Pastoral Rule, Dialogues & Letters 450

Gregory to Maurice Augustus. Amid the cares of arms and the innumerable solicitudes which with unwearied zeal you sustain for the governance of the Christian commonwealth, I have, together with the whole world, great cause for joy, that your Piety, with especial solicitude, ever keeps watch over the guardianship of the faith, by which the empire of our lords shines. Whence I am wholly confident that, just as you defend the causes of God out of love of a religious mind, so God defends and helps your causes by the grace of His Majesty. But in what manner the serenity of your Piety has been moved against the most flagitious depravity of the Donatists, out of consideration of justice and the zeal of most sincere religion, the tenor of the commands issued makes most clearly manifest.

But the most reverend men, the bishops who came from the African province, assert that these matters have been so neglected through a careless dissembling that neither has the judgment of God been held there in awe, nor have the imperial commands hitherto obtained any effect. They add this also: that in the aforesaid province, since the bribes of the Donatists prevail, the Catholic faith is publicly put up for sale. On the other hand, the glorious lord Gennadius made to me complaints of the same kind concerning one of them who was making such complaints; and to this the other two also bore witness in a matter that concerns them.

But because in this same case a secular judge was involved, I have deemed it right that these same bishops should be directed to the footsteps of your Piety, so that through their own persons they may lay before your most serene ears the things which they confess they have suffered for the Catholic faith. Wherefore I beseech that the Christian devotion of my lords, for the salvation of the soul and the life of your most pious offspring, may by strict command decree that those whom it recognizes as such be punished, and may with a rescuing hand hold back the ruin of those who are perishing, and may apply the medicine of correction to their frenzied minds, and drive out from them the bite of errors;

so that, when by the remedy of your pious provision the darkness of this pestilential depravity has been driven away, and the true faith has there scattered the rays of its serenity, the triumph before the eyes of our Redeemer in heaven may await you; for those whom you defend outwardly from the enemy, you also inwardly deliver from the poison of diabolical deceit, which is more glorious. Gregory to Athanasius the presbyter, concerning Isauria. Just as we are afflicted and grieve over those whom the error of heretical depravity has cut off from the unity of the Church, so we rejoice together with those whom the profession of the Catholic faith holds within its bosom.

And as it behooves us to withstand the impieties of the former with pastoral solicitude, so it is fitting to bestow favor upon the pious professions of the latter, and to declare that the things they hold are sincere. And therefore, since against you, Athanasius, presbyter of the monastery of Saint Milus, which is called Tamnacus and is situated in the province of Lycaonia, a suspicion contrary to the integrity of the faith had arisen, in order that the integrity of your profession might be able to appear, you chose to have recourse to the Apostolic See over which we preside, asserting also that you, having been bodily beaten, had done certain things unjustly and by violence.

And although what is done by the force of compulsion the censure of the canons by no means admits, and such things are rightly held to be void, since he himself dissolves them who compels one to confess and do what is unjust—but rather that confession is to be received and embraced which is shown to proceed from spontaneous will, as you are known to have done before us—nevertheless, lest anything doubtful might arise for us, we determined to write concerning you to the most holy John, once our brother and fellow-bishop, prelate of the city of Constantinople, that he might inform us by his letters what had been done.

He, often admonished by us, in writing back made known that a codex had been found in your possession in which many heretical things were contained, and that on account of this he had been stirred up against your Charity. And since he took care to transmit it to us for satisfaction, we ran through its earlier portions with careful reading. And since we found manifest poisons of heretical depravity in it, we forbade that it should be read again.

But because you testified that you had read this codex in simplicity, and, to cut off all matter of ambiguous suspicion, you handed to us a document written in your own hand in which, setting forth your faith, you most openly condemned all heresies generally, or whatever is against the integrity of the Catholic faith or profession, and you professed that you have always received and do receive all things which the holy four universal synods receive, and that you have condemned and do condemn the things which they condemn; you also promised both to accept and to keep that synod which was held in the times of the emperor Justinian concerning the Three Chapters; and, being forbidden by us to read that very codex in which the venom of pestilential deceit is interwoven, you most willingly consented;

reproving also and condemning all those things which against the integrity of the Catholic faith were spoken or covertly inserted in it, and you promised not to read it again—moved by this reasoning, after your Catholic faith, by God's keeping, had also shone clearly to us from the page of the document approved by you, we discern you to be free from every stain of heretical perversity according to your profession, and Catholic, and we pronounce that, by the grace of Christ Jesus the Savior, you have shone as a professor and follower of the sincere faith in all things; we also grant you free license to return nonetheless to your monastery, in your own place or rank. Concerning this, things were inserted, and you promised not to read it again;

moved by this reasoning, after your Catholic faith, by God's keeping, had also shone clearly to us from the page of the document approved by you, we decree you to be free from every stain of heretical perversity according to your profession, and Catholic, and we pronounce that, by the grace of Christ Jesus the Savior, you have shone as a professor and follower of the sincere faith in all things; we also grant you free license to return nonetheless to your monastery, in your own place or rank. Concerning this also we wish to transmit our writings to our most beloved brother, the prelate of the city of Constantinople, who has been ordained in the place of the aforesaid Saint John.

But because it is not the custom that we should write before his synodical letter is brought to us, we have therefore deferred it. But after it has been delivered to us, we will make these things known to him when it shall be opportune. (Cf. John the Deacon, book IV, no. 36 and no. 23. See index 11, letter 52; index 13, letter 18.)