FREE: Part I of Hincmar of Rheims’ Previously Untranslated Defense of the Metropolitan Rights

Note:   Archbishop Hincmar’s Defense of the traditional autonomous Synodal System of Metropolitan Provinces, against the new fangled pretensions emanating from Old Rome in the 9th Century, is well-known; an attempt was made at the Synod of Ponthion to violate the rights of the Bishops, by elevating Archbishop Ansegis of Sens to the status of Primate of Gaul and Germany, contrary to the established Canonical Decrees and Traditions.  Despite all attempts to force the issue, the Bishops, led by Abp. Hincmar, denied the ability of the Bishop of Old Rome to contradict the Canons of the Holy Councils and those accepted Decrees of the Bishops of Old Rome that had been found in conformity with them.  In a word, dozens of Sainted Popes, Fathers, Canons, and Councils of the past far outweighed the innovative will of a living Pope, especially when the latter was contrary to the aforesaid Fathers and Councils. 

“Against the measure of the Canons the validity of Papal enactments must be gauged.  As we have observed in another context, the Archbishop [Hincmar] disputed the Papal freedom to judge and approve the Canons which the younger Hincmar [of Laon; the deposed nephew of the Archbishop] affirmed in exalting the Papal Decrees themselves to the status of Canons.  For the Archbishop, the consent of the Apostolic See could never be given validly to any establishment contrary to the Canons of Nicea; indeed, the vigour of Papal enactments derived from the fact that they were promulgated “ex sacris canonibus” [from the Sacred Canons].  So firm was he in this position, that he was charged before Pope John VIII at the Synod of Troyes (878) with “being unwilling to receive the authority of the Decrees of the Pontiffs of the Roman See.”  According to the historian Flodoard, he answered this charge with the equivocable promise “to receive and carefully to follow (as far as they are to be followed) the Decretals of the Roman Pontiffs received and approved by Holy Councils.”  The very words of Hincmar’s promise to obey any Decree of the Roman Church, issued “according to the measure of the Holy Scriptures and the Decrees of the Holy Canons,” contain the same qualification.

“The Popes, according to the Archbishop, did not promulgate laws; for, once subscribed and promulgated, laws remained binding forever, and Papal Decretals were issued, not as abiding regulations, but as counsel for temporary conditions.  Once the immediate circumstances which evoked a given Decretal were past, the edict lost its legal relevance. Therefore, some of the Decretals were incorporated into the Canons, and so preserved their binding power; others were altered for application to new circumstances; the rest slipped into desuetude.” (“Two Kingdoms: Ecclesiology in Carolingian Political Thought”, pages 92-93, by Karl F. Morrison)

Bound by the Scriptures, Councils, Fathers, Canons, and the rights of the local Churches, and, heeding only those Papal Decrees that were in conformity with them, were given according to equity, and had been incorporated thus into the Canons, the whole scheme of Ultramontanism and Hildebrandianism would have proved impossible to enact; the only way around this was through forgery, violence, and lies. The two visions of the Apostolic See of Old Rome, that of Hincmar’s “De Jure” and that of Hildebrand’s “Dictatus Papae”, were fundamentally incompatible; they were light and darkness; it was Hildebrand’s that, after decades of violence and fraud, “won” in Old Rome. 

Part I of Hincmar (+882), Archbishop of Rheims Treatise “De Jure Metropolitanorum” [On the Right of the Metropolitans], written to the Bishops concerning the inviolable Rights of the Metropolitans, Written against the attempted Usurpation of the Rights of the Metropolitans by Papal and Imperial Legates at the Synod of Ponthion in 876, in favor of Archbishop Ansegis of Sens

Epistle 30

To the Bishops

Concerning the Rights of the Metropolitans, when the Primacy concerning Ansegis was discussed. 

I. The Decrees of our Lord, both Most Holy and Most Reverend, the Apostolic Pope John, promulgated from the Sacred Canons, just as both the Holy Forebearers and his own predecessors, established from the same Sacred Canons by the Spirit of God, and consecrated with the reverence of the whole world, promulgated, how much is from us, not prejudicial to the opinions of our brothers and Co-Bishops, who are absent, to whom these their own writings are sent, reverently we receive, each Metropolitan having maintained his own right, like the Mystical Nicene Synod irrefragably decreed to be preserved, saying: 

 “Let the ancient customs in Egypt, Libya, and Pentapolis prevail, that the Bishop of Alexandria have jurisdiction in all these, since the like is customary for the Bishop of Rome also.  Likewise in Antioch and the other Provinces, let the Churches retain their privileges.” (Canon 6) “But in every Province the ratification of what is done should be left to the Metropolitan Bishop.” (Canon 4)

II. Which Decrees of the Holy and Great Council of Nicaea the Blessed Innocent thus explains to Alexander the Antiochian Bishop, saying: “Considering, therefore, the authority of the Nicene Synod, which alone unfolds the minds of all the Priests throughout the whole world, what things it decreed to be necessary not only for all the Priests, but also for all the faithful to observe concerning the Antiochian Church, we acknowledge that the said Church was established by it, not over any Province, but over its own Diocese.” (Epistle 20) 

And Pope Boniface writing to Hilary the Bishop of Narbonne, said:  “It summoned us to be diligent guardians of paternal decrees.  Since it seems, in fact, the constitution of the Nicene Synod to no one is unknown, which thus commands, that we may place the same proper words, through each and every Province that each Metropolitan ought to have the right, neither can two be subjected to one.  Because they, for it is not to be believed otherwise, advised by the Holy Ghost kept themselves, agreed.” (Epistle 3, To Hilary, Bishop of Narbonne)   And somewhat after: “Which for that reason we say, that thy charity may take notice of us in order to keep the precepts of the Canons, that thus our constitution also may be defined, to the extent that each Province ever might look to the Ordination of its own Metropolitan in all things.”

III.  And the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Province of Africa writing to Pope St. Celestine said: 

“The Nicene Decrees have most plainly committed the inferior Clergy and the Bishops themselves to their Metropolitans.  For they have ordained with great prudence and justice that all matters shall be terminated in the places where they arise; and they did not think that the Grace of the Holy Ghost would be wanting to any Province, by which Grace the Bishops of Christ would discern with prudence and maintain with constancy whatever was equitable; especially since any party who thinks himself wronged by a judgment, may appeal to the Synod of his Province, or even to a General Council.” (Letter of the African Bishops to Pope St. Celestine concern Apiarius)

 And hence St. Celestine, for the firmness of the matter recalling the Decrees of the aforesaid Boniface, decreed that each Province ought to be content with their own Metropolitan, saying: 

“First, that according to the Decrees of the Canons each Province should be content with its own Metropolitan, that what was given by our predecessor to the Bishop of Narbonne, they hold established, nor is a place for usurpation conceded to one Priest in the injury of another, therefore let each one be content with the concessions to his own self, and the others presume nothing in another Province.” (To the Bishops of Gaul, c. 4)  And also the same: “No Priest may ignore the Canons or do something that could obstruct the Rules of the Fathers.  What of worth will be preserved by us if the norms of established Decretals be shattered at the whim of certain people?” (Pope St. Celestine to the Bishops of Apulia and Calabria, sec. 20) 

And St. Leo to Theodore, Bishop of Forum Julii: “Your first proceeding, when anxious, should have have been to have consulted your Metropolitan on the point, which seemed to need inquiry, and if he too was unable to help you, beloved, you should both have asked to be instructed [by us]; for in matters, which concern all the Lord’s Priests as a whole, no inquiry ought to be made without the Primates.” (Letter 108, sec. I)

IV. And because Holy Roman Church, to whom solicitude of all the Churches was commissioned in Blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles, has many Metropolitans in its own particular diocese, as St. Leo shows by Bishop Anastasius of Thessalonica, likewise also the Alexandrian Church in its own diocese; but also the Antiochian See has several Metropolitans in its own Diocese, as St. Innocent writes to the same Bishop of the Alexandrian See (cf. Epistle 20 of St. Innocent of Rome), and we find in the Ecclesiastical Histories and Synodal Acts the same also with Metropolitans; which Holy Roman Church commissioned its own vicars, according to the Sacred Nicene Canons it decreed their own rights to be preserved just as the same Blessed Leo writing to the same Anastasius said: “Therefore, according to the Canons of the Holy Fathers, which are framed by the Spirit of God and hallowed by the whole world’s reverence, we decree that the Metropolitan Bishops of each Province over which your care, brother, extends by our delegacy shall keep untouched the rights of their position which have been handed down to them from olden times: but on condition that they do not depart from the existing regulations by any carelessness or arrogance.” (Letter 14, To Anastasius, Bishop of Thessalonica)

Therefore it is to be attended to that if the Apostolic See by Metropolitans of its own particular Diocese, just as we read in the Epistle of Blessed Gregory to Regestus, whom, on account of the distance, he delegated his own duties to such Vicars, he ordered his own rights to be kept according to the Sacred Nicene Canons, as also is said in the aforesaid Epistle of Leo to the aforesaid Anstasius, saying: “Or perhaps some crime had reached your ears, and Metropolitan that you are, the weight of some new charged pressed you hard?  But that this is not consistent with the fact, you yourself make certain by laying nothing against him.  Yet even if he had committed some grave and intolerable misdemeanour, you should have waited for our opinion: so as to arrive at no decision by yourself until you knew our pleasure.  For we made you our deputy, beloved, on the understanding that you were engaged to share our responsibility, not to take plenary powers on yourself.” (Letter 14, To Anastasius, Bishop of Thessalonica, Sec. 2)

V. To those Metropolitans (who are also called Primates many times in the Sacred Canons, each are able to be ordained in place of the departed Archbishops and Metropolitans by the Bishops of each Province without the examination of another Primate, and from the law of ancient custom, they are accustomed to be distinguished with splendor of the Pallium by the Apostolic See, to whom the solicitude and preeminence of all the Church in the Primacy of St. Peter was collated, Palliums are usually to be marked for such a character, and in the place of deceased Bishops, without the decree or permission of another Primate, in his own Province each are able to ordain Bishops) their own rights ought to be preserved in all manners according to the same Sacred Nicene Canons: which inviolably decreed, that just as for the Alexandrian Church, for it is the custom that it is equal even to the Bishop of the City of Rome, likewise the same at Antioch, so for other Provinces their privileges are preserved for their Churches.

Concerning which Sacred Canons the aforesaid St. Leo thus says here and there to Anatolius the Constantinopolitan Bishop: “After the Consecration of the Bishop of Antioch, which you claimed for yourself contrary to the regulations of the Canons, I grieve, beloved, that you have fallen into this, that you should try to break down the Most Sacred Constitutions of the Nicene Canons: as if this opportunity had expressly offered itself to you for the See of Alexandria to lose its privilege of second place, and the Church of Antioch to forego its right of being third in dignity, in order that when these places had been subjected to your jurisdiction, all Metropolitan Bishops might be deprived of their proper honour.  By which unheard of and never before attempted excesses your went so far beyond yourself as to drag into an occasion of self-seeking, and force connivance from that Holy Synod which the zeal of our Most Christian Prince had convened, solely to extinguish heresy and to confirm the Catholic Faith: as if the unlawful wishes of a multitude could not be rejected.” (Letter 106, To St. Anatolius, Bishop of Constantinople, sec. 2)

VI. In accordance with these and other Decrees the Apostolic Sees are held:  “That if both all Priests and the world assent, the damnation involves the consenting, the consensus does not absolve the prevarication.  For the crime is not diminished, but increases, when the general is made from the private.  For the God of all indicated this, Who destroyed the sinful world with a General Flood.”  And again St. Leo said to the aforesaid Anatolius: “And that state of things which was truly ordained by the Holy Ghost in the Canon of Nicaea could in any part be overruled by anyone!  Let no Synodal Councils flatter themselves upon the size of their assemblies, and let not any number of Priests, however much larger, dare either to compare or to prefer themselves to those 318 Bishops, seeing that the Synod of Nicaea is hollowed by God with such privilege, that whether by fewer or by more ecclesiastical judgments are supporter, whatever is opposed to their authority is utterly destitute of all authority.” (Letter 102, sec. 2)   And a little after: “These Holy and Venerable Fathers who in the City of Nicaea, after condemning the blasphemous Arius with his impiety, laid down a Code of Canons for the Church to last till the end of the world, survive not only with us but with the whole of mankind in their constitutions; and, if anywhere men venture upon what is contrary to their Decrees, it is ipso facto null and void; so that what is universally laid down for our perpetual advantage can never be modified by any change, nor can the things which were destined for the common good be perverted to private interests; and thus so long as the limits remain, which the Fathers fixed, no one may invade another’s right but each must exercise himself within the proper and lawful bounds, to the extent of his power, in the breadth of love.” (sec. 4)  For there are other Sees, other Presidents, and to each the great honour is their own integrity. 

VII. And also the same to the Chalcedonian Synod writing, he said: “Concerning the customs established of the Holy Fathers, which in the Nicene Synod: “On the matter of preserving also the inviolable Decrees of the Holy Fathers which were issued at the Council of Nicaea, I admonish the observance of your holinesses that the rights of the Churches must remain as they were laid down by the 318 Divinely Inspired Fathers.  Let vicious ambition covet nothing belonging to another, nor let anyone seek his own increase through injuring another.  For however much vainglorious pride builds on extorted assent and thinks that its depredations can be strengthened through talking of councils, whatever differs from the Canons of the aforesaid Fathers will be null and void.  As for the reverence with which the Apostolic See follows their regulations, your holinessess, from reading my writings in which I repelled the attempts of the Bishop of Constantinople, will be able to learn that, with the help of Our God, I am the guardian of the Catholic Faith and of the Ordinances of the Fathers.” (Letter 114, St. Leo the Great to Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon)  And to Marcian Augustus: “For the privileges of the Churches determined by the Canons of the Holy Fathers, and fixed by the Decrees of the Nicene Synod, cannot be overthrown by any unscrupulous acts, nor disturbed by any innovation.  And in the faithful execution of this task by the aid of Christ I am bound to display an unflinching devotion; for it is a change entrusted to me, and it tends to my condemnation if the Rules sanctioned by the Father and drawn up under the Guidance of the Spirit of God at the Synod of Nicaea for the government of the whole Church are violated with my connivance (which God forbid!), and if the wishes of a single brother have more weight with me than the common good of the Lord’s whole House.” (Letter 104, St. Leo the Bishop to the Emperor Marican, sec. 3)

VIII.  And to Pulcheria Augusta: “For no one may venture upon anything in opposition to the enactments of the Fathers’ Canons which many long years ago in the City of Nicaea were founded upon the Decrees of the Spirit, so that any one who wishes to pass any different decrees injures himself rather than impairs them.  And if all Pontiffs will but keep them inviolate as they should, there will be perfect peace and complete harmony through all the churches; there will be no disagreements about rank, no disputes about Ordinations, no controversies about privileges, no strifes about taking that which is another’s; but by the fair law of love a reasonable order will be kept both in conduct and in office, and he will be truly great who is found free from all self-seeking, as the Lord says, ‘Whosoever will become greater among you, let him be your minister, and whosoever will be first among you shall be your slave; even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto but to minister.’” (Letter 105, St. Leo to Pulcheria Augusta, Sec. 2)  And to the Antiochian Bishop Maximus: “Because my respect for the Nicene Canons is such that I never have allowed nor ever will the Institutions of the Holy Fathers to be violated by any innovation.  For different sometimes as are the deserts of individual Prelates, yet the rights of their Sees are permanent: and although rivalry may perchance cause some disturbance about them, yet it cannot impair their dignity.  Wherefore, brother, if ever your consider any action ought to be taken to uphold the privileges of the Church of Antioch, be sure to explain it in a letter of your own, that we may be able to reply to your application completely and appropriately.  But at the present time let it be enough to make a general proclamation on all points, that if in any synod any one makes any attempt upon or seems to take occasion of wresting an advantage against the provisions of the Nicene Canons, he can inflict no discredit upon their inviolable decrees: and it will be easier for the compacts of any conspiracy to be broken through than for the regulations of the aforesaid Canons to be in any particular invalidated.” (Letter 119, To Maximus, Bishop of Antioch, Sections 3-4)  For the tranquility of universal peace will not be able to be guarded otherwise, unless his own reverence for the Canons is preserved inviolate. For whatever is deferred to the Episcopal examination beyond special causes of the Synodal Councils, is able to have some rationale to be judged, if nothing about it was defined by the Holy Fathers at Nicaea.  For what is discordant from their Rules and Constitution, will never be able to obtain the consent of the Apostolic See. 

Part II to be published next Tuesday for Subscribers; please consider Subscribing to NFTU to support translations and additional content creation….