Rule, Penitential & Letters 33

TO POPE BONIFACE IV. To the fairest of all the head of the churches of all Europe, to the most sweet Pope, to the most exalted prelate, to the Shepherd of shepherds, to the most reverend watchman: the most lowly to the most lofty, the rustic to the urbane, the trifler in words to the most eloquent, the last to the first, the pilgrim to the native, the poor little one to the most powerful (wondrous to tell! a new thing!), a rare bird, Palumbus dares to write to Father Boniface. I. Who can hear a bald-pate? who will not at once say: Who is this chatterer, this presumptuous one, who, unbidden, dares to write such things? Who, an inciter to retaliation, will not straightway burst forth into that ancient reproachful taunt, with which that Hebrew, who was doing wrong to his brother, answered Moses:

'Who made thee a prince, or a judge over us?' (Exod. 2:14)? To whom I first reply that there is no presumption where it is plain that there is necessity for the building up of the Church; and if he cavils at the person, let him consider, not who it is that speaks, but what I say. For what shall the pilgrim Christian keep silent, which the neighbouring Arian has long been declaiming? For better are the wounds of a friend than the deceitful kisses of an enemy (Prov. 27:6). Others detract gladly in secret; I, sorrowing and grieving, will reprove in public; yet the evils of harmful schism, not the goods of impious peacemakers. Not therefore out of vanity or insolence do I, a manikin of the meanest quality, presume to write to men so exalted:

for it is grief rather than elation that compels me to indicate to you, with most humble suggestion, as is fitting, that the name of God is blasphemed among the nations because of you who contend on both sides. II. For I grieve, I confess, over the infamy of the chair of St. Peter: yet I know that the business is beyond me, and that at first sight I shall, as the saying goes, set my face beneath live coals; but what will you do to me before men, where the zeal of the faith must needs be displayed? Before God and the angels I shall not be confounded; it is praise, for God's sake, to be confounded before men; if I be heard, the gain shall be common: if I be despised, my reward shall be my own. For I shall speak as a friend, as a disciple, as your follower, not as a stranger;

therefore freely will I speak to you as to our masters, and pilots of the spiritual ship, and mystic look-out men at the prow, saying: Watch, for the sea is stormy, and is roused to fury by deadly scourges; for it is not only the menacing wave — which, even when stirred, ever rises swelling over the deep with foaming crests, in the eddies of the hollow whirlpool, hyperbolically though it be from afar — and drives before it for eight thousand paces the furrowed shoals; but the tempest of the whole element, rising on every side and stirred on every side, threatens the shipwreck of the mystic ship; therefore I, a timid sailor, add my cry: Watch, for the water has now entered into the ship of the Church, and the ship is in peril. For we are disciples of Saints

Peter and Paul and all the disciples who wrote the divine canon by the Holy Spirit, we are their disciples, all Irishmen, dwellers at the world's edge, receiving nothing beyond the evangelical and apostolic doctrine: there has been no heretic, no Jew, no schismatic; but the catholic faith, as it was first delivered by you, the successors namely of the holy apostles, is held unshaken. Strengthened by this confidence, I have dared, as though goaded on, to rouse you against those who blaspheme yours, and cry out 'receivers of heretics,' and call them schismatics; that my boasting, with which, faithful to you, I have spoken in answer to that man, may not be in vain, and that they, not we, may be confounded.

For I have given my pledge on your behalf, that the Roman Church defends no heretic against the catholic faith — for so it befits disciples to think concerning their master. Therefore receive with a willing heart and devout ears the suggestion of my necessary presumption; for whatever I shall say, whether useful or orthodox, will be reckoned to your credit. For the praise of the master lies in the teaching of his disciples; and so, if a son shall have spoken wisely, the father will rejoice, and it will be your praise, because, as I said, it proceeded from you. For purity is to be ascribed not to the stream but to the fountain.

But if, as though exceeding the measure of zeal, you should find any words, whether in this letter or in the other against Agrippinus, who moved me to write, set down unpolished, attribute them to my lack of discretion, not to arrogance. III. Watch therefore for the peace of the Church, come to the aid of your sheep, now trembling as it were at the terrors of wolves, which besides fear even you yourselves, since by excessive dread they have been driven about into a wavering whirl. And so, doubting, some coming, some indeed withdrawing, even as they come, so they turn back, and are ever in dread. Wherefore, O Pope, use the true shepherd's whistles and your familiar voice, and stand between them and the wolves, that, their fear laid aside, they may then for the first time recognise you fully as their shepherd.

For the people whom I see, while it endures many heretics, is zealous, and is quickly troubled like a frightened flock; and thence it is not soon secure, because Italy has had so many wolves, whose cubs can scarcely all be destroyed, since indeed they have been reared in such caverns. May God destroy the caverns and such seed, and feed them with His own flock, and may He prick you to compunction: keep watch vigilantly at your pastoral office, standing over your watch day and night, that you may see that nut-tree rod, which is a hook (Amos 8:1, 2), and afterwards deserve to see the true season of gathering the fruit. Therefore, that you may not lack apostolic honour, preserve the apostolic faith, confirm it by testimony, strengthen it by writing, fortify it by a synod, that none may rightfully resist you.

Do not despise the little counsel of a foreigner, as one who is your teacher in being zealous for you. The world is now declining, the Prince of shepherds draws near: beware lest He find you negligent, and smiting your fellow-servants with the blows of bad example, eating and drinking with the Hebrews, lest there befall you the consequence of security: For he that is ignorant shall be ignored (1 Cor. 14:21). It is not enough for you to be anxious for yourself alone, you who have undertaken the care of many: for to whom more is entrusted, of him more is required. IV. Watch therefore, I beseech you, Pope, watch; and again I say: watch; for perhaps Vigilius did not watch well, whom these men proclaim the head of the scandal, who cast the blame upon you.

Watch first for the faith, then for commanding the works of faith and treading down vices; for your vigilance will be the salvation of many, just as, on the contrary, your security will be the ruin of many. May Isaiah send you up the mountain, you who bring good tidings to Zion (Isa. 40:9); nay rather, through Isaiah may God, according to the interpretation of your name, set you upon the watch-tower of true contemplation; in which, set as it were higher than all mortals and made a neighbour of the heavenly things, lifting up your voice like a trumpet, you may announce to the people of your Lord, committed to you by Him, their sins, and to the house of Jacob their iniquities (Isa. 58:1). Fear not the guilt of lying: for you have that which you ought to announce;

for many — and this is the graver thing — have through the security of pastors in these regions been cast down, and many have been deceived by the prosperity of a most unhappy abundance. Hence, since according to the threats of the Lord the blood of the saints must be required at the hands of pastors, watch must be kept diligently, that is, the word of the Lord must be preached frequently by the pastors, namely the watchmen and masters of the Church, that none may perish through ignorance. For if anyone perish through carelessness, his blood shall be reckoned upon his own head. V. But why should I have recalled at length these things, more bitingly, that are known to all? — I will append it in what follows. For these things too contribute to the chief topics of my suggestion: for both are bound together; for upon these those depend;

and therefore these things must first be cut off; for he does not care about error, who does not care about religion, since in this consists the whole contest, here stands the whole cause, here is that twice-sharpened sword (Rev. 1:16) reaching even to the division of flesh and soul, of the joints and marrow, which is the discerner of the heart and of thoughts (Heb. 4:12), which ought to cut the sinews even to the bone. Hence our speech is seasoned with the divine salt (Col. 4:6) (for indeed every sacrifice is commanded to be sprinkled with salt); hence the sparks descending from that divine fire which the Lord came to cast upon the earth (Luke 12:49) burn up the wood, hay, stubble (1 Cor. 3:12) which are ill built up by many upon the foundation.

This is to be marveled at: that, while we Christians so often build upon it — beyond the fact that no one can lay any other than that which has been laid, which is Jesus Christ (ibid. 11) — alas, how great are the fuels of hell everywhere prepared from these unhappy buildings, upon which, to be burned, that sparkling word of the Lord descended, falling from the immensity of that ever-living conflagration, saying: Take heed to yourselves, lest perhaps your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness, and the cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly: for as a snare it shall come upon all who sit upon the face of the whole earth (Luke 21:34, 35). VI.

You see with what terror the Lord rouses our slumber and harmful lukewarmness to vigilance, that we may not be found unprepared. Therefore I said: Pope, watch: it is time to rise from sleep (Rom. 13:11): the Lord draws near, and we now stand almost at the end, among perilous times. Behold, the nations are troubled, the kingdoms are bowed down; therefore the Most High shall soon utter His voice, and the earth shall be moved. I, as one timid, though I am not a brave warrior — because I see the foe of our adversaries has surrounded us — strive to rouse you, even with importunate clamours, as the chief of the captains;

for to you pertains the peril of the whole army of the Lord, lying rather torpid than fighting in the field, and in part (which is the more lamentable) giving its hands to the adversaries rather than resisting. The whole army awaits you, you who, having the power of ordering all things, of arranging battle, of stirring up captains, of commanding arms to be seized, of drawing up the line, of sounding the trumpets on every side, must at last, with you advancing in the front, join the contest. For woe! long does it appear that in this region, in this spiritual war, we have been overcome, even we Christians, first by carnal vices and a pompous manner of life;

then by the lukewarmness of a wavering faith, by which, being weakened, we have been surrounded by our enemies (while we did not perceive it) — a threefold enemy, given to us as vengeance for our luxurious security. For the cause of all evils is the security of blind prosperity. VII. I marvel, I confess, at such security; and whence this deadly slumber covers almost all, I know not — what hearts, what ears, what senses, which by no means the fiery words of the Lord Himself have roused to the vigilance of a zeal continually fervent, to contempt of the world, to the poverty of Christ, as many nations have so professed.

For I, coming from the farthest end of the world, where I beheld spiritual leaders waging the wars of the Lord, and hoping here to see captains of this holy conflict stronger and more skilled — and so you would be found, as it were a certain contemplator of a battlefield drenched and soaked with corpses after the fight — I am astonished, and grieving and fearing, and looking to you alone, who are the one hope among the princes, mighty through the honour of holy Peter the apostle, I bewail the slaughter of so great an army. But because the little boat of a frail wit has not been led so far out into the deep according to the word of the Lord (Luke 5:4) as it still clings in one spot:

for paper cannot comprehend all that the mind, with its varying matters, wished to enclose within the straits of a letter — I am asked by a king to set before your devout ears, point by point, the matter of his grief: for his grief is the schism of the people, on account of the queen, on account of his son, and perhaps even on account of himself; for he is said to have declared that, if he knew it for certain and himself believed it... VIII. Let us return to the book, which we laid down beside the shore.

Therefore, lest the ancient robber bind men with this longest rope of error, let the cause of the schism be cut off, I beseech you, at once by you, as it were with a little knife of holy Peter, that is, by a true confession of faith in a synod, and by the abomination and anathematizing of all heretics, so that the world may acknowledge by all the chair of Peter to be cleansed from all error, from horror — if there be any, as they say, that has been let in — or, if not, that its purity be acknowledged by all. For it is to be grieved over and bewailed, if in the apostolic see the catholic faith is not held.

But to say the whole (lest I seem even to you to flatter beyond what is right), it is also to be grieved that you, the foremost, did not — out of zeal for the faith, as was fitting — for so long, while a party was withdrawing from you (inasmuch as you had lawful authority), immediately, having first shown the purity of your faith, condemn and excommunicate them, by which anyone might dare to defame the chief see of the orthodox faith. For you know with what cruel punishment the accusers of innocent men were condemned by the fathers in the holy synod of Nicaea. But in saying this, I am not unaware that there are many causes in a clamorous and sharp, tumultuous multitude, which do not permit these things to be investigated to the very purest; not because I would believe it, but because they ought now to be done, I have spoken.

If there are any rebels against the truth among your fellow-provincials, let the blame include only these; for a mouth full of flour or any other matter cannot blow upon the fire: for everything is harmed by a contrariety near to it. Therefore I beseech you for Christ's sake: come to the aid of your good name, which is torn apart among the nations, lest perfidy be reckoned to you by your rivals, if you keep silent any longer. Do not therefore dissemble any longer, do not be silent; but rather send forth the voice of the true Shepherd, which His sheep recognise, those that hear not the voice of strangers but flee from it (John 10:4, 5). IX.

I urge you, my fathers and my own patrons, to drive away confusion from the face of your sons and disciples, who are confounded on your behalf; and, what is greater than these, that the cloud of suspicion may be lifted from the chair of St. Peter. Therefore call an assembly, that you may purge yourselves of those things which are objected against you; for it is no toy chariot that is laid to your charge. For the reception of heretics, as I hear, is reckoned against you — which God forbid be believed to have been true, to be, or to be hereafter. For they say that Eutyches, Nestorius, Dioscorus, the ancient heretics, as we know, were received by Vigilius in a synod — I know not which (perhaps in which) — in the fifth. Behold the cause, as they say, of the whole scandal;

if you too receive them thus, as is said, or if you know that Vigilius himself died so infected, why do you recite his name against conscience? For everything that is not of faith is sin (Rom. 14:23). Now it is your fault, if you have turned aside from true confidence and made void your first faith (1 Tim. 5:12): rightly do your juniors resist you, and rightly do they not communicate with you, until the memory of the lost be blotted out and handed over to oblivion. For if these things are certain rather than fabulous, by a reversal your sons have been turned into the head, but you indeed into the tail (Deut. 28:44); which it is even a grief to say:

therefore those also shall be your judges who have always kept the orthodox faith, whoever they may be, even if they seem your juniors. But the orthodox themselves and the true catholics, who never at any time received nor defended any heretics nor suspect persons, but remained in zeal for the true faith — if therefore these too be not such, let those who, though juniors in order, are yet greater in merit, judge justly; each side eagerly asking pardon of the other for so long a discord, and both defending no one against reason — neither you the heretics, nor they the suspect — that both sides may the more quickly come to harmony in what is blameworthy. X.

But pardon me, swimming across such rugged places, if any words from without have offended your devout ears, because the logic of the sequence of the history permits me to pass over nothing of the question, and the liberty of fatherly custom, so to speak, makes me venture in part. For with us it is not the person but the reason that prevails: and the love of evangelical peace compels me to say all, that there may be astonishment in you both, who ought to have been one choir — and the greatness of my solicitude for your concord and peace. For if one member suffer, all the members suffer with it (1 Cor. 12:26). For we, as I said before, are bound to the chair of St. Peter: for although Rome is great and renowned;

yet it is great and illustrious among us only through this chair. For although the name of the city once founded — that of Ausonian glory, as it were a most narrow thing, and far separated from the heaven by mingled climes — has, by the exceeding favour of almost all nations, throughout the whole world, even unto the western places of the trans-mundane border, by the leaping eddies of the sea (though hyperbolically) rising up on every side in their threefold surge (wondrous to tell!), nothing hindering, been spread far and wide;

yet from that time when He deigned to be God and the Son of God, and, riding through the sea of the nations upon those two most fervent steeds of the Spirit of God — namely Peter and Paul the apostles (whose dear pledges have made you happy) — troubled many waters, and with the thousands of innumerable peoples multiplied the chariots, He Himself the supreme charioteer of that chariot, who is Christ, the true Father, the driver of Israel, beyond the surge of the Euripus, beyond the backs of the Dolphin, beyond the swelling three-quarter tide, came even to us. From then you are great and illustrious, and Rome itself is nobler and more renowned;

and, if it may be said, on account of the twin apostles of Christ (I mean those very heavens spoken of by the Holy Spirit, declaring the glory of God [Ps. 18:2]), of whom it is added: Their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world [ibid. 5] — you are almost heavenly, and Rome is the head of the churches of the whole world, the singular prerogative of the place of the Lord's resurrection being preserved. And therefore, just as your honour is great according to the dignity of the chair, so great care is necessary for you, that you may not lose your dignity through some perversity. For so long shall authority abide with you, as right reason shall remain:

for he is the sure key-bearer of the kingdom of heaven who, through true knowledge, opens to the worthy and shuts to the unworthy. Otherwise, if he do the contrary, he will be able neither to open nor to shut. XI. Since therefore these things are true and received as true without any contradiction by all the truly wise (although it is known to all, and there is no one who does not know, how our Saviour conferred upon holy Peter the keys of the kingdom of heaven), and you, through this perhaps some supercilious thing — I know not what — claim for yourselves greater authority than others, and power in divine matters: know that your power will be the less before the Lord, if you even think this in your hearts:

because the unity of faith in the whole world made a unity of power and prerogative; so that liberty be given everywhere by all to the truth, and access to error be likewise denied by all: because right confession gave a privilege even to the holy one, common key-bearer of all — to Nonnus. Let it be permitted even to your juniors to entreat you out of zeal for the faith, out of love of peace, for the unity of the Church, our common mother, who indeed is torn apart within her own womb after the manner of Rebecca (Gen. 25:22), and grieves over the strife and intestine war of her sons, and mournfully laments the division of her own bowels. Here there is need of tears rather than of words.

How has the enemy of the Christian name prevailed, after the living words of the Son of God, after the fullness of the Gospels, after the apostolic doctrine, after the recent writing of the orthodox authors, who opened anew the sacraments of faith from the New and the Old in diverse discourse? To divide the body of Christ, and to separate the members, and to rend the very tunic of the Son of God, the Saviour of the world, which is unity? This craft is yours, O devil, whom may Christ our peace, who made both one (Eph. 2:14), overcome. XII. Therefore quickly, dearly beloved, be reconciled, and come together in one, and do not contend for ancient quarrels; but rather be silent, and hand them over to eternal silence and oblivion;

and if any things are doubtful, reserve them for the divine judgment. But those which are manifest, of which men can judge, judge justly without respect of persons; and let there be a peaceful judgment in your gates, and recognise one another, that there may be joy in heaven and on earth for your peace and union. What else have you to defend, besides the catholic faith, if you are both true Christians? For I cannot understand whence a Christian could contend against a Christian concerning the faith; but whatever an orthodox Christian shall say, who rightly glorifies the Lord, the other will answer Amen, because he likewise loves and believes.

Therefore all say one thing, and be of one mind, that you may both be wholly one as Christians (1 Cor. 1:10). For if, as I have heard, some do not believe two substances in Christ, they are to be believed heretics rather than Christians: for Christ our Saviour is true God, eternal without time, and true man without sin from time; who according to divinity is co-eternal with the Father, and according to humanity is younger than His mother. Who, born in the flesh, was by no means absent from heaven: abiding in the Trinity, He lived in the world. And therefore if it is written in the fifth synod, as someone told me, that he who adores two substances has his prayer divided, he who wrote that is himself divided from the saints and separated from God.

For we, on account of the unity of the person, in whom it pleased the fullness of the Godhead to dwell bodily (Col. 2:9), believe one Christ — His divinity and His humanity — because He who descended is the very same who ascended above all the heavens, that He might fill all things (Eph. 4:10). If anyone shall have thought otherwise concerning the Incarnation of the Lord, he is an enemy of the faith, and to be abominated by all Christians, and to be anathematized, of whatever order, or state, or grade he be; for no one ought, to the injury of God, to honour a man. Therefore I beseech you for Christ's sake, spare no one who shall attempt to separate you from Christ; but rather resist him to his face, if anyone, unwilling to believe rightly, shall wish to call you back from the catholic faith.

XIII. Grant pardon, I beseech you, to me, an over-injurious and harsh, talkative man, who concerning such a cause could not write otherwise. For while I wished to please the truth in all things — not unaware that the unleavened bread must be eaten with bitterness — I served God alone, who is blessed forever. I have proved my brotherliness and the zeal of my faith, while I chose rather to give place to reprovers than, in such a cause, not to open my mouth, however unlearned. Therefore, although the three-tongued scorpion rises up with arched wound, among those of whom it is written that they stretch out their tongue like a bow of lying, who judge all new things, though gauzy, having become indeed full-sated, hyperbolically;

and who, with greasy jealous dewlaps, always set deceitful objections against any writings that are not pleasing, out of the contrariness of envy. But when a Gentile king, a Lombard, asks a foreign Scot — a dull-witted one — to write, when the wave of the ancient torrent flows back upward, who will not marvel rather than calumniate? Yet I will not tremble, nor in the cause of God will I dread the tongues of men, which more often lie than speak truth; for care must rather be taken to resist shame than to submit to cowardice, where necessity compels. XIV. Therefore, to return to that place whence I digressed, I ask you — since many doubt concerning the purity of your faith — that you quickly remove this blemish from the brightness of the holy chair;

for it does not befit the gravity of the Roman Church that this report of pressing levity should suggest that it could be moved by any force whatever from the solidity of the true faith, for which so many of its martyrs poured out their blood, preferring to die rather than to be torn away. For if in our times the final persecution of that hateful scale-monster should come — whose hide scarcely all the ships together could carry — shall we not resist even unto blood, fighting against sin (Heb. 12:4), as our fathers did, the apostles I mean, and so many martyrs? If the persecution was grievous at the beginning of the faith, how much more at the end, of which the Lord says: Thinkest thou that the Son of man, when He comes, shall find faith on the earth (Luke 18:8)? And again:

Unless those days had been shortened, no flesh would be saved (Matt. 24:22). Happy is he whom death takes away before, sooner than the weak man should deny. Yet He says there will be elect there; concerning whom indeed He foretold to His disciples: Behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the age (Matt. 28:20). Since therefore the elect to come, in those days more perilous than the rest — incomparable both before and behind — will, by the Lord's strengthening, endure greater things; why should we, still in safer and more secure times, or for our faith, by which we differ from the heathen and the Jews and the heretics, not endure, by the Lord's help, lesser things? XV.

But to me — who thus urge, being sluggish in act, and rather speaking than doing — to me, Jonah in Hebrew, Peristera in Greek, Columba in Latin, having attained (or so named) only in the idiom of your tongue, though I rely on the ancient Hebrew name (whose shipwreck I too have nearly undergone), grant pardon, I beseech, as I have often asked; because I have been compelled to write by necessity rather than by vainglory, since a certain man, by his letters with which he seized me almost at my first entry into the borders of this region, signified to me that you were to be guarded against, as falling into the sect of Nestorius. To whom, astonished, I answered briefly, as I could, not believing his allegation:

but lest I should in any way be contrary to the truth, in accordance with his letter, and in accordance with my good estimation of you (for I always believe the column of the Church to stand firm in Rome), I varied my answer, which I have directed to you to be re-read and disputed, wherever it goes against the truth; for I do not dare to profess myself among the irreproachable. XVI. But after this occasion of writing, besides, the command of King Agilulf presses upon me: whose petition has put me into amazement and into manifold solicitude: for I reckon that what I see is not without a miracle. For the kings established this Arian taint in this region for a long time, trampling down the catholic faith; now they ask that our faith be strengthened. Perhaps Christ then regards us

with a kindly eye — by whose favour every good thing is born. We are exceedingly wretched, if from our side any further offence be made. The king therefore asks, and the queen asks, and all ask you, that as quickly as possible it may come to pass that all become one, that there be as it were peace to the homeland, that peace soon come to the faith, that thenceforth all become one flock of Christ. As King of kings may you follow Peter, may all Italy follow you. What is sweeter than peace after wars? What is more delightful than the joining of brothers long separated? How welcome, after years, does a Father come after many? How sweet to a mother long waiting is the announcement of an arrival?

Thus to God the Father the peace of His sons shall be joy unto the ages of ages, and the gladness of mother Church shall become the everlasting exultation of eternity. For the rest, holy Pope and brethren, pray for me, a most vile sinner, and for my fellow-pilgrims, at the holy places and the ashes of the saints, and especially at Peter and Paul, men likewise and great captains of the great King, and most mighty warriors of the most blessed field, following the crucified Lord with His blood; that we may deserve to cleave to Christ, to please Him, to give Him thanks, and to praise Him without end, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, with you and with all the saints, here and in the eternal ages of ages. Amen.