilica conflict had almost certainly been resolved (and to the benefit of the Nicene party), well before this letter reached Valentinian. None the less, we have every reason to treat these threats with seriousness. In the first place, what little we can glean of Maximus’ character suggests an image of a deeply—one might say aggressively—pious emperor. Sulpicius Severus, who lived in a Gaul ruled by Maximus, remembers an emperor frequently surrounded by and in discourse with his bishops (albeit, according to Severus, the wrong bishops).Footnote 23 He was an ardent persecutor of dissenting voices within the Church and, as we will see with Coll. Av. 40, he seems also to have been the first emperor to incorporate explicitly Christian elements into the normally secular ceremony of the imperial accession.Footnote 24 Nor was this the first time that an emperor had threatened war upon another to defend the Christian Church. It is very clear that Constantine (and his historian-cum-panegyrist Eusebius) sought to portray the final conflict between himself and Licinius in 324 as a product of Constantine's desire to protect the Christians living in the East and suffering under Licinian persecution.Footnote 25 In the mid 340s, the self-confident Constans had written to his brother, Constantius, and had in no uncertain terms promised war if the latter did not at once reinstate Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria to his see, a threat which had caused Constantius to back down and permit Athanasius’ return.Footnote 26 Whether one sees these incidents as motivated by genuine piety is, in some senses, moot; the point is clear that religious malpractice was, in the Christian Roman empire, considered grounds for war and that Maximus was positioning himself strongly as the champion of a Nicene community currently threatened by Valentinian's actions. Unspoken, the threat of force waits here in the wings.
Reading the text of the letter, one cannot help but be struck by the fact that one of the key players in the basilica drama, Ambrose of Milan, is never named (though Maximus does refer to the fact ‘that priests are besieged in their basilicas’ [obsideri in basilicis sacerdotes], a comment which can only refer to the blockade of Ambrose over the Easter of 386). Reason for Maximus’ indirectness (he is certainly happy elsewhere to name specific individuals and places) can probably be found in the history of the relationship between Ambrose and Maximus, which was intertwined with the relationship that existed between Maximus and Valentinian. In the autumn of 383, following the execution of Gratian (and perhaps in part out of loyalty to the dead emperor), Ambrose had acted as the head of the embassy from Valentinian to Maximus, which, we have already seen, stalled the emperor's advance.Footnote 27 It is clear that Ambrose dissembled at this meeting (his biographer, Neil McLynn, accuses him of outright lies) and bought peace (and time) with vaguely worded promises.Footnote 28 He argued that it was too late in the year for Valentinian to cross the Alps, and it is clear that he presented the case in such a way that Maximus believed that Valentinian would travel to his court in 384. Doubtless happy to gain the outcome he sought without violence, and believing that the bishop of one of the western empire's most important cities and sees was negotiating in good faith, Maximus agreed to these terms. In later years he would complain bitterly that Ambrose had halted his advance into Italy (Ambr. Ep. 76[20].23). And for all the bad blood that passed between Valentinian and Ambrose in this period, it is notable that, when Valentinian again had need of an ambassador to Maximus, it was Ambrose that he sent to the court at Trier.Footnote 29 Maximus struggled, on this latter occasion, to control his temper (Ambr. Ep. 30[24]).
Given all this, Ambrose's (near) absence from Coll. Av. 39 is perhaps intentional, and I would suggest that the irascible Maximus had no desire to pay Ambrose the compliment of explicitly acknowledging his role in holding his basilica against imperial soldiers. Yet whilst Ambrose's self-proclaimed heroic role in this story is downplayed by Maximus, the point remains that in this letter Maximus positioned himself as Ambrose's patron and defender. In part, this accords with Maximus’ own ambition to present himself as a universal Christian ruler. He may also, however, have remembered the old adage that ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’, and have hoped to drive a wedge between Ambrose and the court. This appears to have been an intention never fully realized, but in 386 the basilica conflict may have looked like promising ground in which to sow seeds of further dissent in Italy and to undermine Valentinian's authority. Certainly, hostility between the Catholic Ambrose and the Homoian court was there to be exploited. Ambrose's conflict with them in 385 and 386 had brought him realistically within danger of being murdered by Valentinian's guards, and Ambrose so hated Justina, the emperor's mother, that he could not even endure to name her in his correspondence, calling her simply ‘that woman’ (femina ista) in a letter to his sister (Ambr. Ep. 76[20].12). In this same letter, Ambrose's own account of his dealing with Valentinian's courtiers show him raising the spectre of Maximus when the demand was given that he hand up the Basilica Nova, and the charge of tyranny was levelled at him for his refusal (Ambr. Ep. 76[20].23):
Let him for whom God has raised up no enemy beware, lest he make for himself a tyrant. Maximus did not call me a tyrant over Valentinian, Maximus who claims that the interposition of my embassy prevented him from crossing into Italy. I added that priests were never tyrants, though they often suffered them.
Ambrose was not so unwise as to make direct threats against the imperial person. He denied charges of tyranny or of domineering over Valentinian. Yet, in the same breath, to evoke the threat of Maximus looming from Gaul was to implicitly unite Valentinian's external security with his internal policy in much the same way that Maximus was to do in Coll. Av. 39. Nor was this the only occasion on which Ambrose would respond to Valentinian's provocations by reminding the young emperor that he had protected him from Maximus (Ambr. Ep. 75[21].20). Furthermore, by the occasion of his second mission to Trier, Ambrose was now sufficiently concerned about suggestions of collusion with the northern usurper that he felt the need to send Valentinian a verbatim report of their conversation, ‘for fear any one should give you an account which weaves in lies amongst its truths’ (Ambr. Ep. 30[24].1).
In this letter then we see an assertive and self-confident Maximus who has no hesitation in communicating, albeit obliquely, the superiority he felt towards Valentinian and his increasingly impatient desire to be in possession both of Italy and of the young emperor. Though Maximus may well have had his own personal grievances with Ambrose, largely thanks to Ambrose's willingness to represent the interests of Valentinian, he was not so angry with him that he would pass up the opportunity to exploit a rift between bishop and emperor, nor—I think—would the pious and bellicose Maximus stand idle in what he saw as a very real affront to the true religion. How publicly Valentinian's fumbling Homoianism was articulated as the ultimate justification for Maximus’ invasion of Italy in the summer of the year that followed this letter we shall never know, although, given that the Milanese crisis was probably already over when Coll. Av. 39 arrived at Valentinian's court, it would seem attempts to turn the Easter crisis into open war had fizzled out. Regardless, we can see here that the usurper was already visibly searching for his casus belli.
COLL. AV. 40: DATE AND SIGNIFICANCE
Unlike the previous letter, Coll. Av. 40 still bears that heading under which (it would seem probable) it had originally been delivered: ‘Magnus Maximus, conqueror, eternal triumphator, forever Augustus to Father Siricius’ (Victor Magnus Maximus perpetuus triumphator semper Augustus Siricio parenti). Siricius was the bishop of Rome, elected to that see in December 384 and in occupancy of it until his death on 26 November 399. The letter picks up on many of the themes raised by Coll. Av. 39, though in a slightly different context. It is, however, a considerably more enigmatic document, harder to date and referring to events less perfectly understood. Maximus was clearly writing in response to a letter sent to him by Siricius (40.1). This letter is no longer extant. Its contents must therefore be inferred from Maximus’ references to them in his own reply, and its main topic, it would appear, was the ordination in Gaul of a certain Agroecius, which was in some way irregular. Siricius seems to have asked Maximus to make enquiry into this business, which the emperor was only too happy to do, promising to call a council (conuentus) of Gallic bishops to address the question (40.2). The second half of the letter then appears to shift the agenda, moving from Siricius’ concerns to issues which Maximus himself wished to share with the bishop. The emperor referred to his own efforts to reform a Church that he has found ‘stained and polluted by the plague of criminals’ (40.3 inquinata aliqua et sceleratorum labe polluta) and promised to send information concerning the public trial of certain ‘Manichaeans’. Unlike Agroecius, we are able to identify this incident extra-textually and to state with confidence that it refers to the trial and execution of Priscillian, bishop of Avila, along with a number of his followers.
The trial of Priscillian forms an important part of the historical legacy of Maximus and so a brief summary of the issues and chronology will be important if we are to make sense of the letter.Footnote 30 Priscillian entered the arena of ecclesiastical politics in the 370s where, in his native Spain and still as a layman, he preached a strict asceticism and radical theology, both of which attracted a large following. His movement, however, was regarded with extreme suspicion by the formal Church hierarchy, and it did him no favours that he had apparently dabbled in magical practices throughout his life, nor that many of his teachings resembled those of the Manichaeans, a sect which had been regarded with extreme distrust by both pagan and Christian emperors alike.Footnote 31
In October 380, a council was thus convened at Saragossa in Hispania Tarraconensis, at which twelve bishops (two from southern Gaul and the rest from Spain) condemned various of Priscillian's teachings, though without ever naming him or attacking him directly (at least in the published canons).Footnote 32 In that same year, however, and with the backing of the bishops Instantius and Salvianus, Priscillian was himself consecrated bishop of Avila. The validity of this consecration was almost immediately challenged, and Hydatius, bishop of Cordoba and the driving force behind the Saragossa council, obtained an imperial rescript from Gratian ordering the expulsion of those condemned at Saragossa the previous year.Footnote 33 Priscillian, Instantius and Salvianus thus set off for Italy to appeal to Damasus, bishop of Rome from 366 to 384. They travelled via Gaul and there added to their party Euchrotia, wife of a prominent Gallic orator, and her daughter Procula. Damasus would not see them and, when they returned to Milan, the bishop Ambrose likewise refused them an audience. They did, however, win the support of the magister officiorum Macedonius, who secured for them the cancellation of the imperial rescript. Thus, they returned to Spain, and Ithacius of Ossonuba, their chief opponent, was now accused of stirring up trouble within the Church. He travelled to Trier, seeking the support of the praetorian prefect, and when this was not forthcoming he sought sanctuary with Britto, bishop of the city.
These events appear to have taken place whilst Gratian was still alive. At this point, Magnus Maximus entered the scene, arriving at Trier towards the end of 383. As soon as he arrived, Ithacius approached him to adjudicate the increasingly complex dispute. Maximus, a vocal devotee of Nicaean orthodoxy, assented and ordered a council at Bordeaux, which probably took place early in 384. Instantius was deposed and Priscillian then apparently appealed directly to Maximus. The emperor decided to establish a civil trial for the Priscillianists, much to the horror of numerous churchmen (including Martin of Tours) who were anxious to keep the unforgiving hand of the state's justice out of ecclesiastical affairs. Martin, indeed, appears to have succeeded in delaying the trial, but only so long as he remained in Trier, which he could not do indefinitely. Once he left, Maximus was prevailed upon to reopen proceedings, and Priscillian soon confessed to a number of castigated practices, including prayer while naked and shameful nocturnal meetings. He was convicted of sorcery and, with Maximus’ nod of approval, was executed along with Euchrotia, a poet named Latronianus, and two priests named Felicissimus and Armenius. Instantius was exiled to the Isles of Scilly. Salvianus was spared punishment only by virtue of having died of natural causes several years previous while the Priscillianists were still in Italy (Sulp. Sev. Chron. 2.48). Though the official charge was sorcery, the Priscillianists are generally regarded as the first people in Christian history to have been executed for heresy.Footnote 34
These then are the Manichaeans to whom Maximus makes reference, and the date of Priscillian's trial is important for the dating of the letter, which seems to have been written in the immediate aftermath of its conclusion.Footnote 35 But dating either the trial or the letter has proven impossible with any certainty. Priscillian is usually described as having died in 385 but this date is, as far as I can establish, simply derived from the fact that his trial at Trier followed on from that held in Bordeaux (probably) in 384 and can therefore plausibly be dated to the following year. Sulpicius in his Dialogi claims that Martin lived ‘for sixteen years’ after the synod at Trier which followed the trial, which would place Priscillian's death in 381 or 382, patently impossible since Maximus was not even made emperor until 383.Footnote 36 The fifth century Gallic chronicler, Prosper of Aquitaine, a famously poor guide to issues of chronology, places Priscillian's death in 385, and the Chronicle of Hydatius places it in 387.Footnote 37 The trial was clearly still either ongoing or very recently concluded when Ambrose travelled to Trier for his second mission on behalf of Valentinian, but this embassy has proven every bit as hard to date as Priscillian's trial, with any date between the summer of 384 and the summer of 387 being possible.Footnote 38 Ultimately, therefore, any date between the spring of 384 and the spring of 387 is a plausible one for Priscillian's death, and Coll. Av. 40 could thus reasonably date from any point between the middle of 384 and Maximus’ death in the summer of 388. This being said, though there is nothing in the letter that explicitly forbids its being dated to the period after Maximus’ invasion of Italy in 387, this would seem unlikely. The context of the letter is firmly Gallic, and Maximus gives nothing that might suggest that both he and Siricius were in Italy at the time of writing. Further, Maximus likewise has nothing to say about the expulsion of Valentinian (a point we would surely expect him to speak on in a letter that dwells upon his own defence of the Nicene creed against heretics) nor of the coming war with Theodosius. These silences seem to me sufficient to exclude the possibility that Maximus wrote to Siricius from Italy, and a reasonable estimate on the date of Coll. Av. 40 would therefore place it between the spring of 384 and the summer of 387. Any date selected within that range will ultimately be conjectural.Footnote 39
Maximus makes clear that he was responding to letters sent to him by Siricius concerning the matter of Agroecius, who—we can only assume—was either a Gallic priest or an Italian priest in hiding in Gaul. Written appeal to emperors for help in resolving legal or procedural difficulties within imperial territory was, by the late fourth century, a long-established norm for people on (generally) the higher ranks of the social hierarchy.Footnote 40 Bishops had, from the very outset of imperial sponsorship of Christianity, shown themselves keen to make use of this avenue for arbitration.Footnote 41 Given, however, that Siricius almost certainly wrote to Maximus during the period when he and Valentinian were facing off across the Alps, the appeal takes on a rather more nuanced character. For anyone—bishop, general, magistrate, or even ordinary citizen—to appeal to an emperor with whom his own emperor was currently in conflict was a dangerous, even treasonous, thing to do. In 351 Athanasius of Alexandria had found himself in a very difficult position indeed when he was accused by Constantius II of corresponding with the usurper Magnentius (who, like Maximus, was ultimately responsible for the death of the emperor's brother), and here the mere accusation of a correspondence with the usurper appears to have been enough to land the bishop in seriously hot water (albeit with an emperor already ill-disposed to him).Footnote 42 Admittedly, the situation in the 380s was not identical. Siricius would, perhaps, have felt that he was able to justify his conduct as necessary: only the Gallic emperor could be expected to deal with problems within the Gallic Church, and the bishops of Rome had recently enjoyed flexing their metropolitan muscles (cf. Coll. Av. 13). Siricius himself had issued a decretal in 385 answering fifteen specific questions put to him by Spanish bishops, and making clear his expectation that his answers would be binding through Hispania.Footnote 43 Siricius may also have taken his cue from the court at Constantinople and from Theodosius’ recognition of Maximus.Footnote 44 Whatever bad blood existed between Maximus and Valentinian, Siricius’ most immediate imperial master, Theodosius’ approval granted Maximus a legitimate standing (albeit one that would eventually be rescinded). None the less, a correspondence with his own emperor's enemy was a bold move and demonstrates that Siricius’ own desire to manage the Church and to exert the stewardship that bishops of Rome felt was their right over the Christian community of the West trumped purely secular concerns regarding the direction of his own political loyalties.
Regarding the relationship between Maximus and Siricius that is evidenced within this letter, many commentators have stressed that emperor and bishop were, after the trial of Priscillian, in conflict with one another and that the bishop of Rome censured Maximus for his role in Priscillian's death.Footnote 45 Detailed justification of this is rarely given, but the argument would seem to be that, since Siricius appears to have ceased communion with a number of the bishops involved in Priscillian's trial (the so-called ‘Felician schism’, after Felix of Trier, which lasted until c.400), he must therefore have been in conflict with Maximus as well. This is certainly a plausible inference, but an inference nevertheless, and one that hardly seems borne out by Maximus’ letter. If Siricius had written to Maximus rebuking him for his behaviour, then Maximus’ reply is a model of tact. Maximus makes no reference to criticism from Siricius nor does he rebuke the bishop in any way, addressing him with deference and acceding to his requests regarding Agroecius (Coll. Av. 40.2). His discussion of the Priscillianist controversy, which many have argued is Maximus explaining his behaviour to the furious bishop, is introduced in such a way that it seems rather more that Maximus was bringing the topic up, not responding to anything that Siricius had asked him.Footnote 46
Maximus is certainly explaining his behaviour to Siricius in the letter, for he appears to be promising to send Siricius further documentation concerning the trials at Trier, but it is hard to detect any explicit censure to which Maximus is responding, for his tone remains amicably cooperative throughout. It is possible, granted, that Maximus’ response was consciously framed in order to neuter criticisms directed at him by Siricius by completely ignoring them; however, given that the Maximus we meet in Ambrose's Ep. 30[24] and in Sulpicius Severus is a man inclined to anger when confronted with challenge, and given that Maximus’ letter to Valentinian brims over with barely veiled threats, this seems a perverse reading of Coll. Av. 40.Footnote 47 However Siricius responded to the bishops of Gaul, it seems that he and Maximus remained on cordial, even friendly, terms. Nor is this surprising, for whilst bishops might censure other bishops, they were generally much more cautious when addressing emperors.Footnote 48 This is not, of course, to suggest that Siricius was not appalled by Priscillian's execution or to doubt the reality of the Felician schism, merely to suggest that Siricius’ behaviour towards bishops at least nominally subordinate to him and his behaviour towards the emperor should not necessarily be expected to be the same.
For our understanding of Maximus and the concerns that drove him, the letter is invaluable. In vouching for his own religious credentials, Maximus describes himself as one who uidelicet et ad imperium ab ipso statim salutari fonte conscenderim (‘ascended to imperial rule directly from the font of salvation itself’, Coll. Av. 40.1). It is hard to read this statement—and, indeed, it is in this light that scholars have tended to read it—as anything other than a declaration by Maximus that the ceremony attendant on his accession had included his baptism (effected, one would assume, by a senior British bishop).Footnote 49 If so, this would constitute the earliest-ever testimony of an explicitly Christian element being fused into the more traditionally secular imperial acclamation.Footnote 50 Though, in Constantinople, we have evidence during the fifth century for an increasing involvement of Church leaders in the growing formalization of accession rituals tied to the topography of Constantinople, Maximus’ letter predates even the earliest of these by some three quarters of a century.Footnote 51 Baptism, the ritual cleansing of sin, was an astoundingly important ceremony, frequently reserved (for laymen and emperors alike) until shortly before the moment of death.Footnote 52 For Maximus to publicly unite his one chance to clean his spiritual slate with the ceremonial attendant on his accession was an exceptionally strong statement of Maximus’ religious devotion and his conception of his role as a sacred one but also of his confidence in the rectitude of his coming reign.
Above all, this letter and its predecessor show how concerned Maximus was with the business of both religious orthodoxy and the management of the Church. The nature of the evidence, of course, promotes this conclusion (these letters were selected for the Collectio Avellana precisely because they deal with Church matters), and so one would want to be careful about generalizing too freely from them; not every output of Maximus’ court will have been so saturated with Christian sentiment. Yet the point remains: Maximus was a usurper with a military background, a hard and uncompromising man who had seized power and had seen an emperor murdered in doing so. And yet he was also a man imbued with a deep religious conviction and a Christian piety. There is no contradiction in this, nor should we see one, but it is worth pointing out how fulsomely Christianity had come to assume a role within the imperial office in the seven decades since Constantine's conversion. Theodosius’ panegyrist Pacatus would later present Maximus as a Phalaris, praying for ‘the wounding of religion [to satisfy] his impiety’, drawing much rhetorical value from Maximus’ handling of the Priscillianist incident in order to do so (Pan. Lat. 2[12].29.4). Theodosius himself made much of his piety, and so it suited Theodosius to be praised in terms that denigrated the religious credentials of his rival, but such was the victor's prerogative.Footnote 53 It is this consideration that brings us to our final section.
MEMORY SANCTIONS AND THE SURVIVAL OF MAGNUS MAXIMUS’ LETTERS
We turn now to the difficult question of how and why these letters have survived. Neil McLynn, in a forthcoming chapter on Maximus’ letters, writes that the questions surrounding the survival of the letters ‘resist conclusive answers’ and one cannot help but enjoy that understatement.Footnote 54 Though memory sanctions were not the blanket imposition of total silence and censure that they are sometimes imagined to be, it nevertheless remains true that no other document authored directly by an individual who fell from power and thus became a tyrannus survives to us from the late Roman world, and these letters thus present a totally unique opportunity to hear the authentic voice of a late Roman usurper. The question of their survival is in fact composed of two distinct parts. First, how, where and why did they survive Maximus’ downfall in 388? Second, why did these texts make their way into the sixth-century compilation of the Collectio Avellana? We will address these questions in order.
That these letters were not destroyed following the fall of Maximus is bizarre. I have tried for several years to make sense of it without ever having achieved a result that satisfied me completely and, while I am not so hubristic to think that someone else may yet crack the code, it ought to be stated that everything we know—or think we know—about late Roman political life tells us that these letters should have been destroyed in 388 when Magnus Maximus was officially defeated. As sources for any sort of future legal judgement or citation of precedent, one would assume that they were worthless.Footnote 55 Coll. Av. 39 with its condescending tone and its reminders of both Valentinian's political failures and his alleged Arianism was an embarrassment at best, a treasonous affront on the imperial person at worst. More importantly, Coll. Av. 40, given that it provides clear evidence that the bishop of Rome had been in contact with the usurper Maximus, was likewise a potentially damaging document.Footnote 56 Any archive in which these letters were preserved risked bringing down upon its caretakers the wrath of the conquering emperor Theodosius.
If this were a simple omission, so that the letters lay forgotten in some archive somewhere for centuries, it would not seem so odd. The sheer multiplicity of imperial self-representation made universal erasure impossible. Texts on stone, perhaps not least because of the sheer effort required to erase them, often escaped the censorious chisel.Footnote 57 Texts on parchment and papyrus, so much easier to destroy, are far rarer, though the ghosts of fallen tyranni can be detected in the Codex Theodosianus, thanks to the occasional inclusion of their laws during its apparently haphazard composition (although one should note here that the tyranni must be inferred, since fallen emperors are never named by the code).Footnote 58 Maximus’ letters, however, were not overlooked, but were known and were demonstrably being read within just a few years of his downfall.
The key figure here is the monk and scholar Tyrannius Rufinus (or Rufinus of Aquileia).Footnote 59 Rufinus was a native of Italy but had made his name as both an ascetic and a scholar in the East in the 380s and early 390s (where, importantly, he had been a great copier and collector of such works as fell within reach of his pen). By 397 he was back in Italy, in Rome, and in the years that followed he spent his time both in the ancient capital and in his native Aquileia. It was while at the latter, in 402, that the bishop of Aquileia, Chromatius, asked Rufinus to produce a Latin translation of Eusebius’ Church History, a project which Rufinus had completed within a year with the addition of two further books that carried Eusebius’ story down to the death of Theodosius in 395.Footnote 60 In the pages of Rufinus’ Book 11, we find this telling passage, which follows hard on the heels of Rufinus’ account of the basilica conflict in Milan in 385–6 (Ruf. Hist. eccl. 11.16):
And while the wicked Justina slowly worked her various schemes and abuses, Maximus, who wished to strip from himself the stain of tyranny and to show himself a legitimate emperor, sent a letter (datis litteris) and declared that an impious undertaking was assailing the faith of God, that the established customs of the Catholic Church were being undermined, and because of these things he set out towards Italy. Justina, when she learned of this, pressed both by an enemy and by consciousness of her impiety, threw herself into flight with her son, and the exile that she had prepared for the priests of God thus fell to her lot.
The letter to which Rufinus refers here must surely be Coll. Av. 39 (and may include 40 as well). We thus have clear testimony that one or both of these letters were known and available to access in the years before 402.Footnote 61 Two obvious avenues of consultation present themselves: either Rufinus read the letters in an imperial archive in his native Aquileia (where the court had occasionally made its home after 386) or, more probably, he consulted them in an archive at Rome, perhaps either Siricius’ own (Siricius was in office until his death in 399) or the archives of the prefect of the city.Footnote 62
This is odd. Letters written by usurpers were not documents that any wise Roman should have wished to have in their possession. When Maximus’ downfall was made known in Rome, the former prefect of the city, Q. Aurelius Symmachus, who had delivered a panegyric to Maximus earlier in 388 or late in 387, fled in fear of his life for the most unlikely of sanctuaries, the basilica of St Peter's.Footnote 63 It took several years for Symmachus to effect his rehabilitation with Theodosius and his later letter collection, published partly within his lifetime and partly posthumously, is scrupulously clean of any hint of Symmachus’ involvement with Maximus’ regime, clearly as the result of careful editing.Footnote 64 Libanius’ collected letters, likewise, have been excised for the period 365–388, during which time he was implicated in the rebellion of Procopius and may also have been in contact with members of Magnus Maximus’ circle.Footnote 65 Athanasius of Alexandria spent the remainder of his life attempting to dodge accusations that, during the early 350s, he had corresponded with Constantius’ enemy, the usurper Magnentius. Documentary evidence of fraternization with imperial enemies could be sufficient grounds for a death warrant.Footnote 66 Quite apart from the fact that the letters were thus politically dangerous documents to possess, Theodosius—as we would expect in any instance in which one emperor defeated another in civil war—had declared null and void all legal judgements made by Maximus and all offices he had appointed. Three laws to this effect survive in the Codex Theodosianus, issued in September 388 at Aquileia (15.14.6), October 388 at Milan (15.14.7), and January 389 again at Milan (15.14.8). ‘Every judgement which that greatest and most unspeakable of tyrants conceived in his cunning mind in order to render injury, not law, we will condemn. Let no one preen himself with any law of his, nor any judgement’, Theodosius declared in his October rescript (Cod. Theod. 15.14.7). The language was hardly equivocal, and the validity of Coll. Av. 39 and 40 in forming any kind of legal precedent was thus very explicitly voided from virtually the moment of Theodosius’ victory.
Two tentative hypotheses may be advanced to explain this apparent aberration, each slightly different for the two letters. Concerning Coll. Av. 39, if the document survived (as seems reasonable to assume) in an imperial archive, whether that of the emperor at Aquileia or that of the prefect of Rome, then one can imagine that it may have been consciously retained, even despite Maximus’ damnatio, as a valuable document relating to one of the greatest political upheavals of the last generation. It is useful to have at one's fingertips the pertinent facts, even if these facts are potentially damaging. This same archival impulse today has allowed damning insights (in the fullness of time) to emerge from within organizations as secretive as the FBI and the KGB. Furthermore, given that the (largely farcical) official justification of Theodosius’ war with Maximus involved defending the rights of the young Valentinian, one could imagine that an unsolicited letter attesting Maximus’ meddlesome attitude towards Italian affairs was considered sufficiently safe to avoid the flames.
Coll. Av. 40 is perhaps easier to explain. Though, as we have seen, Theodosius had invalidated the legal judgements of Maximus, the Christian Church of the 380s was already well practised at exploiting the fuzzy borders of where exactly secular authority ceased and ecclesiastical authority began. Indeed, Maximus himself argued in Coll. Av. 39 that it was not the responsibility of the emperor to meddle in the affairs of the divinely appointed religion of God. Siricius may have felt, therefore, that it was possible to retain this letter and that its retention could be justified by reference to principles divorced from Maximus’ political status but rooted in his religious status.
Though this seems to fly in the face of expected behaviour on the part of a late Roman bishop, who would have the good sense to remember that the emperor's will was (in general) absolute, it should be noted that the Collectio Avellana is not alone in being a source that appears to take a politically incorrect tone with regard to the fallen Maximus. Maximus appears in both the Vita S. Martini and in the Dialogi of Sulpicius Severus, written in or before the year 397 and in the period c.404–406 respectively.Footnote 67 As can be seen from the citations in the previous section, Severus’ testimony regarding Maximus’ conduct during his years of rule in Gaul provides vital material for understanding the religious context of the Collectio Avellana letters. In view of Maximus’ ultimate fate, however, what is so striking about Severus’ accounts is not so much their historical detail as the generally positive assessment that they provide of Maximus’ character. He writes in the Dialogi that ‘Emperor Maximus then ruled the state, a man whose whole life was worthy of praise, if only he had been permitted to refuse the diadem illegitimately thrust upon him by the tumultuous soldiery, or to avoid civil war.’ Notably, Sulpicius’ very next sentence in many ways exculpates Maximus for his crimes, for ‘a great empire cannot be refused without danger, nor preserved without recourse to arms’, and he stresses that Maximus routinely summoned Sulpicius’ hero, Martin of Tours, to the court at Trier and discoursed with him on pious subjects, whilst Maximus’ wife—concerning whom Sulpicius cannot contain his acclamation ‘blessed woman!’ (beata mulier)—waited personally on the saint at his table and washed his feet with her tears. Sulpicius may criticize Maximus for his role in the Priscillian affair, but, like his assessment of Maximus’ character, he believed that the emperor was a good man whom a corrupt world led into error, not a monster of innate evil.Footnote 68
Nor is this assessment a completely isolated one. Rufinus, we have seen, was hardly critical of Maximus, whose illegitimacy he acknowledges but whose resistance to the devil-woman Justina seems to rank as more important in the final assessment (Ruf. Hist. eccl. 11.14–17). Orosius, a firm Theodosian partisan, admits that Maximus was ‘an active and honest man, worthy of the name of Augustus had he not taken that title as a tyrant against the bonds of faith’ (Oros. 7.34.9). Even in the eastern empire, suggestion of the recognition of Maximus’ virtues may be found (albeit coded within a dismissive polemic) in the assertion of the Church historian Sozomen that Maximus attempted to disguise the tyranny of his reign with a feigned wish to combat ‘innovation in the ancient form of religion and of the ecclesiastical order’.Footnote 69 Highly unusually for a defeated usurper, a memory of Maximus as a ruler possessed of good qualities thus appears to have been preserved in the written record: at Rome, in Spain, in Gaul and perhaps even in the East in the decades immediately following his downfall.
What are we to make of this fact? All three sources that we have cited and that seek to ameliorate Maximus’ reputation share in common the fact that they were either written or collected by Christians who were firm adherents of the Nicene creed, a position that they—as we have already noted—shared with Maximus but not with Valentinian. Might it be possible, therefore, that in these texts we are witnessing the emergence of a world in which religious orthodoxy was beginning to vie with political orthodoxy as a consideration in the reputation of men whose lives had brought them into political disgrace? The crime of treason had always been a black mark against an individual's legacy but, as the crime of heresy began to take on a definitive political importance, traitors to the state might find themselves defended by the Church. Certainly, Maximus’ Catholicism did not defend him from later Catholic critics, but his often favourable appearance within fourth- and early fifth-century sources is remarkable.
We turn now to the second of our two questions, why these letters ended up in the compendium of the Collectio Avellana. The starting point for this enquiry must be the Collectio itself, though it generates only more questions, for Maximus’ letters bear no obvious relation to the documents with which we find them. The Collectio is a compendium of two hundred and forty-four (roughly) chronologically arranged letters and documents relating to questions of papal authority and the defence of orthodoxy, and they all date to the period between 367 and 553.Footnote 70 The majority are letters from the bishops of Rome to emperors or other bishops, though many other kinds of document are also preserved. All are written in Latin and more than two hundred of the documents included within the collection are unique survivals.Footnote 71 The guiding principle under which the documents were assembled appears to have been to provide historical source material regarding a number of both schisms within the see of Rome and wider doctrinal disputes within the ecumenical Church. Beyond this general motive, discernible from the documents within the corpus, tragically little is known about the composition of the Collectio. It is assumed that it was assembled in its final form at Rome in the mid sixth century, shortly after the date of its final letters.Footnote 72 However, Otto Günther (who edited the text in the 1890s) hypothesized—and that hypothesis prevails to this day—that Coll. Av. 1–40, which seems to form a relatively distinct set within the collection, was an earlier assemblage later incorporated into a sixth-century (or later) compendium.Footnote 73 Coll. Av. 1–13 is a series of letters and documents, which includes imperial laws and the relationes of Symmachus, relating to the Ursinian schism that rocked the Church at Rome in 366 and dragged on for many years after. Coll. Av. 14–37 relate to the Eulalian schism, which, like the Ursinian, was a dispute over the tenure of the Roman see that ran from 418 to 419.Footnote 74
As a whole, the Collectio Avellana has an obvious—if loose—theme as a collection of documents that generally reinforce the supremacy of the bishop of Rome within the Church, or that illustrate moments at which the office was disputed between multiple claimants. A subtheme might also be the relationship of the bishops of Rome to the emperors. In this respect, both letters certainly fit broadly into the correct categories: both deal with heresy, with the boundaries of secular vs religious authority, and both assert Rome's primacy (Coll. Av. 39.4, 40.2). Coll. Av. 40 also bears a relation—albeit tangential—to documents 1–13, given that Siricius was the successor to Damasus (366–384), with whose disputed election the Ursinian schism began, and so one can imagine how this document was added on as an appendix (for my reservations on this, see below).Footnote 75
Coll. Av. 39 is much more difficult to explain. The document is not concerned with either of the schisms in question, nor is it related in any way to the see of Rome or to the authority of its bishop. Some tentative hypotheses can be advanced. Neil McLynn, in a book chapter as yet unpublished at the time of writing this, has suggested that the inclusion of Maximus’ letters may most readily be explained by Coll. Av. 38, a letter from Honorius to Arcadius protesting the treatment of another testy bishop on the doorstep of the court, John Chrysostom.Footnote 76 This is also the position of Escribano Paño.Footnote 77 One might also observe that, whilst the letter to Valentinian does not bear directly on the Roman schisms, it does nevertheless outline clearly the responsibility of emperors to tread lightly in meddling with Church affairs; more importantly, it denounces in forceful language the ‘error’ of the Arians and affirms the responsibility of emperors to protect orthodox belief. Given that in 381 Ambrose had accused the would-be pope Ursinus, then in exile, of colluding with Valens, onetime bishop of Poetovio, to establish a refortified Arian Church in Milan, the connection may well lie here.Footnote 78 Though Ambrose's claim is almost certainly untrue, none the less it provides some basis for seeing both a Milanese and an Arian connection perhaps sufficient to have earned this letter a place in the dossier. Finally, it should be stated that we cannot rule out the possibility that there is no overarching rationale behind the inclusion of these letters.Footnote 79 The dossier itself is something of a miscellany, with texts that support differing positions on the controversies, and so the documents may be less an attempt to present a single argument than an assemblage of potentially useful material of various types. Coll. Av. 39 and 40 may look out of place simply because they are, and one hypothesis for their inclusion would thus be that they were haphazardly stuffed at the back of the dossier Coll. Av. 1–40 by a scribe or an archivist who thought them interesting and who saw that they had at least a tangential relation to the material he was assembling but did not know what to do with them. Any academic who takes an honest look through their own notes and folders would probably have to sympathize with this.
Maximus’ letters are a unique survival from the late Roman world. Thanks to them we gain a view otherwise denied to us onto the political culture of the late Roman world, we hear the authentic voice of an individual who ought properly to have been silenced, and we see how emperors spoke to one another in the tense environment of a world rocked by recurrent civil war. What is more, in these letters we see important developments not only in the Christianization of the imperial office but also in the relationship between the imperial court and the increasingly muscular and assertive Christian hierarchy. These letters deserve to be known by all who study Late Antiquity.
THE TEXTS
COLL. AV. 39: LETTER OF THE TYRANT MAXIMUS TO VALENTINIAN THE YOUNGER, AGAINST THE ARIANS AND THE MANICHAEANS Footnote 80
(1) If Our ClemencyFootnote 81 had not a simple faith in Your Serenity and the grace of full concord [with you], I confess that those things which it is said are now occurring in the regions ruled by Your Tranquillity could be very convenient for my interests—[namely,] the disturbance and convulsion of the Catholic law.Footnote 82 For what might be so desired by him who is [your] enemy than that you labour against the Churches of God—that is, against God himself—and that, where error is inexcusable, there he would wish you to sin?Footnote 83 (2) But since Our Serenity has a greater respect for God than that we would wish that he be violated by a most hostile foe, and since also we have so close and so attentive a concern for Your Youthful Serenity that your deeds rightly done delight us more than your errors:Footnote 84 because of this we believed that Your Constancy ought to be advised that you should, mindful of your concern for the supreme Name and considering the power of His self-same Majesty, weigh carefully with an anxious mind what you ought to do.
(3) Indeed, I hear (for rumour does not allow [such things] to be kept secret, particularly when action is taken against the people) that force has been deployed against Catholic Churches by new edicts of Your Clemency, that priests are being besieged in their churches,Footnote 85 that a fine has been imposed,Footnote 86 that capital punishment is added on,Footnote 87 and that the most sacred law is being overthrown in the name of I know not what law. How serious this is, you will be able to see, if you wish to consider the greatness of God. I would blush even at the thought of wishing to provide the reason in which Your Serenity should believe, and to conduct a case for God. Why bother, if it were this alone? For if you were to change things consolidated and strengthened through so many ages, would the discord you were seen to excite be small?Footnote 88
Our tradition gives reverence in our mortal sphere to human laws themselves, and in fact there is censure in having done something new in things now long-established and familiar. (4) All of Italy and Africa believe under this pledge of allegiance;Footnote 89 Gaul, Aquitania, all of Spain, and venerable Rome herself (which possesses the primacy over this territory too)Footnote 90 glory in this faith, because it recognizes God and wishes to follow him.Footnote 91 I, indeed, confess (which is a thing not said without sorrow) that Illyricum alone dissented. If only this example of previous error did not exist! If only that town of MursaFootnote 92 endured unharmed by Arian laws and had not perished at the judgement of its former miserable error so that, because it had cultivated those originators [that is, of Arian doctrine], the town was laid low by the singular vengeance of an angry God. It is dangerous, believe me, to test divine things. (5) The divine Valentinian, of venerable memory, the father of Your Clemency, ruled faithfully under this faith. He wanted to assault nothing which seemed to be well established.Footnote 93 These men were certainly bishops beneath him: why then this great change, that those who were previously priests are now judged as sacrilegious?Footnote 94 Dedicated to the same teachings, to the same sacraments, they believe with the same faith with which they believed before. (6) Can it be that Your Serenity, venerable to me, thinks that a religion which has once taken root in the minds of men, which God himself has established, can be uprooted? How much discord will be stirred up from this? How much controversy will arise? How frequent and destructive the insurrections? How great and how present to God will be the prayers of the just, when there is begotten amongst Christians—it is an iniquity even to utter it—a certain resemblance to persecution?
(7) You will have understood how to interpret this our assiduity that you are able in no better way to test my care for Your Clemency than if I should encourage you that you should desist;Footnote 95 indeed, I think that You will recognize that no one would advise if he were an enemy. I desire that you will understand that these things have been said lovingly by us. I hope You will believe it. (8) Wherefore it is in every way proper that you should not overthrow the things which have been dedicated to the sacred godhead, that you should return all of Italy and venerable Rome and the other provinces to their churches and to their priests, nor should you plant yourself in the midst of this, because it is more proper that those who have seceded from the Catholic Church through the Arians’ interpretation should change their error through true religion than that they press their depravity upon those who are thinking rightly.
COLL. AV. 40: MAGNUS MAXIMUS, CONQUEROR, ETERNAL TRIUMPHATOR, FOREVER AUGUSTUS TO FATHER SIRICIUS
(1) We received the letter of Your Sanctity, which was most pleasing to us and which was entirely appropriate to your title of priest and to the dignity of the most splendid city. And in truth, of the Catholic faith, concerning which you wished to consult Our Clemency, I confess that the more I experience the special verdict from the divinity in my favour, the greater concern I have for this faith. For indeed I have ascended to imperial rule directly from the font of salvation itself,Footnote 96 and God has been with me as my patron in all my undertakings and successes, and thinks it fitting to be today and, I hope, in perpetuity my protector and guardian, my dearest father.
(2) Moreover,Footnote 97 concerning Agroecius, who you relate was undeservedly raised to the rank of priest, what provision more respectful to our Catholic religion can I make than that Catholic priests judge, concerning this same man, of what sort he seems to be? I shall arrange a council at a convenient time of all those who live either within the Gauls or within the Five Provinces, in whichever city they shall choose, that this same council, being present and giving consideration, may judge what the law is and what has been held as custom.Footnote 98 For they who know [these things] are better able to supply these judgements, which are to be affirmed through books and through the most sacred ordinances of our forefathers.Footnote 99
(3) Moreover, we declare that this thing is our will and intent, that the Catholic faith, with all discord far removed, and with the whole body of priests working in harmony and serving God together, endure uninjured and sacrosanct. For our arrival detected and discovered some things so marked and polluted by the stain of the wicked that, if our foresight and medicine, which came from a fear of the most high God, had not swiftly brought help to them, then surely unnatural disruption and ruin would have occurred, with the result that the sins, which could hardly have been healed thereafter, would have hardened like a scab.
(4) Moreover, as for the crimes which it has recently been made knownFootnote 100 that the ManichaeansFootnote 101 are committing, on the basis not of arguments or of doubtful or uncertain suspicions but from their own confession brought forth during legal proceedings, I prefer that Your Sanctity should learn of this from the records themselves rather than from our mouth,Footnote 102 since we cannot speak without blushing of things of this sort, which are not only disgraceful to do but disgusting even to say.Footnote 103
AND BY THE HAND OF THE EMPEROR: May the Divinity keep you safe for many years.
