to ascribe one point or other of such carnal interpretations to
each, and to Sulpicius the opinion that Jerusalem, with the temple
and sacrifices, will be restored by Antichrist, &c., which cannot be
called erroneous; though St. Jerom justly rejects that
interpretation, because the desolation foretold by Daniel is to
endure to the end. In the decree of Gelasius this dialogue of Gallus
is called Apocryphal, but in the same sense in which it was rejected
by St. Jerom. Nor is this exposition advanced otherwise than as a
quotation from St. Martin's answer on that subject. See the
justification of Sulpicius Severus, in a dissertation printed at
Venice in 1738, in Racolta di Opuscoli Scientifici, t. 18, and more
amply by F. Jerom de Prato, Disser. 5, in Opera Sulpicii Severi, t.
1, p. 259, commended in the Acta Eruditor. Lipsiae, ad an. 1760.
Gennadius, who wrote about the year 494, tells us, (Cat. n. 19.)
that Sulpicius was deceived in his old age by the Pelagians, but
soon opening his eyes, condemned himself to five years' rigorous
silence to expiate this fault. From the silence of other authors,
and the great commendations which the warmest enemies of the
Pelagians bestow on our saint, especially Paulinus of Milan, in his
life of St. Ambrose, (written at latest in 423,) and St. Paulinus of
Nola, and Paulinus of Perigueux, (who in 461 wrote in verse the life
of St. Martin,) l. 5, v, 193, &c., some look upon this circumstance
as a slander, which depends wholly on the testimony of so inaccurate
a writer, who is inconsistent with himself in other matters relating
to Sulpicius Severus, whose five years' silence might have other
motives. If the fact be true, it can only be understood of the
semi-Pelagian error, which had then many advocates at Marseilles,
and was not distinguished in its name from Pelagianism till some
years after our saint's death, nor condemned by the church before
the second council of Orange in 529. Pelagius was condemned by the
councils of Carthage and Milevis in 416, and by pope Innocent I. in
412. If Sulpicius Severus fell into any error, especially before it
had been clearly anathematized by the church, at least he cannot be
charged with obstinacy, having so soon renounced it. We must add,
that even wilful offences are blotted out by sincere repentance. See
F. Jerom d