Complete Works of Lactantius Vol. II

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and the Council of Arles intervened, it did not even occur to them to argue that Melchiades was guilty of the crime of traditio the handing over of sacred books to persecutors.

15. Indeed, having invented this later, they accused not only Melchiades but also Marcellinus, Marcellus, and Silvester of the same crime. From this, we may safely suspect that this calumny was not devised by them before the times of Pope Silvester. For although they claimed that this wickedness was perpetrated by Marcellus, Melchiades, and Silvester while they were still presbyters under Marcellinus, no one fails to see that they devised this to create hatred and envy toward the Apostolic See and to deflect its authority against themselves; and this was done even after Marcellus, Melchiades, and Silvester had already been decorated with the dignity of that same See.

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16. Moreover, it is understood from the words of Augustine in the Breviculus collationis cum Donatistis Summary of the Conference with the Donatists, ch. 18, that the Donatists first leveled this charge of crime against Melchiades at the Carthaginian conference.

"When the Judge Referring to the imperial representative, the Cognitor had compelled them," says Augustine, "to say whether they had anything to offer against the council and judgment of Melchiades, by which Cæcilianus was read to have been purged and absolved, then the Donatists began to argue that Melchiades himself was guilty of traditio, and to say that their predecessors had fled his judgment for that reason."
It was not at all difficult to convict those who asserted this of lying, since their predecessors, when refusing to stand by the judgment of Melchiades, are never found to have alleged anything of this sort in their petitions. But because they were objecting to a matter unheard of not only by the Judge but also by the Catholics themselves, therefore
"the Judge being intent on whether any judgment, either public or ecclesiastical, could be produced concerning the crime of traditio, and the Catholics themselves expecting and demanding that it be proven, the Donatists read certain very prolix records before the prefect, in which neither the prefect himself appeared nor was the place read where these things were done: but the records themselves sounded with a very long recitation of many people handing over many ecclesiastical things, where the name of Melchiades did not sound at all. When these things were finished,"
the Judge marveled "that one thing was promised and another was read." Thereafter they read other records, in which it was read that Melchiades had sent the deacons Straton and Cassianus to recover locations taken from Christians during the time of persecution by order of the emperor.
"And since no crime of Melchiades appeared to the Judge or to the Catholic defenders in these records either, the Donatists said that the deacon Straton, whom he had sent with others to recover ecclesiastical locations, was read in the previous records as a traditor one who handed over sacred books: and therefore they wanted to sprinkle Melchiades also with the crime of traditio, because he used that deacon without having him degraded."
But when asked "whether it was at least expressed in those records of traditio that he was the deacon Straton," they were not able to prove even that. The Catholics answered, furthermore, that even if a deacon named Straton had been called a traditor, it did not follow that he was the same one whom Melchiades later used: since it could have happened that

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just as among the apostles there were two Jameses and two Judases, and among the schismatics themselves two Donatuses, one of Casae and one of Carthage, so too among the Roman deacons there existed two Stratons at the same time (Aug., Brevic. day 3: collat. with Donat., ch. 18, n. 34).

"It was also added by the Catholics that, even if it were demonstrated—which was not demonstrated at all—that the same deacon Straton had committed traditio, whom Melchiades later sent with other deacons to recover ecclesiastical locations, Melchiades would not immediately be sprinkled with this crime, for persecution could have made him absent and far away, so that he was completely unaware of this, and considered him innocent whom no one accused or showed to be guilty." (Ibid., n. 35.)
Finally, when the Donatists tried to return to the calumnious accusation of Melchiades, they were repelled from it by the interlocution of the Judge.

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17. Yet they did not rest because of this. For even after the Carthaginian conference, they seized the opportunity to slander Melchiades because the name of Cassianus was found both among his deacons and in those records where the act of traditio was read (Augustin. Brevic. coll., n. 36). But this persistence of the Donatists and their various attempts to defame Melchiades alone, while sparing the other judges of the Roman council, are evidence of how grave and inconvenient they felt his authority to be. And they achieved nothing else by so many and such iniquitous machinations except to reveal the moderation, equity, integrity, and innocence of Melchiades' life.
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For those who, striving to construct a calumny against him on all sides, were forced to seek the occasion in his own deacons—or rather in the similarities of names common to his deacons—must have utterly lacked anything they could rightfully blame in him. They revealed with what fury they were possessed when, in the judgment where accusers and witnesses were heard in the presence of the accused, and where they were unwilling to stand by the judgment pronounced by the judges whom they themselves had requested, and over whom the most equitable prelate and the prince of all bishops presided, they preferred to appeal to the Emperor. Constantine, being more religious than they, took their appeal very poorly: but being a little more indulgent than he should have been, while he did not suppress their audacity, he gave place and occasion for grave evils to the Church.
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Although he granted another judgment at Arles to those who were appealing, nevertheless, he did this, as Augustine attests (Epistle 43, formerly 162, n. 20),

"not because it was necessary, but yielding to their perversities, and desiring in every way to restrain such impudence."
Nor did an appeal of this kind prevent, as we have already explained, the bishops Eunomius and Olympius, who were sent to Africa to settle the affairs of the Carthaginian church, from pronouncing afterward that
"the sentence of the nineteen bishops already given long ago could not be dissolved" (Optat., lib. 1).

§ VI. — Concerning the decrees attributed to Pope Melchiades.

18. Isidore Mercator attributed two letters to Melchiades, one to Leontius and the other bishops of Spain, and another inscribed concerning the primitive Church and the Munificence of Constantine toward it. Regarding both, as having no more weight than authenticity, we have deliberately neglected to include them here.