Note N48 — St. PETER (continued 7)

And yet some have been induced by the Date it bears, to question its Authenticity. For it is dated the 15th of February 404. Now, it is manifest, say they, from the Letter itself, that Victricius was at Rome while the Emperor Honorius was there; and it is no less certain, that Honorius did not arrive at Rome till the Month of December 403. If therefore Victricius was at Rome in December 403. it is not at all probable, that Innocent should have written to him on the 15th of February 404. To solve this Difficulty, some suppose Victricius to have applied to Innocent, while he was still at Rome; and Innocent, instead of informing him, as he might, by Word of Mouth, to have given him in Writing the desired Instructions, that, having thus more Weight, they might the more readily be complied with by other Bishops. But it is manifest, from Innocent’s Words, that his Letter was an Answer to one from Victricius; and we cannot well suppose Victricius, who was at Rome in December, to have returned to Rouen, to have written from thence to Innocent, and Innocent to have returned him so full an Answer by the 15th of the following January. We may conclude the Year to have been, by some Mistake, altered, and 404. inserted in the Date instead of 405. since the Letter could not be written earlier, as I have just observed, than the Month of January (if January was the true Month) of the latter Year; and we have no Reason to think it was written later. The Mistake as to the Year might have been occasioned by the Transcriber’s omitting P. C. Post Consulatum Honorii, and thereby confounding the Year of the Emperor’s Sixth Consulship 404. with the Year after it 405.--Such Omissions frequently occur, and have led Writers, not aware of them, into great Mistakes, in point of Chronology, or made them suspect, nay, and condemn, as spurious, the most authentic Pieces of History. This Letter, in some Editions, bears no Date; and F. Labbé assures us, that he has seen a manuscript Copy of it, in which the Date was wanting. Some therefore suppose the Date to have been afterwards added, nay, and the whole Conclusion of the Letter. For Innocent closes it by saying, that the Observance of the Rules it contains will banish all Ambition among the Bishops, compose all Differences, prevent all Schisms, and leave no room for the Devil to insult the Flock of Christ. A Conclusion taken probably from some other Piece, and not at all adapted or applicable, with Truth, to this.