Papal Letters 1 part 41/50

It seemed therefore fitting that we should neither make an assault against the wishes of countless multitudes, nor let a man noble in integrity be cast down from the See of which he shows himself worthy; nor yet suffer hope to be utterly taken away from the former of seeking anew the place from which he affirms he was despoiled without cause; but that in a doubtful matter we should proceed more temperately, in such wise that for the time being this same Helias, the most reverend bishop, should remain in quiet, but after his successor has laid down his life, then at last he should return to the See which he left — all things being first applied which the definitions of the most sacred rules require for obtaining the licence of his return, and the consent being interposed both of your Apostolic See and of this most flourishing city, and also of the others whom this concerns.

Concerning Thomas also and Nicostratus, most religious men and bishops, all things shall be given effect after the other venerable churches also shall have been joined to unity with you, which, the heavenly protection going before, we shall have judged should be established, likewise according to the order of the most sacred rules. Since therefore it was fitting that our deliberation should be declared to Your Holiness also, that from this too may be made manifest the desire on which we bend all our effort — to check and temper controversies and to prolong the longed-for concord among all — we have thought that these present letters also should be sent, admonishing especially that the heavenly Godhead may be entreated by your prayers for the safe state of the commonwealth. Given on the seventh day

before the Ides of June at Constantinople, in the consulship of Vitalian and Rusticius. (194.) EUPHEMIA AUGUSTA TO POPE HORMISDAS. We have received the letters of Your Beatitude with a grateful and joyful mind. For whom not only the authority of the Apostolic See makes famous, but whom the integrity of his life also commends, together with his zealous skill in the right faith — who would not receive his words with the most willing ears? Therefore we beg and admonish that my name may never depart from your prayers, and especially that of our most serene consort; but that the heavenly protection may be made propitious by your prayers both to us both and to the commonwealth. (195.) A COPY OF THE REPORT OF EPIPHANIUS, BISHOP OF CONSTANTINOPLE.

TO THE MOST HOLY AND MOST BLESSED LORD, BROTHER AND FELLOW-MINISTER HORMISDAS, EPIPHANIUS, GREETING IN THE LORD. God, who dwells on high and looks upon lowly things and abundantly provides all things for the salvation of men, in His goodness and mercy has looked upon my littleness, and after the death of the archbishop and patriarch John of holy memory, has deigned to confer upon me the priestly See of the holy Catholic Church of the royal city, by the sentence and election of our most Christian and most just prince Justin and of the most pious queen, who shares with him in every divine endeavour, and of those about them.

To these was added the consent of those whose conduct is good and who are more exalted in royal honours, together with the consent of the priests and monks and the most faithful people. Wherefore I have judged it necessary to insert this first token in my letters, that I may show what goodwill I have toward your Apostolic See. It is my prayer greatly, most blessed one, to be united to you and to embrace the divine dogmas which, from the blessed and holy disciples and apostles of God — chiefly Peter, the chief of the apostles — have been handed down to your holy See, and to esteem nothing more precious than these.

For I am not ignorant of the constitutions of the holy Church as one coming from elsewhere without; but, nourished by God's will from my tenderest years in the holy Catholic Church, I obeyed through the seasons the most holy priests and patriarchs. For, having been set over them full often — those who through the most sacred and ineffable baptism put off their sins — I taught the right and true faith of the Trinity of one essence, which, as I said before, proceeding from the disciples of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ, the assembly of all priests and of all the fathers embraces.

For I adore and proclaim the divine, truly holy, and God-given creed of the three hundred and eighteen holy fathers assembled at Nicaea, and I announce that it is the manifest token of Christian splendour; and the venerable synod of the one hundred and fifty holy priests held in this royal city; likewise the assembly of the two hundred fathers, lovers of God, held at Ephesus; and the synod of the six hundred and thirty most reverend fathers and priests held at Chalcedon — I myself have learned that these are one, and in agreement, and joined together with the aforesaid holy councils, and I have known to teach the same to others. In these four holy and sacred synods, therefore, the great proclaimed mystery of piety and the salvation of all men is laid up.

For those who were or are of the same mind, I both receive and embrace, and love to be united to them; but on the contrary, those who besides these hold or preach anything, or in time past attempted anything, I count as banished from the assembly of the orthodox. Likewise the truly upright and most religious letters of the venerable Pope Leo, written for the right faith, I embrace all around and receive. Let therefore the holy fraternity of Your Beatitude hold this judgment concerning me;

for I have made this manifest to you, and to the churches under me I preach these things, hastening in all things to unite them, both to me and to Your Beatitude, in the bond of charity — churches which altogether ought to be united and inviolable, and to guard perpetually one body of the common Apostolic Church, and the same. For how great is the love toward your venerable fraternity in all things, bid it to be weighed, since those whom your Apostolic See, condemning them, did not order to be recited in the sacred diptychs, neither do I cause to be named among the sacred mysteries.

And this is known also to those who were sent by you, the most reverend men, that is, to Germanus the most holy bishop, to Felix and Dioscorus the deacons, and to Blandus the priest, who effectually executed those things which were enjoined on them by you. Let therefore Your Holiness pray both for me and for the priests subject to me, that we may perpetually be guarded, holding the right confession of God; likewise also for our most serene prince and for the most Christian Augusta, since their common welfare is the firm foundation, everywhere profitable, of the holy churches.

Therefore, we holding this intention, it shall in no way any longer be permitted that the holy Church of God be torn asunder, through the grace of the Holy Spirit and the intercessions of the holy and glorious Mother of God, the Virgin Mary. All the fraternity that is with Your Holiness, I too and my people most heartily greet. AND IN ANOTHER HAND: Safe in the Lord, pray for us, most holy brother, lover of God. Received on the fifteenth day before the Kalends of October, in the consulship of Rusticius the most excellent man. (196.) A COPY OF THE LETTER OF JUSTINIAN THE ILLUSTRIOUS. By the favour of our Lord Jesus Christ he reigns in the world who founds his empire upon the holy religion, since he well governs human things who has first appeased the divine. And that this has come to pass in the present times, we rejoice.

For your son, the most clement Emperor, having obtained the sceptres by the gift of the Eternal One, took up the causes of the faith to be unfolded; and, an embassy being sent to Your Holiness, we obtained the priests of the Apostolic See. By whose coming the concord of the most sacred churches grew not moderately, as we pressed on, as was fitting. For the name of Acacius, which begot the schism, being rooted out according to the tenor of the libelli which you sent, in this royal city and in many cities the longed-for unity has come to pass, which, found by the greatest labours, it is fitting to venerate forever and necessary to guard; nor shall anyone be suffered to reopen by any arguments those things which the everlasting Majesty has duly composed.

But because the enemy of the human race often hastens to hinder prosperous courses, a part of the Easterners cannot be compelled either by exiles or by sword and flames to condemn the names of the bishops who died after Acacius; which difficulty knits delays into the general concord.

May Your Holiness therefore, heavenly inspired, consider the quality of affairs and of the times; and the authors of this error being condemned — that is, Acacius of Constantinople, Peter and Timothy Aelurus and Dioscorus of Alexandria, and Peter of Antioch — deign to end the inveterate contention, the question about the rest of the names being lulled to rest, so that you may redeem the people from bloodshed, whom our God has committed to be ruled, and may reconcile the people to our Lord not by persecutions and gore but by priestly patience; lest, while we wish to gain souls, we lose both the bodies of many and their souls.

For it is fitting that long-standing errors be amended by gentleness and clemency, especially because the predecessors of Your Beatitude very often wished to recall the prelates of our commonwealth to their communion, if only Acacius and the rest aforesaid were passed over in silence. It is not therefore burdensome, that which your See has counselled, that it should be granted. This too we demand more and more, that Your Holiness, having conceived heavenly grace, would deign to treat of those things which the Eastern bishops put forward, and to furnish a fitting consent to their faith.

For it seems to us that, since the Son of the living God, our Lord Jesus Christ, born of the Virgin Mary, whom the chief of the apostles proclaims to have suffered in the flesh, is rightly said to reign as One in the Trinity with the Father and the Holy Spirit — even as it seems ambiguous to say simply 'One of the Trinity' without prefixing the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, so we do not doubt that His Person is in the Trinity with the Persons of the Father and of the Holy Spirit. For without the Person of Christ the Trinity can neither be religiously believed nor faithfully adored, even as holy Augustine says: 'or some Person out of the Trinity,' and in another place: 'One alone in the Trinity took a body,' and again: 'One of the Three.'

We beg therefore, greeting you most reverently, that, mindful of the future judgment, you would so order the cause that no room for doubt be left for the future; so that, every scruple of discords being removed, the bonds of the longed-for peace may be renewed throughout the whole world, and the concord of the venerable churches may flourish, and the members of one body be gathered again into their proper state. For that physician is rightly praised who so hastens to heal old sicknesses that from them new wounds are not born. Especially therefore let your apostolate learn that, these two chapters being settled, all the priests of this commonwealth willingly embrace our communion. Received on the fifteenth day before the Kalends of October, in the consulship of Rusticius the most excellent man.

(197.) A COPY OF THE LETTER OF CELER THE ILLUSTRIOUS. TO THE MOST BLESSED AND APOSTOLIC LORD FATHER POPE HORMISDAS, CELER. The greatest cause of rejoicing is furnished to us as often as a time for writing to your apostolate has arisen. Now therefore, as the most blessed bishop Germanus returns, together with the most reverend men who were sent by you for the joining together of the holy churches, we have thought it necessary to venerate Your Holiness as is due, indicating that the aforesaid men indeed had zeal that full effect might follow your will;

but because the whole body was infirm, meanwhile the head, which is judged first necessary, was healed by the application of your medicine, and the dissension which was between the venerable churches, the Roman and the Constantinopolitan, being buried by the intervention of unity; and other not small members were in like manner cleansed and joined together by the grace of the Godhead. This hope also we all bear, that the grace of God, which has always remained and remains with your See, may afford you such an inspiration of goodness, that by your gentleness and dispensation the remaining body, which is held to be infirm — as was said above by us — may, by your medicine, unity being received, be joined together.

But especially we beseech your pontificate, that with a father's kindly heart you would bid to pray for us. (198.) A COPY OF THE LETTER OF JULIANA ANICIA. TO THE MOST BLESSED LORD AND MOST APPROVED PONTIFF OF THE APOSTOLIC SEE, POPE HORMISDAS, FATHER, JULIANA ANICIA. As is first fitting, we render to Your Beatitude the homage of greeting, wishing that the Godhead may cause this page to be perused by your venerable eyes, and, for the vigour of His Church, may deign to grant salutary increases to your life, so that by your ever-watchfulness the state of the Church may be vindicated against the hostile and rabid dogs.

For indeed, venerable father, that you take care for the integrity of our faith befits the vicars of the glorious apostle Peter, to whom the Lord enjoined the office of feeding the sheep. Let therefore your holy solicitude for us know that we hold the more firmly the immovable firmness of the right faith, for which, lest we should violate its sanctity, we have hitherto resisted. But as to that which your apostolate has bidden us take care for, on account of the cause of so great a piety, as far as we could, according to our strength we have not ceased to admonish adversaries in the spirit of gentleness, the grace of God cooperating with us. (199.) A COPY OF THE SACRED LETTER OF JUSTIN AUGUSTUS. JUSTIN AUGUSTUS TO POPE HORMISDAS.

While we were dismissing from this royal city the most blessed bishop Germanus and those who had been sent by you with him, we gave them mandates of this kind: that the chapters which pertained to the perfect unity of the churches we would make manifest to your apostolate in due order through the most reverend bishop John. These things, however, had been declared here in their presence. But it came to pass that the aforesaid bishop John was detained by a long sickness. Lest therefore any adverse opinion should enter upon Your Reverence, as though we, by some voluntary sloth, were bringing our promises less to effect, we have perceived it necessary to set forth to you the cause of the delay through Eulogius, a most excellent man,

a tribune and notary, whom we have sent to the most exalted king Theodoric concerning certain matters; adding this too, that as soon as the propitious Majesty of our Lord and God shall have willed to restore that same most religious man John to his former health, we shall at once, as we once promised, send him to Your Holiness. It remains that Your Holiness would deign to procure for us divine protection by your prayers. Given on the day before the Kalends of September at Constantinople. Received at Rome on the Kalends of October, in the consulship of Rusticius the most excellent man. (200.) A COPY OF THE LETTER OF JUSTINIAN. TO THE MOST BLESSED AND APOSTOLIC LORD FATHER HORMISDAS, POPE OF THE CITY OF ROME, JUSTINIAN.

With how great reverence we venerate Your Beatitude, you know from many letters, ever since the most serene Emperor your son began to reign. In the present also, greeting Your Holiness with due modesty, we most earnestly ask that by assiduous prayers and most frequent orisons you would labour for the concord of the venerable churches; and that to us — as we have written even after all things through your legates also — your apostolate would deign to send an entire and undoubted answer, through Eulogius, a most excellent man, tribune and notary, both concerning the discourse over which the controversy turns and concerning the names of the bishops who died under Acacius, all things, namely, which were ordained in the presence of your legates being destined firmly to endure forever.

For the religious man, bishop John, who is to come to Rome, is detained by bodily sickness. For nothing prevents concord from coming to pass even before his coming, the doubt of religion being removed (yet we shall dismiss him soon, the Godhead favouring, since he is already better), since neither are the things which fell into ambiguity difficult, nor is it expedient that the cause of eternal life be drawn out longer, lest, the times being deferred, something more uncertain be born. Therefore let Your Holiness, not unmindful of the eternity on high and of the dread judgment, hasten to hand over to effect the things committed to it, that all may understand that you have rightly obtained the primacy of the Apostolic See.

These things therefore, which are written to you by sons, bid to be fulfilled as speedily as possible with fatherly affection. For you know how admirable the glory is, that the errors of so many years should be rooted out and utterly abolished in the time of your pontificate. (201.) HORMISDAS TO JUSTIN AUGUSTUS. Blessed be the Trinity, our God, who has committed to you the helm of the world's empire, to which not only was veneration owed for the right of rule, but also for the modesty and integrity of your glorious purpose!

For we have truly glorified God upon reading the letters of your piety, in which, by excusing the delay of the promised legation on account of the infirmity of him who was to have been sent, you have made clearer than daylight what care for the faith and for honour you keep, showing that, for those who govern the sum of affairs, the power which they hold does not suffice for the summit of dominion unless the ornaments of good character make their princedom the more precious. May our God, most merciful Emperor, preserve His benefits toward you, and, looking upon your good deeds, bestow upon you things eternal! Nor, however, did any suspicion gnaw at us, nor did we believe that the tardiness in fulfilling the promise had come about from any change of counsel.

For it were impious to doubt with any anxiety the words of one whose fidelity in great affairs has been granted to be so evidently recognized. Therefore, upon the return of our son, the honourable man Eulogius, tribune and notary, we render the homage of a due greeting, entreating the great God with unceasing prayers that He who, by your zeal, has healed the wounds inflicted through the faithless, may, with your life prolonged through longer seasons, make the unity restored to the Church secure in every part as well. Given on the fourth day before the Kalends of November, in the consulship of Rusticius. (202.) HORMISDAS TO JUSTIN AUGUSTUS.

To the glorious labours of your clemency there answer both the votive tranquillity of ecclesiastical concord, first of all, and that of a world at peace, by universal proclamation; which matter renders and keeps our office of discourse sparing in the giving of thanks. Yet this we do not pass over in silence: that unceasingly we pour out prayers to our Lord on your behalf; for while in our vows the affection is infinite, in proclamation the judgement can only be finite. But amid these benefits of your piety,

one care, which has also affected us keenly, does not forsake us: namely, that Elias, Thomas, and Nicostratus, my brothers and fellow-bishops, who were the first to follow ecclesiastical concord with eager devotion, are not only cheated of the palm of a great precedence, but are even attended by the misery of an evil example. Wherefore we beseech your clemency, with weeping mingled also with our prayers, that the intolerable casting-down of the aforesaid men may not disturb our joys, which you provide daily by the conversion of heretics; for it is not the cause of the persons alone that troubles us, for whom the glory both of a good deed and of merit could at once suffice, but that the appointments of the venerable canons are held in contempt, and that their casting-down touches the Apostolic See with no small injury:

lest the sincerity of your Christianity—by which you both bestow great patronage upon the ancient ordinances and, by newly rendered veneration, sanction the primacy of the Apostolic See—should, in this one affair, leave to posterity an inextricable question. (203.) HORMISDAS TO EUPHEMIA AUGUSTA. That we pray also for your safety and pay our vows to our God, together with the assembly of catholic bishops, without ceasing, it is not the zeal of your entreaty that invites, but rather it is a devout and persisting purpose in ecclesiastical reconciliation that spurs us on.

For who, once separated from the heretical conspiracy, would keep himself apart, who would employ other beginnings in his prayer, save that both to you and to your consort, the most serene prince, there might be granted a longer life, and, for the increase of prosperity, the grace of God the nearer—you who consecrated the beginnings of your happy reign by chastising the accursed things of error, and by a peace-making resolve drove out discord, the friend of the devil? Whence it now befits you to persist in your praiseworthy undertakings, and to spread the perfect medicine throughout the whole world; for the greater number of the flock offered to Christ confidently demands the more abundant reward.

Amid these things let it be your care that no wound afflict persons long since healed, but that the unity of communion be a great support toward obtaining justice. For we beseech you that at last, concerning our venerable brothers and fellow-bishops Elias, Thomas, and Nicostratus, what the authority of the most sacred canons prescribes may, by your decree, be fulfilled, lest they seem, as though they were the authors of some evil, to have alone deserved to be struck down for having hastened first to the unity of the Apostolic See, and lest justice, in a praiseworthy deed, be seen to have yielded, defeated, to personal hatred.

Therefore join your prayers to ours before the most merciful Augustus, that a hostile evasion may not be able to snatch away the fruit which the rules of the Fathers command to be granted and preserved to them. (204.) HORMISDAS TO EPIPHANIUS, BISHOP OF CONSTANTINOPLE.

It would indeed have behoved your fraternity, out of regard for the divine judgement and out of respect for our charity, without hesitation to admit our brothers and fellow-bishops Elias, Thomas, and Nicostratus—after we had received them into the fellowship of our communion—to the divine mysteries together with you, and to recall them to their churches, from which the error of discord had excluded them, for the fullness of our peace; so that the unity which, after many courses of years, God has restored to His churches throughout the whole world, might be injured by no divergence of our wills.

But because it has happened that a matter so welcome and so agreeable to the venerable ordinances of the Fathers has been deferred until now by certain delays—whence we recall that we wrote also to the predecessor of your fraternity—we exhort you that the gladness which we conceive over the past dissension now condemned, may in no way be saddened again by the cause of discordant minds. For it seems to no one that you communicate with us with full affection of mind, if you separate from your fellowship those who communicate with us. Assuredly they seem to receive peace in vain, who defer to fulfil the precepts of peace.

For whatever you delay in receiving them into communion, you in a manner detract from our own reconciliation; and it must be provided, most dear brother, lest, if the concord of our churches at last granted from above should take its origin from such examples, both the venerable rule of religion and the authority of the Apostolic See should seem—which God forbid—rather to be diminished than restored throughout the East. (205.) HORMISDAS TO EPIPHANIUS, BISHOP OF CONSTANTINOPLE.

Long did the tidings of the first beginnings of your dignity keep us in suspense, and in the very congratulation of a common gladness we marvelled greatly that the ancient custom had been neglected; for the restored concord of the churches, by God's granting, demanded the full office of fraternal peace, especially that which not personal arrogance but the observance of the rules laid claim to. For it would have been fitting, most dear brother, that you should have sent legates to the Apostolic See amid the very beginnings of your pontificate, so that you might both well recognize what affection we owe you, and duly fulfil the form of the ancient usage.

But although, these things being omitted, you had judged that mere written communications drawn from the occasion would suffice, we nevertheless, urged on by the goad of grace, meanwhile broke off the constancy of a just expectation, rendering back the reciprocal words of mutual charity; for both our own spirit, impatient of love, and the votive report of our legates drew the silence, which the case commanded, out into kindly offices—by which we now show the signs of our joy, and in a manner discharge the votive dues of private friendship.

As for your legation, we both await it with that same grace as before, and, supported by the ancient ordinances, we require it—so that we may more evidently express both how great a fruit of joy we take from the honour of your pontificate, and what thanks it befits to be rendered to you for the offices bestowed in the affair of propagating unity, as the narration of our legates has in manifold ways established. (206.) HORMISDAS TO JUSTINIAN THE ILLUSTRIOUS. In that your Highness deigns to show the benevolence of your mind toward me, you do a thing pleasing to God and befitting a right conscience. But the profits of this purpose are for you not small: the greater fruit returns upon you from such goodness; for the honour which is paid to a prelate is not empty.

For it is beyond doubt that the honour of the minister is the worship of the Lord, and he who holds the person of the priest as great will receive a greater recompense from Him whom the priest serves, according to the saying of the Lord Jesus, that those who receive the prophets in honour shall have their reward rendered to them. And with me indeed your favour is of great moment, yet the more precious in this, that whatever grace you deign to bestow upon me, you display in the defence of the churches.

But that our discourse may be directed to what your Highness desires: although both the most merciful Emperor and you promise that a legation is to come, and it has been reasonably agreed that we ought to await the presence of those who are to be sent, concerning all matters, nevertheless, because the zeal which you have declared you hold toward religion is pleasing to us, it is no burden to give a foretaste by saying that there is no need for those who follow the newfangled boldness of words rather than reason to confound the stability of your faith and intention. The Holy Trinity, Father and Son and Holy Spirit, is one God.