Let us now consider what the blessed Proclus also wrote in reply when John of Antioch and the Eastern synod had written to him, so that it may appear how shameless is the falsehood of the heretics, in whose supporters Catholics ought not to have placed their trust, when they pretend that this same holy Proclus, writing to the aforesaid John of Antioch, named Theodore with ill intent, and that he said he had appended to the volume which he sent to the Armenians certain chapters of this same Theodore, full of Jewish impiety, that they might be condemned under anathema. To the said John of Antioch, who complained and contradicted him, and to his synod, Proclus replied thus:
«For when did I ever write to your Holiness that either Theodore, or certain others who have long since died, ought to be subjected to anathema, or that mention should be made of anyone by name? But I think, as the very letters directed to your Holiness proclaim, that the epistle contains nothing difficult or perverse; yet because it is necessary to be freed from all suspicion and to stop the mouths of detractors, by this very thing — that I subscribed to the volume that was sent, and rejected those chapters which were appended, as not possessing the subtlety of piety — I did so. But neither concerning Theodore, nor concerning anyone else who has already died, did I write to you, most beloved of God, that he should be anathematized or repudiated.
But neither did our most dear Theodore the deacon, who was sent by us, receive any such instructions.» And not even by this most clear denial of the blessed Proclus are the heretics and their supporters confounded; but they still dare to say that he named Theodore of Mopsuestia with ill intent after his death, and accused him of impiety as a heretic — though Proclus himself protests aloud that he sought to have neither Theodore, nor indeed anyone else of those who had already died, anathematized or repudiated, nor made mention of anyone by name.
Far be it from the conscience of Proclus that, by the wicked defamation of venerable men and the broadcast vilification of priests who had died in the peace of the Church, he should be hunting for childish glory, and thereby aspiring to seem learned or religious. He denies, then, that he made mention of anyone by name; and he says that his letters not only testify, but even cry out against the deafness of the contentious, that they contain nothing perverse — defining as perverse precisely that which he was falsely thought to have sought, namely, that contrary to the custom of the Church, bishops who were never reproached during their lifetime should be condemned after death. He writes moreover also to Maximus, one of the two by whom, as has been said, he had sent the synodical epistle to the Eastern bishops, saying:
«Your Reverence remembers, when I was charging you with letters to the most holy bishop of Antioch, that I admonished you that all things ought to be done with his consent; and that nothing should be done toward the confusion or tumult of the Churches which are at peace, but that the volume should indeed be subscribed, while the chapters appended without a name should be turned away and repudiated, as not possessing the subtlety of piety. How then have I now learned by letters that the names of Theodore of Mopsuestia and of certain others have been set before chapters for anathematizing, when those men have already departed to God, and when it is superfluous to do injury after death to those who have already left this life, whom we never reproached even while they lived?
I beg you therefore: hasten, like a son, to inquire, but to commit all things to the authority of that same most reverend fellow-priest John; and after the subscription of the volume, and after the rejection of the chapters — whose authorship we do not know — at once make ready the deacon Theodore to come to the royal city, so that the churches of the most holy city be not filled with storm and tumult, and that you grant nothing to the desire of the impious Nestorius, who thinks he has many who hold opinions like his own.
» Here, as you perceive, it is enjoined — it is not gathered from the lead of our own reasoning, but is most clearly demonstrated by the very words of blessed Proclus — that if the synod of Chalcedon too, as some have done, were to reject the epistle of the venerable Ibas because of its praise of Theodore, as of one holding opinions like Nestorius, then rather, as we have said and proved, it would seem to have excused Nestorius and to have granted something to the desire of the Nestorians, who think they have many who hold opinions like their own.
And so the most wise man Proclus understood what learned masters were unwilling to understand: that if Theodore of Mopsuestia, together with certain others whose names had been set before chapters — I know not which — to be anathematized, were condemned, Nestorius might expostulate and say: How is it that I, as the inventor of a new doctrine, have been driven out from the Church, when Theodore, a most learned man, proclaimed by most learned Fathers, and others who, like him, died without complaint in the peace of the Church, are said to have held the very same views? You yourselves, then, ought rather to be called the inventors of a new dogma, you who depart from the teaching of those whom the Church has always held in honor. For even by your own testimony I am proved Catholic:
for if I teach those things which Theodore of Mopsuestia and others taught in the Church, and their teaching has either been praised by the holy Fathers, or — what at least is certain — is found to have been reproached by no one throughout the whole time they lived, then my teaching too is blameless. But if this reasoning — not mine, but that of the most prudent and most holy man Proclus, by keeping which the Church has hitherto dwelt in peace — is now despised, then I ask: why is there silence about the names of the others, which at that time had likewise been set before chapters for anathematizing? Why, do we suppose, are they now spared, though they were accused along with him, and Theodore of Mopsuestia alone is named in this condemnation?
Is there anything else here that we can understand or suspect, except that he alone was praised in the epistle of the venerable Ibas, which the synod of Chalcedon judged to be orthodox? Furthermore, the wise man Proclus did not dare to do injury to this Theodore after his death, since Christian piety did not allow it; nor did he have anything he could answer if it were said to him: Why do you accuse of Jewish impiety, and seek to condemn, a dead man, whom while he was living and teaching openly in the Church you never presumed to refute?
For if he seemed to deserve condemnation as a heretic, he ought first to have been admonished while alive, when he could either explain himself in those points in which you take offense, and receive or render a better account, or be deservedly condemned for his own obstinacy. But as it is, you do nothing else than leave to posterity an interminable scandal — that, while some who follow afterward hold to the judgment of the ancient Fathers who praised him, and others to yours, who presume to accuse him after death, the Church should always be shaken by great quarrels. By this reasoning, so plain to all, the good and wise man Proclus was led to write nothing evil — neither of Theodore, as the heretics pretend, nor of anyone else who died in the peace of the Church.
For this reason, rebuking his deacon, he says that he enjoined upon him nothing to be done toward the confusion and tumult of the Churches that were at peace. Hence he not only found fault with the fact that the names of Theodore of Mopsuestia and of certain others had been set before chapters — I know not which — but he even confesses that he does not know whose they were. How, then, could the holy synod, perceiving from the epistle of Ibas the praise of Theodore, compel that same Ibas to anathematize Theodore himself, when it knew that — not only concerning him, but concerning all who had already left this life blameless — it had been determined by the judgment of holy Proclus, whose teaching it held, that it was superfluous to do them injury after death?