Papal Letters 1 part 8/50

But if, like the other authors of heresy—who long since, having been judged by the apostolic see or by the Fathers and made to be outside the bosom of the catholic mother Church, have perished in perpetual death—these men too, who now have been detected or are being detected, remain in their perfidy, let them be handed over to the spiritual sword by which they may be slain: as now Pelagius and Caelestius, who by pope Innocent, the predecessor of blessed memory of your Beatitude, were condemned, if they should spurn the right faith and persist in their perverse doctrine. Following whose sentence, your Beatitude, when Caelestius was being heard by the apostolic see, among other things enjoined in these words:

'Do you therefore condemn all those things which are contained in the little book of Paulinus, that is, concerning the questions?' And in another place: 'Have you learned what sort of letters the see has given to our brethren and fellow-bishops of the province of Africa?' And it was added: 'Do you condemn all those things which we condemned, and hold those which we hold?' And again: 'Do you condemn all those things which have been bandied about concerning your name?' And again: 'Or those things which Paulinus set forth in his little book?' And when I said that from those things which were charged against him he could be proven a heretic, you, filled with the Holy Spirit, by apostolic authority rejected and repressed the words of that raving and calumniating man, by pronouncing a sentence of this kind—by which he himself might be proven catholic, and by which you would take care of him, if he should be willing to be healed;

It runs thus: 'I would not have you lead us about in circles; condemn all these things. What has been charged against you by Paulinus, or spread abroad concerning you by rumour?' To whom would such a sentence not suffice? Who would spurn a judgement so wholesome, so worthy to be embraced, so godly, save one who has strayed from the faith? And that man, who had earlier professed that he would condemn whatever had been charged against him, if you should judge it to be against the faith, hears 'Condemn!' and not only does he not condemn, but he strives against the injury done to so great a See. Whence the Roman Church no longer fails to recognize her guilty one, who with so bold a spirit has dared to contradict and not to condemn the things which your Beatitude decreed should be condemned; yet I give thanks to God and to Christ our Lord.

For He willed that the cause of His Church be so conducted, that the Apostolic See — by which it was fitting that the heresy be condemned through the mouth of her two pontiffs — should command those things to be condemned which had been charged by me against Caelestius, whose condemnation I have never desired nor do I desire, but always his correction. His cause is now no longer with me but with the whole Church of God, as the writings of the African bishops sent to your Beatitude testify, since he strives to go against the sentence of the Apostle by denying original sin, which passed upon all men and holds until the end of the world the inheritance of that Adam who first sinned; and which, unless it be remitted in infants through the sacrament of baptism, they cannot have eternal life and the kingdom of heaven.

Against him even his own master Pelagius contends, since Pelagius condemned in the Eastern tribunal those very things which this man attempts to establish in the assembly of the Apostolic See. He has against him also very many ancient Catholic doctors of the churches, Eastern and Western, of the southern region and the northern, who in their books can teach him concerning original sin, if he desires to be healed. He has blessed Cyprian the martyr, blessed Ambrose the confessor, Gregory of Nazianzus, blessed Pope Innocent; he has, even now, those set in the body who might contend against him, if indeed he judge himself fit for so great a combat — or at any rate those whom he ought to follow, if he wishes rather to learn what is right than to teach what is depraved;

He has, what is chief, your Beatitude, whose sentence he ought to have obeyed when he heard 'Condemn!'; he has, finally, the very infants at the breast, on whom he ought to have mercy, if he will not on himself — those to whom, to use the martyr's words, not their own but another's sins are remitted. Wherefore I beseech your blessed apostolate to command that this little book of mine be received, whereby I may render thanks to so great a See and for the most just sentences pronounced on my behalf.

This I have sent for this reason: because Basiliscus the subdeacon, sent from your Beatitude with the acts of the Apostolic See, met me at Carthage on the fourth day before the Nones of November, though only by word, that I should be present before the Apostolic See and the judgement of your Holiness — to which it was suggested that I had fled — and should promise not to fail to appear, if the sentence had been pronounced against me and not on my behalf; where at that time I could accomplish nothing, because he who had appealed to the Apostolic See was absent — he who ought certainly to have established the merits of his appeal — especially since, when the appellant does nothing, even by human laws he is always the superior who has prevailed.

For what concern was it now of mine, that I should stand before your Reverence as an approver of his depraved doctrine — over whom I might rejoice together, if, upon those things being condemned which had been charged against him by me (even as the judgement of the Apostolic See confirmed), he had deserved now to be absolved, lest he should suffer himself to be ordained before being cleared? But the little fox was ever intent on frauds; he knows not how to change his nature. He did not believe he could be caught, since he always keeps his confidence in his dens, in which, with his head plunged in, he strives to hide the workings of his conscience.

Which could no longer lie hidden, but being more openly published is cut away by the spiritual sword through your Beatitude, lest the Lord's flock be any longer torn into pieces by savage teeth — the flock which you, the good shepherd, guard with anxious and ever-watchful care. This little book, moreover, I have sent to your Beatitude through Marcellinus, subdeacon of the Church of Carthage. Given on the sixth day before the Ides of November. (48.) LIKEWISE A COPY OF THE LETTER OF SAINT AUGUSTINE WRITING BACK CONCERNING THE THINGS WRITTEN ABOVE, THROUGH ALBINUS THE ACOLYTE AND FIRMUS THE PRESBYTER. TO THE VENERABLE LORD, AND ONE TO BE RECEIVED IN THE LOVE OF CHRIST, THE HOLY BROTHER XYSTUS THE PRESBYTER, AUGUSTINE, GREETING IN THE LORD.

Ever since the letters of your kindness, sent through our holy brother Firmus the presbyter, came to Hippo in my absence, only afterward, when I had returned — although the bearer of them had by then departed — was I able to read them. This first and most welcome occasion of writing back has presented itself through our most beloved son Albinus the acolyte. But the reason that, though you wrote to those to whom you wrote at the same time, we were not together then, is this: the bearer of this present letter departed from me by way of my venerable brother and fellow-bishop Alypius, who was to write other things back to your Holiness, being on his way through; and to him he himself carried those very letters of yours which I had read.

With how great a joy these things suffused us — how shall a man strive to tell what he cannot utter? For I do not think that even you yourself sufficiently know it; but believe us, how great a good you did in sending us such writings. For as you are witness of your own mind, so are we of ours — of how deeply it was affected by the most luminous sincerity of those letters. For if we copied out with exultant eagerness even that briefest letter of yours which you sent concerning this very matter to the most blessed aged Aurelius through Leo the acolyte, and read it with great zeal to as many as we could — wherein you set forth to us what you think of that most pernicious dogma, and on the other hand of the grace of God, which He bestows on small and great, and to which that dogma is most hostile —

with how much greater exultation, think you, did we read these more copious writings, or take care that they be read to others to whom we were able, and even lay them as a burden upon those we could? For what can be read or heard more welcome than so pure a defence of the grace of God against His enemies, and from the mouth of one who was formerly boasted of as the patron of great weight for those very enemies? Or whence ought we to give thanks to God more abundantly than that His grace is thus defended by those to whom it is given, against those to whom it is not given, or to whom what is given is thankless? Since, that it might be welcome to them, it is by the hidden and just judgement of God not given.

Wherefore, venerable lord and holy brother to be received in the grace of Christ, although you do most excellently in writing to the brethren concerning this matter — among whom those men are wont to boast of your friendship — yet this greater care remains to you: that not only should they be struck with wholesome severity who dare too freely to prate that error most hostile to the Christian name, but also that with pastoral vigilance the more infirm and simple sheep of the Lord be most diligently guarded against those who, more closely indeed and more timidly, yet do not cease to whisper it, creeping into houses, as the Apostle says, and doing the rest that follows with practised impiety. AND THE REMAINDER.

(49.) TO THE HOLY LORD, TO BE HONOURED WITH ALL HONOUR, AND THE MOST BLESSED POPE CYRIL, EUSEBIUS. In Christ I have given thanks that I earned words of the epistolary office of your Beatitude sweeter than honey, that you deigned to answer him who knocked, O holy lord, to be honoured with all honour, most blessed pope. Whence I beseech you to deign to receive willingly the discourse of my littleness, that you may not reckon as pride the liberty which we seem to have in the faith of Christ. The See of Alexandria, from the time that the name of Christ became known to the whole world, is acknowledged to have clung always, before all the provinces of Italy, to Christ by close bond:

How now, when Innocent of blessed memory had condemned the Pelagian and Caelestian heresy together with its ringleaders, while all the Easterns cast them off, has the Church of Alexandria alone received them into communion — she who alone and first among her fellow-provincials ought to have refuted such men? But that man is a pestilent fellow, of whom I wrote to your Holiness a year ago — their standard-bearer and confederate, Valerianus the ventriloquist, who, devoting his labour to the belly, wherever he finds idle occasion for his flattery, there denounces the holy and most faithful. But let not your Beatitude think him a free man: he is the slave of the Ariminensian estate of the most illustrious Count Valerius, whom, out of reverence for your love, we have for the present kept silence about demanding back from you.

Deign rather to pray for us, and to cast such men from your fellowship, recalling that which is written of the prophet: the holy flesh bound in the priest's robe, if one who touches it with what is polluted does not sanctify it, they themselves threaten from the polluted thing; which is the law, the questioning of the priests. But you will deign to grant pardon to the boldness of my littleness, as I asked above beforehand. May the inviolable Trinity deign to guard your Beatitude unharmed and mindful of me, holy pope. (50.) ZOSIMUS TO AURELIUS AND THE OTHERS WHO WERE PRESENT AT THE COUNCIL OF CARTHAGE, HIS MOST BELOVED BRETHREN, GREETING IN THE LORD.

Although the tradition of the Fathers has attributed such authority to the Apostolic See that no one would dare to dispute its judgement, and has always preserved this through the canons and rules — and ecclesiastical discipline, still running by its own laws, renders to the name of Peter (from whom it too descended) the reverence it owes (for canonical antiquity willed, through the sentences of all, that such power should belong to this Apostle, out of the very promise also of Christ our God, that he should both loose things bound and bind things loosed; and an equal condition of power was granted to those who by his own assent had merited the inheritance of the See; for he holds authority over all churches, but most of all over this one, where he had sat.

His care suffers not any privilege to be undermined, nor any breath of his sentence to waver — that sentence for which he himself has established firm foundations, not shaken by any movements of his own name, and which no one may rashly assail without peril to himself) — since therefore Peter is the head of so great an authority, and the statutes of all his successors have confirmed it, so that now, by human and divine laws and by all disciplines, it was determined that the Roman Church, whose place he governs, should also obtain the power of his very name (this is not hidden from you, but you know it, dearest brethren, and, as priests, you ought to know it):

Nevertheless, although we had such authority that no one could revoke our sentence, we did nothing which we did not of our own accord refer to your knowledge by our letters, granting this to brotherhood and consulting for the common good — not because we did not know what ought to be done, or would do anything which, coming against the utility of the Church, might displease, but because we wished, together with you, to hold a discussion concerning that man who, as you yourselves say by your letters, had been accused among you, and who, asserting himself innocent and not shunning our judgement, had come to our See from his former appeal, of his own accord demanding his accusers, and condemning the crimes which he said had been falsely brought against him by rumour.

His whole petition we think and know was explained in the earlier letters which we sent to you, and we believed that sufficient response had been made in those writings which you had written back in reply to them; but after the letter sent through Marcellinus your subdeacon, we wished to review the whole volume. When at length it had been read through, you so grasped the entire text of the letters as if we had lent our credit to Caelestius in all things and had given assent, so to speak, to his every syllable, his words not having been examined. Things which are long to be handled are never rashly concluded, nor is that to be decided without great deliberation which ought to be disputed with the highest judgement.

Therefore let your brotherhood know that we have changed nothing, after we wrote those things to you or received your letters, but have left all in the same state in which it had been for some time, when we indicated this to your Holiness by our letters, that the protestation which had been sent by you to us should be preserved. AND THE SUBSCRIPTION: Fare well, brethren. Given on the fifteenth day before the Kalends of April, in the twelfth consulship of Honorius Augustus. Received on the third day before the Kalends of May. (51.) LEO THE BISHOP TO LEO AUGUSTUS. If we should desire to attend the glorious purpose of your Piety in the defence of the faith with as much praise as the greatness of the matters themselves demands, we shall be found unequal in the rendering of thanks, if by the narrowness of our mouth alone we celebrate the joys of the universal Church.

But the recompense worthier of your deeds and merits shall be reserved by Him in whose cause you excel both in special resolve and triumph in the wished-for outcome of glory. Let your Clemency therefore know that all the churches of God exult and rejoice alike with your praise, because the wicked parricide has been driven from the yoke of the Church of Alexandria, and the people of God, upon whom that nefarious brigand was brooding, being brought back into the ancient liberty of the faith, can now be recalled into the way of salvation by the preaching of faithful priests, since it sees all the seed-bed of poisons cast out upon its very author. Now therefore, since you have accomplished these things with steadfast purpose and great mind, add this to the completed work of faith: that concerning a Catholic prelate for that city —

that you decree, which may please God, one who is infected by no sprinkling of the impiety so often condemned, lest perhaps the covered wound grow beneath the appearance of an overlaid scar, and the Christian people, who by your efforts have been openly freed from the perversity of the heretics, be again liable to deadly poisons. And you see, venerable Emperor, and clearly recognize, that in the person concerning whose cutting-off it is a question, it is not integrity of faith alone that is to be considered.

For even if it could be purged by any corrections and professions, and be restored to its integrity by any condition whatever, nevertheless the things which have been committed wickedly and bloodily can by no means be abolished by the protestations of plausible words, because in a pontiff of God, and especially in the priest of so great a Church, the sound of the tongue and the speech of the lips do not suffice, and it profits nothing if God is preached by the voice while the mind is convicted in impiety. For concerning such men the Holy Spirit speaks through the Apostle: having a form of piety, but denying the power thereof; and again elsewhere: they profess that they know God, but in their works they deny Him.

Whence, since in every member of the Church both the truth of an unimpaired faith and the fullness of good works are sought, how much more ought both to be pre-eminent in the supreme pontiff, since the one without the other cannot have a joining with the body of Christ. Nor is it necessary now to recount all the things which make Timothy execrable, since the deeds done through him and on his account have proceeded copiously and manifestly into the knowledge of the whole world, and, if anything has been perpetrated against justice by the ill-ordered crowd, all things flow together upon the head of this man, to whose desires the hands of the raging served.

Whence, even if in the profession of faith this man neglect nothing here and deceive in nothing, it is most fitting to your glory to exclude him altogether from this aspiration, because in the prelate of so great a city the whole Church ought to rejoice with holy exultation, so that the true peace of the Lord may be made illustrious not only by the preaching of faith but also by the example of morals. Given on the fifteenth day before the Kalends of July, in the consulship of Magnus and Apollonius, through Philoxenus, agent in affairs. (52.) LEO THE BISHOP TO GENNADIUS, BISHOP OF CONSTANTINOPLE. By the letters of your Charity and by the discourse of our brothers and fellow-bishops Domitianus and Geminianus, I have learned that Timothy, after he was expelled from the Church of the city of Alexandria,

was permitted to come to Constantinople, certain adversaries of the faith being active in this, so that, as far as can be understood, since he is hemmed in by the sentences of all the Lord's priests, he might at least unwillingly turn himself to Catholic doctrine, and — as though he seemed to have been cast out only for this cause, the error of heretical perversity being condemned — might acquiesce in apostolic teaching, so as to return to Alexandria. Whereas, even if he were proved Catholic, this vehemently stands against him: that, while the bishop of so great a See yet lived, he was the invader, and appeared the author of unheard-of cruelty committed.

And therefore your Charity, by that solicitude in which you are conspicuous, ought to strive and labour that no discourse, privately or publicly, be mingled with so nefarious a man, nor that, under the appearance of his correction, occasion be given by the assembly of certain persons, lest he obtain full liberty of returning. Concerning him the most Christian prince has already judged by his edicts.

With all labour, therefore, and ever-watchful circumspection, strive, dearest brother, that you may profit ecclesiastical unity, so that hope may be taken away from his supporters, and that a Catholic bishop may be consecrated for the Alexandrians from their own clergy, according to the ancient custom, by orthodox Egyptians; for that parricide is not otherwise deserted by his defenders unless the Church of Alexandria — which must be restored to the honour of the Fathers and to her own liberty — obtains a most approved ruler for healing all the things that have been ill done. Given on the fifteenth day before the Kalends of July, in the consulship of Magnus and Apollonius, through Philoxenus, agent in affairs. (53.) LEO THE BISHOP TO TIMOTHY, CATHOLIC BISHOP OF THE CHURCH OF ALEXANDRIA.

It clearly appears, under the splendour of the apostolic sentence, that to those who love God all things work together for good, and by the dispensation of divine mercy, where adversities are received, there prosperities also are granted. This the trials of the Church of Alexandria demonstrate, in which the affliction and endurance of the humble gathered for her many treasures of patience, because the Lord is near to those who are troubled in heart, and He will save the humble in spirit — the faith of the renowned prince being glorified in all, through whom the right hand of the Lord wrought valour, that the reproach of Antichrist might not sit any longer on the throne of the blessed Fathers;

whose impiety harmed no one more than himself, because although he impelled some to fellowship in his crime, he yet bloodied himself inexpiably. Whence concerning that which, by the instinct of faith, the election of clergy and people and of all the faithful accomplished in your Brotherhood, I write back that the whole Church of the Lord rejoices with me; and I earnestly desire that the kindness of divine mercy may confirm this by multiplied grace, that so, in all things your devotion serving Him, you may also earnestly seek to reconcile to God, through the prayers of the Church, even those who to some extent resisted the truth,

— that resisted — win them to be reconciled to God, and as a solicitous ruler join them to the sacrament of the Catholic faith, whose solidity admits no division, imitating that true and godly Shepherd who laid down His life for His sheep, and did not compel the one straying sheep with scourges but carried it back to its own fold upon His own shoulders. Let your Charity therefore act, dearest brother, that no trace either of the Nestorian dogma or of the Eutychian error may be found in the people of God, because no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus, who would not reconcile the whole world to God the Father unless, through the regeneration of faith, He took up all men in the truth of our flesh.

When therefore occasions for writing arise which your Brotherhood may use — as necessarily and according to custom you have done, in that you directed to us the writings of your ordination through our sons Daniel the presbyter and Timothy the deacon — so let it persevere at all times in this office, and let tokens of the advances of peace be often sent, as far as can be, to our solicitude, that through mutual conversations we may perceive that the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. Given on the fifteenth day before the Kalends of September, in the consulship of Magnus and Apollonius. (54.) LEO THE BISHOP TO THE PRESBYTERS AND DEACONS OF THE CHURCH OF ALEXANDRIA, MOST BELOVED SONS, GREETING IN THE LORD.

I rejoice exultantly in the Lord over the most godly affection which you have among you, since, as your writings make plain, both the shepherd is shown to love the flock and the flock the shepherd. Being therefore solicitous for one another, as the Apostle says, to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace, hasten to attain to the fruit of your patience. For what more worthy can you either wish or do, than that, by the help of God's grace and the faith of the most glorious prince, you may make use of the advance of most solid peace, that beast being removed far off which, as the prophetic psalm sings, was laying waste the vineyard of the Lord's planting with singular ferocity?

Since therefore in the Lord's sheepfold neither the ambushes of thieves nor the assaults of robbers are any longer feared, let your whole body return into concord, and let that unity in all things be sought by the teaching of the Holy Spirit, on account of which the Apostle says: not seeking that which is useful to me, but that which is useful to many, that they may be saved. Let all say and think the very same; let there be no contentions of opinions and disputes: that which, down to the Catholic prelates in the Church of Alexandria, the disciples of truth learned and taught, let it be uttered by all the faithful with the same confession, because the truth, which is simple and one, admits no variety.

But if the impious lies of the heretics have disturbed any Christians of whatever order, summon them to the remedies of satisfaction, and in the spirit of meekness correct them with kindness, because, as blessed the Apostle Peter says, the Lord does not delay His promise, but acts patiently on your account, not willing that any should perish, but that all should be converted to repentance. It must therefore be brought about that difficulty of pardon may not make the cure the slower. Given on the fifteenth day before the Kalends of September, in the consulship of Magnus and Apollonius. (55.) LEO THE BISHOP TO THEOPHILUS, JOHN, ATHANASIUS, ABRAHAM, DANIEL, JONAH, PAPHNUTIUS, MUSAEUS, PANULVIUS, AND PETER, BISHOPS OF EGYPT.

By the letters of your Brotherhood, which our sons Daniel the presbyter and Timothy the deacon brought to me, I rejoice to have learned that the faith of the glorious and venerable prince, united to prophetic and evangelical teachings, has arrived at the holy and God-pleasing effects of his dispositions: that, the most bloodstained usurper of the Church of Alexandria having been cast down and translated to more distant parts, the election of the whole city has deserved a ruler worthy of his governance, to whose consecration no ambition might draw, no sedition impel, no iniquity incite, but that, being set in the midst, they might not doubt to prefer to all men one of merited holiness, whom the whole body might desire to preside over it.

Whence, rejoicing that the peace of God has been restored to Christian peoples, we commend to you mutually the dignity of your work, that a prelate ordained religiously in all things may find himself aided by brotherly assent, and may rejoice to be helped by your cooperation in abolishing the scandals which heretical error had stirred up. For, that man being thrust out who was the imitator of the devil and did not stand in the truth, ill-using the appearance of an invaded honour and name, it is fitting that the Church of Alexandria venerate and love him whom it has approved worthy of so great a priesthood, both by uprightness of morals and by the integrity of the Catholic faith.

To him we offer the full affection of our mind in mutual charity, exhorting, dearest brethren, and confidently requiring, that in the preaching of the word, in the instruction of precept, you keep that form of charity without which no virtues can profit. But as for what you know has been written to our brother and fellow-bishop Timothy concerning the recalling of those who, straying from the path of truth, have conducted themselves too inconsiderately and fiercely, let your Charity also understand it to pertain to your care, so that, since that pestilent sickness has spread itself far and wide, the same medicine may everywhere be applied to all wounds:

so that through pastoral diligence the fold of the Lord may be repaired in all the churches, and through the solicitude of charity and doctrine all the sheep of Christ may perceive that they have one Shepherd. Given on the fifteenth day before the Kalends of September, in the consulship of Magnus and Apollonius. (56.) SIMPLICIUS THE BISHOP TO ZENO AUGUSTUS. I should indeed desire, as far as pertains to the judgement of my devotion, by which I look up to Christian princes with continual veneration, to render to your Piety the offices due by unbroken discourses.