Councils of Braga - Priscillian condemned

Steven Avery

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Second Council of Braga
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Council_of_Braga

First Council of Braga
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Braga

https://d-nb.info/1029485739/04

https://books.google.com/books?id=DikZ4GEmgUIC&pg=PA21

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RGA - p. 37


See also the Canons of the Second Council of Braga, PL 84:582:

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LV. Quid in altari offerri oporteat. Non oportet aliquid aliud in sanctuario offerri prater panem et vinum et aquam, quae in typo Christi benedicuntur, quia dum in cruce penderet de corpore eius sanguis effiuxit et aqua. Haec tria unum sunt in Christo Iesu, haec hostia et oblatio Dei in odorem suavitatis.”

This document, which was subsequently absorbed into the Decretum Gratiani, first appears in the forged ps.-Isidorean collection, put together in the ninth century; it is consequently difficult to know whether the formulation genuinely reflects the thought of the late fifth century. In any case it is fascinating that this phraseology occurs in combination with the three elements of flesh, blood and water, which are found in Priscillian’s citation of 1 Jn 5:8.
 
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Steven Avery

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WOGIG

Canons of the Second Council of Braga (572 AD)

The Second Council of Braga, held in 572, presided over by Martin of Braga, was held to increase the number of bishops in Galaecia. Twelve bishops assisted at this council, and ten decrees were promulgated: (1) that the bishops should in their visitations see in what manner the priests celebrated the Holy Sacrifice and administered baptism and the other sacraments, thanking God if they found everything as it should be, and instructing the priests if they were found wanting in knowledge, and obliging all catechumens to attend instructions for twenty days before baptism and to learn the creed; (2) that the bishop must not be tyrannical towards his priests; (3-4) that no fee must be accepted for Holy orders, and the holy chrism must be distributed free; (5-6) that the bishop must not ask a fee for consecrating a church, that no church should be consecrated without the bishop being sure of the endowment of the ministers, and that no church built on private property for the purpose of emolument should receive consecration; (8) that if a cleric should accuse any one of unchastity without the evidence of two or three witnesses he should be excommunicated; (9) that the metropolitan should announce the date of Easter, and have it made known to the people after Christmas, so that they might be prepared for the beginning of Lent, when litanies were to be recited for three days; on the third day the Lenten fast should be announced after the Mass; (10) that any one saying Mass without fasting, as many did, as a result of Priscillianist tendencies, should be deprived of his office. This council was attended by the bishops of the suffragan sees of Braga, and by those of the Diocese of Lugo, and Pope Innocent III removed all doubt as to its authenticity.
(Second Council of Braga. Wikipedia. <en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Council_of_Braga>)

Saint Martin of Braga (in Latin Martinus Bracarensis, in Portuguese, known as Martinho de Dume c. 520–580 AD) was an archbishop of Bracara Augusta in Gallaecia (now Braga in Portugal), a missionary, a monastic founder, and an ecclesiastical author. According to his contemporary, the historian Gregory of Tours, Martin was plenus virtutibus ("full of virtue") and in tantum se litteris imbuit ut nulli secundus sui temporis haberetur ("he so instructed himself in learning that he was considered second to none in his lifetime").[1] He was later canonized in the Catholic Church as well as in the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches, for his work in converting the inhabitants of Gallaecia to Chalcedonian Christianity,. His feast day is 20 March. Born in Pannonia, in Central Europe, Martin made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, where he became a monk.[2] He found his way to Hispania, decided to settle in Gallaecia. "His intentions in going to a place so remote by the standards of his own day are unknown," writes Roger Collins. But his arrival in Gallaecia was historically significant, for he played an important role in converting the Suevi from their current Arian beliefs to the Chalcedonian Christianity of their Fifth-century king Rechiar. While there he founded several monasteries, the best known of which was at Dumium (modern Dumio);[2] around 550 he was consecrated bishop of Braga, whence comes his surname. In May 561, Martin attended the provincial First Council of Braga as bishop of Dumio. He presided over the Second Council of Braga held in 572 as archbishop of Braga,[2] having been elevated to the archdiocese between the two events; Laistner notes "His authorship of ten chapters submitted and approved in 572 is certain and there is little doubt that he also compiled the Acts of both Councils."
[M.L.W. Laistner, Thought and Letters in Western Europe: A.D. 500 to 900, second edition (Ithaca: Cornell University, 1957), p. 117]

Martin of Braga was a prolific author. Besides his contributions to the
two provincial councils, he translated into Latin a collection of 109 sayings attributed to Egyptian
abbots, while at his instigation the monk Paschasius, whom Martin had taught Greek translated
another collection of sayings, entitled Verbum seniorum. But for modern scholars, his most interesting
works were two treatises he wrote in the final decade of his life, De ira and Formula vitae honestae,
because they were adapted from two essays of Seneca the Younger which were subsequently lost.
"Martin's tract are valuable evidence that some at least of Seneca's writings were still available in the
land of his birth in the sixth century," writes Laistner. Three other short essays on ethics demonstrate his
clear familiarity with the works of John Cassian.
[See: M.L.W. Laistner, Thought and Letters in Western Europe: A.D. 500 to 900, second edition (Ithaca: Cornell University, 1957), p. 117] (Martin of Braga. Wikipedia. <en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_of_Braga>)

HITS:
 55 What ought to be offered on the altar? There must be nothing else to be offered in the sanctuary besides bread, wine, and water, these are blessed in the type of Christ, because while he was hanging on the cross blood and water flowed out of his body. These three are one in Christ Jesus: this sacrifice and the oblation of God for a sweet odor.
(Canons of the Second Council of Braga)

o Latin: LV. Quid in altari offerri oporteat. Non oportet aliquid aliud in sanctuario offerri præter panem et vinum et aquam, quæ in typo Christi benedicuntur, quia dum in cruce penderet de corpore eius sanguis effluxit et aqua. Hæc tria unum sunt in Christo Iesu, hæc hostia et oblatio Dei in odorem suavitatis.
(Canons of the Second Council of Braga; Migne Latina, PL 84:582)
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
cjab
https://forums.carm.org/threads/speculum-liber-de-divinis-scripturis.10899/page-7#post-847639

Leo had an attack on Priscillian for scripture corruption, this follows in that path.

Interesting decrees from the Council of Braga AD563 from A History of the Councils of the Church Vol 4,
https://archive.org/details/ahistoryofthecou04hefeuoft/page/n399/mode/1up
Hefele (note especially decree 17 at the end).


1 The Synod of Braga, A.D. 563 (in the Spanish province of Galicia), is called the second at that place, reckoning as the first the supposed Synod of A.D. 411 (see vol. iii. sec. 118). There were present seven bishops of the province of Galicia, with their metropolitan, Lucretius of Braga, and many priests and clerics. At the very beginning the metropolitan declared that the bishops had long wished for a Synod, but that it had now, for the first time, become possible through the approval of King Ariamir. Galicia was occupied by the Suevi, and formed a separate kingdom under Arian princes. These were naturally averse to the meeting of the orthodox bishops in a Synod ; but the case was altered when Ariamir, whom Gregory of Tours calls Charrarich, converted about A.D. 560 by S. Martin, bishop of Dumium, came over to the Catholic Church.2 Then was held the Synod of Braga, May 1, 563. On the proposal of the President, they first took up the subject of the Faith, in opposition to the Priscillianist heresy. We have already seen (vol. iii. sec. 167) that Pope Leo the Great called upon the Spanish bishops to take vigorous measures against the Priscillian heresy, and that, on his inducement, two great Spanish Synods occupied themselves with this matter, one at Toledo (of the bishops of the civil provinces of Tarragona, Carthagena, Lusitania, and Bsetica), and the other in the province of Galicia (in municipio Celenensi, vol. iii sec. 167). Only of the former do we still possess the Acts, namely, a creed and eighteen canons. Both documents were now again read at Braga, and seventeen new capitula added in condemnation of the Priscillianist heresy, with the introductory remark : If anyone, cleric, monk, or layman, so think or defend such doctrine, he shall be cut off as an unworthy member from the body of the Catholic Church. The canons are as follows : —

1. If anyone does not confess that the Father, the Son, and the Holy G-host are three persons of one substance, or power, or might, as the Catholic and apostolic Church teaches ; and if, further, anyone recognises only a single Person, so that HE who is the Son is also the Father and the Paraclete, as Sabellius and Priscillian teach, let him be anathema.

2. If anyone introduces any names of the Godhead, besides those of the Holy Trinity, maintaining that in the Godhead there is a trinity of the Trinity, as the Gnostics and Priscillianists teach, let him be anathema.

3. If anyone says that the Son of God, our Lord, did not exist before HE was born of Mary, as Paul of Samosata, Photinus, and Priscillian taught, let him be anathema.

4. If anyone does not reverence the birthday of Christ, but fasts on this day and on Sunday, because he does not believe that Christ was born in true human nature, like Cerdo, Marcion, Manichseus, and Priscillian, let him be anathema.

5. If anyone believes that the souls of men and angels have come from the substance of God, as Manichaeus and Priscillian maintain, let him be anathema.

6. If anyone says that the souls of men sinned first in the heavenly abodes, and therefore were cast down into human bodies upon the earth, let him be anathema.

7. If anyone denies that the devil was at the beginning a good angel, created by God, and maintains that he came up from chaos and darkness, and had no creator, but is himself the principal and the substance of evil, as Manichseus and Priscillian taught, let him be anathema.

8. If anyone believes that, because the devil has produced some things in the world, he thus also makes, by his own power, thunder and lightning, and storms, and drought, as Priscillian taught, let him be anathema.

9. If anyone believes that the souls and bodies of men are subjected by destiny to certain stars, as the heathen and Priscillian taught, etc.

10. If anyone believes that the twelve signs (of the zodiac), which the mathematicians are wont to observe, are distributed over the particular members of the soul and the body, and assigned to the names of the patriarchs, as Priscillian taught, etc.

11. If anyone condemns matrimony, and abhors pro creation, like Manichaeus and Priscillian, etc.

12. If anyone says that the formation of the human body is a work of the devil, and that conception in the womb of woman is produced by the action of demons, and therefore does not believe in the resurrection of the flesh, like Manichaeus and Priscillian, etc.

13. If anyone says that the production of all flesh generally is not a work of God, but of evil angels, as Manichaeus and Priscillian taught, etc.

14. If anyone declares flesh meat, which God has given to man for use, to be unclean, and so abstains from it, not for the chastening of the body, but because of its supposed uncleanness, so that he does not use even vegetables cooked with flesh, like Manichaeus and Priscillian, etc.

15. If a cleric or monk adopts any other woman besides his mother, or sister, or aunt (thia), or other near blood relation, and keeps them with him and dwells with them, as the Priscillianist sect teaches, etc.

16. If anyone on the Thursday before Easter, at the Ccena Domini, does not, at the appointed time, after hours, keep Mass (missas non tenet) fasting in the church, but, after the manner of the Priscillianist sect, keeps the festival of that day, after terce, with their fast discontinued by a Mass for the dead, etc.

17. If anyone reads the Scriptures, as falsified by Priscillian in accordance with his heresy, or the treatises of Dictinius which he wrote before his confession, or any other books of heretics, which they have invented under the names of patriarchs, prophets, or apostles, and receives or defends their impious fabrications, etc.
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator

The preface to the council, from the Collectio Hispana Gallica Augustodunensis (Vat. lat. 1341)

THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE SYNOD OF BRACARE BEGINS, IN THE CURRENT ERA OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST, NINE BISHOPS.


IN THE THIRD YEAR OF KING ARIAMIRI, THE MAIAN CALENDAR, with the bishops of the province of Gallicia [a], Lucretius, Andreas, Martinus, Coitus , Ildericus, Lucecius, Timotheus, and Maliosus, by order of the aforesaid most glorious king Ariamiris, met in the metropolitan church of the same province of Bracar, To the bishops sitting together, the presbyters also present, and the ministers present or the entire clergy, Lucretius, the bishop of the aforementioned metropolitan church, said: Most holy brothers, it has been a long time since, according to the institutions of the venerable canons and the decrees of Catholic and apostolic discipline, we desired that a priestly assembly should take place between us, which not only ecclesiastical rules and convenient for orders, but also always stable ||fol. 78vb || it brings about the concord of fraternal charity, while the priests, gathered together in the name of the Lord, seek among themselves those salutary contributions which, according to the apostolic teaching, may desire the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.

Now, therefore, since your most glorious and most pious son, wishing for us the day of this assembly, aspired [c] to his master, he lent it usefully. First, I will compare the state of faith as stated above. For although the contagion of the Priscillian heresy was once discovered and condemned in the provinces of Spain, lest any one, through ignorance, or by some, deceived as is usual by the apocryphal writings, is still infected with some pestilence of the same error, it should be declared to men who are manifestly ignorant, who are in the very extremity of the world and in the uttermost parts of this province [d ] established by the limits, they had little or almost no knowledge of correct learning.

But I believe that we know the fraternity of your blessedness, because at the time when the most infamous Priscillian sect was spreading poisons in these regions, the most blessed Pope Leo of the city of Rome, who was almost forty years old, the successor of the apostle Peter, through Turpius, the notary of his see, directed his writings to the synod of Gaul against the impious sect of Priscillian [g]. And the bishops of Terracon and Carthage, and the bishops of Lusitan and Boethia, having made a council among themselves, having drawn up the rule of the faith against the Priscillian heresy with some chapters, directed them to Balconius, then the presbyter of this church of Bracar.

Wherefore, since we have here before our hands the prescribed model of the faith with the subject chapters for the instruction of the ignorant, if it pleases your reverence, it will be recited. All the bishops said: The reading of these chapters is very necessary, so that while they are exposed to the simpler and more ancient statutes of the holy fathers, long ago abhorred by the seat of the blessed Peter the Apostle, and condemned by the heretics of the Priscillians, they may know them.

The model of faith was read with its chapters, which, in order not to make it long, were not at all inserted in these deeds. After the reading of the chapters the necessary reading should be reviewed [h] ||fol. 79ra || yet the things which are execrable being thus set forth, shall be declared more plainly and simply, even in chapters, so that he who is less learned may understand, and thus the figments of Priscillian's error, already exploded under the sentence of anathema, may be condemned. That any cleric or monk or layman should be found to still feel or defend such a thing, as if truly the father of the Jews should immediately be cut off from the body of the Catholic Church, lest the stain of either the society or its corruption should be considered a reproach to the right believers from the mixing of such orthodox ones.
 

Steven Avery

Administrator

Interestingly, in the Second Council of Braga, AD 572, they use a partial version of our verses that stays close to Priscillian. This is using The Witness of God is Greater and Raising the Ghost of Arius (TWOGIG for the English).
What ought to be offered on the altar? There must be nothing else to be offered in the sanctuary besides bread, wine, and water, these are blessed in the type of Christ, because while he was hanging on the cross blood and water flowed out of his body. These three are one in Christ Jesus: this sacrifice and the oblation of God for a sweet odor.

o Latin: LV.
Quid in altari offerri oporteat. Non oportet aliquid aliud in sanctuario offerri præter panem et vinum et aquam, quæ in typo Christi benedicuntur, quia dum in cruce penderet de corpore eius sanguis effluxit et aqua. Hæc tria unum sunt in Christo Iesu, hæc hostia et oblatio Dei in odorem suavitatis.
(Canons of the Second Council of Braga; Migne Latina, PL 84:582)
Click to expand...

Grantley writes:
"it is fascinating that this phraseology occurs in combination with the three elements of flesh, blood and water, which are found in Priscillian’s citation of 1 Jn 5:8. " - p. 37

However, I do not see flesh in the manner of Priscillian (one of the three earthly witnesses, aqua caro et sanguis), to say the blood and water flowed out of his body is simply Johannine scripture.
 

Steven Avery

Administrator
Probably after the age of Cyprian, and after the Council of Alexandria in 362 when the three-in-one formula was officially adopted by the "catholic" church.

"At Alexandria, however, the bishops condemned in general terms the doctrine that [the Holy Spirit] was a creature, and emphasized the unity and coequality of the Persons of the Holy Trinity....but now for the first time [the triad] was. formally and officially adopted. Further, Rufinianus, probably a Syrian bishop who had some correspondence with Athanasius as to the decisions of the Synod, writes signifying his assent to them in these words: ' Sound is the idea of perfection for the Divinity as for the economy of the manhood. Sound is the doctrine of the Divinity in a single essence. Pure and wholesome to the souls of the faithful is the confession of the Holy Triad. Perfect then is the Economy of the. Manhood of the Saviour and Perfect His soul also. Nothing is lacking in Him.' Here we have clearly and concisely summed up the theoretical discussions of the Synod, as we now enumerate them (a) The Holy Spirit and the TRINITY, (b) Our Lord's Human Nature, (c) the μία ουσα (one sunstance)."
(THE SYNOD OF ALEXANDRIA AND THE SCHISM AT ANTIOCH IN A.D. 362. by C.M. Armstrong/Journal of Theological Studies)


As for when, where, why, whom no-one can know. The suggestion is that it didn't first arise in Italy, as it would have been discussed by notable Italians. So probably in Spain or in North Africa; but where it was studiously avoided by the likes of Ausgustine. With the increasing Roman drive towards orthodoxy in Augustine's day, its presence was likely sanctioned for that end, and so it became a scripture of convenience to use principally against the Arians and Arian Vandals. With no present agreement on the author of De Trinitate, everything is speculative.

Per GM in RGA

4. Priscillian, early creeds, and the origins of the comma in textual combination

The emergence of established Christological and Trinitarian positions was
attended by the formulation of a number of formal doctrinal statements:
professions of faith, creeds and cathechisms. One step in the construction of
formal doctrinal statements was the collection of a coherent series of short credal
statements (what we will call symbola here for want of a more precise term),
which served as building blocks from which more complex articulations (whether
doctrinal regulæ fidei or liturgical creeds) could be built. Such symbola probably
arose first in “private creeds,” confessional statements made spontaneously in
response to particular situations. There is evidence that the phrase “[these]
three are one” in one of its various forms—[hæc] tria (or [hi] tres) unum sunt (or
unus [est] deus)—was used from an early period as a symbolum professing belief
in the Trinity. For example, Victricius of Rouen († c. 407) writes in his work De laude sanctorum: We confess God the Father, we confess God the Son, we confess God the Holy Spirit. We confess that the three are one.”

It is in another such a profession of faith—the Liber apologeticus (c. 380) of Priscillian, a Spanish bishop executed in 385 on charges of sorcery and heresy—that we first find the comma cited unambiguously. Priscillian, whose works were suppressed at the first Council of Braga and only rediscovered in 1885, cites the comma not merely as evidence of the unity of God, but also to support his notion of “Panchristism.” This position, anathematised by bishop Pastor of Palencia and the Council of Braga, is a species of Unitarianism that rejects any attempt to distinguish the persons of the Trinity, identifying Christ as the one true God.

The form in which Priscillian cites the comma is as follows: Tria sunt quæ
testimonium dicunt in terra: aqua caro et sanguis; et hæc tria in unum sunt. Et tria
sunt quæ testimonium dicunt in cælo: Pater, Verbum et Spiritus, et hæc tria unum sunt
in Christo Iesu. Several features of Priscillian’s reading of the comma deserve
notice. Firstly, he places the heavenly witnesses after the earthly witnesses; this
uncertainty is a feature of the manuscript transmission for the next thousand
years. Secondly, Priscillian says that the heavenly witnesses “are one in Christ
Jesus.” Thirdly, Priscillian uses the neuter forms hæc tria instead of the masculine
hi tres one would expect in a direct translation from the Greek. Finally, Priscillian
lists the three earthly witnesses as water, flesh and blood, a variant found in no
extant Greek bible, but in the writings of some Latin Fathers and a handful of
Latin bibles copied as late as the thirteenth century.

Since Priscillian was the first author to cite the comma, Karl Künstle (1905) suggested that he had invented it and inserted it in the biblical text. This suggestion was immediately challenged by Adolf Jülicher (1905). Joseph Denk (1906) likewise argued that Priscillian’s citations of Scripture reflect a “very early, extremely interesting and faithful form of the Itala,” and pointed out that he
himself had not found any other instance of deliberate falsification of Scripture in Priscillian’s work. Moreover, Denk suggested that if Jerome had suspected Priscillian of inventing the passage, he certainly would have unmasked and denounced such an outrageous forgery.44 (However plausible Denk’s suggestion may appear, arguments ex silentio do not compel assent. Indeed, Jerome also fails
to mention the unusual variant “water, flesh and blood” in Priscillian’s reading of verse 8, which—although it is represented in some later Spanish manuscripts— would certainly have merited a comment from Jerome if he were familiar with Priscillian’s text.) Ernest-Charles Babut (1909) concurred with Denk, and added that the comma is to be found in several orthodox works of the fifth century,
which would hardly be expected if it were the invention of a man condemned as a heretic. All these factors suggested to Babut that the comma was already to be found in the bibles of Priscillian’s orthodox opponents as well as in his own. 45 Whatever the truth of the matter, the rediscovery of Priscillian’s work, coinciding with the beginnings of interest in the textual history of the Vulgate by Berger (1893) and the editors of the Oxford critical text of the Vulgate (1889-1954), led to the more general suggestion that the comma may have first arisen in Spain rather than in North Africa, as had hitherto been suspected.

If you think one element held up the process (e.g. Word/Son and Holy) indicate that in your explanation.

And when did the verse become predominant among Old Latin manuscripts?
Since most Old Latin manuscripts have been destroyed, no-one can possibly know.

Meaning inclusion rather than omission, allowing variations.

1 John 5:7 (AV)
For there are three that bear record in heaven,
the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost:
and these three are one.

Not concerned here with positioning before or after the earthly witnesses.
Nor are we concerned with the occasional addition “in Christ Jesus”.

If you have a theory about formation in the Arian controversies, please share.

Your thoughts welcome!
Thanks!
Click to expand...
 
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