Sermons & Letters 142

The light of evangelical truth having been made manifest, as we desired, through the grace of God, and the night of that most pernicious error having been driven from the universal Church, we rejoice ineffably in the Lord that the labour of the stewardship entrusted to us has attained its longed-for effect, as also the text of your letter declares; so that, according to the apostolic doctrine, we may all speak the same thing, and that there be no schisms among us: but that we be perfect in the same mind and in the same knowledge (1 Corinthians 1:10). In the devotion of which work we are glad that your love is a partner: that both by your diligence you might profit those needing correction, and might purge yourself from all participation with those who go astray.

For, your predecessor Flavian of blessed memory having been cast out for the defence of the Catholic truth, it was not without reason believed that your ordainers, contrary to the constitutions of the holy canons, would seem to have consecrated one like themselves. But the mercy of God was present, directing and confirming you in this, that you should use evil beginnings well; and it showed you to have been advanced not by the judgment of men, but by the benignity of God: which is indeed so to be understood, if you do not lose this grace of the divine gift by some other offence. For a Catholic man, and especially a priest of the Lord, ought neither to be entangled by any error nor to be corrupted by any covetousness. For as the Holy Scripture says:

Go not after thy lusts, but refrain thyself from thy desire (Sirach 18:30): the many enticements of this world, the many vanities, must be resisted, that the integrity of true continence may be obtained; whose first stain is pride, the beginning of transgression, and the origin of sin. For a mind greedy of power knows neither to abstain from things forbidden nor to rejoice in things permitted; while, by a disordered and depraved advance, the excesses of unpunished transgressions grow, and faults multiply — faults which have been tolerated out of zeal for restoring the faith and love of concord.

After those uninnocent beginnings, then, of your ordination, after the consecration of the bishop of Antioch, which you claimed for yourself against the canonical rule, I grieve that your love has fallen also into this: that you should attempt to infringe the most sacred constitutions of the Nicene canons; as though this time had opportunely offered itself to you, in which the See of Alexandria has lost the privilege of the second honour, and the Church of Antioch has forfeited the proprietary right of the third dignity — so that, these places being made subject to your right, all the metropolitan bishops might be deprived of their proper honour.

By these unheard-of excesses, never before attempted, you are so far carried away that you drag the holy synod — assembled by the zeal of the most Christian prince solely to extinguish heresy and to confirm the Catholic faith — into an occasion of ambition, and you press it to grant you its connivance: as though what a multitude has unlawfully willed cannot be refuted, and as though that constitution of the Nicene canons, ordained through the truly Holy Spirit, could in any part be dissoluble by anyone. Let no synodal councils flatter themselves on account of the multiplication of their assembly, nor let a number of priests, however much more copious, dare either to compare itself with, or to prefer itself before, those three hundred and eighteen bishops;

since the Nicene synod was consecrated with so divine a privilege that, whether ecclesiastical judgments be celebrated by fewer or by more, whatever shall be different from their constitution is utterly void of all authority. Too wicked, therefore, and too depraved are these things which are found to be contrary to the most sacred canons. Toward the disturbance of the whole Church this proud arrogance tends, which has wished so to abuse a synodal council that the brethren — convoked only in the business of the faith, and having discharged the definition of that cause which was to be attended to — it would either seduce by corrupting them, or compel by terrifying them, to consent to itself.

For thence our brethren directed from the Apostolic See, who presided over the synod in my stead, laudably and constantly withstood the unlawful attempts, openly protesting, lest against the ordinances of the Nicene council the presumption of a reprobate novelty should arise. Nor can there be any doubt about their contradiction — those about whom you yourself complain in your letter, that they wished to oppose your endeavours. In which indeed you greatly commend them to me by writing this, but you accuse your very self, in that you would not obey them while you contrive unlawful things, superfluously seeking what may not be granted and unwholesomely coveting things contrary to yourself, which will never be able to obtain any consent of ours.

Far be it from my conscience that so depraved a covetousness should be aided by my endeavours, and not rather be overthrown by my work and by the work of all who savour not high things, but consent to the humble. Those holy and venerable Fathers who, in the city of Nicaea, the sacrilegious Arius with his impiety being condemned, established the laws of the ecclesiastical canons to endure until the end of the world, both among us and in the whole world live on in their constitutions; and if anywhere anything is presumed otherwise than they decreed, it is annulled without delay: so that the things which have been generally instituted for perpetual benefit may be varied by no alteration, nor may those things which have been prescribed for the common good be drawn to private advantage.

And, the boundaries which the Fathers established remaining, let no one reach into another's right; but within his own lawful limits, let each, as far as he is able, exercise himself in the breadth of charity, of which the bishop of Constantinople can acquire fruits sufficiently abundant, if he strives rather by the virtue of humility than be puffed up by the spirit of ambition. Be not high-minded, brother, but fear (Romans 11:20), and cease to disquiet the most pious ears of the Christian princes with wicked petitions, by which I hold it certain that you will please them more by modesty than by arrogance.

For in no way whatever does that support your persuasion which certain bishops (as you boast) drew up sixty years ago in writing, and which was never transmitted by your predecessors to the notice of the Apostolic See — a thing frail from its very beginning and long since fallen, to which you have now wished, late and unavailingly, to put props beneath, by eliciting from the brethren a semblance of consent, which their modesty, wearied to their own injury, might afford you. Remember what the Lord threatens against him who shall scandalize one of the little ones (Matthew 18:6; Mark 9:41), and understand wisely what manner of judgment of God he shall undergo, who does not fear to bring scandal upon so many Churches, so many priests.

For I confess that I am so bound by love of the whole brotherhood, that in those things which he demands against himself I in no wise assent to him, and you may clearly recognize that with a benevolent mind I oppose your love, so that by sounder counsel you may hold yourself back from the disturbance of the universal Church. Let not the rights of the provincial primacies be torn away, nor let the metropolitan prelates be defrauded of the privileges anciently instituted. Let nothing of its dignity perish for the See of Alexandria, which it merited through the holy evangelist Mark, disciple of blessed Peter; nor, since Dioscorus has fallen through the obstinacy of his impiety, let the splendour of so great a Church be darkened by another's shadows.

Let the Church of Antioch also — in which, by the preaching of the blessed Apostle Peter, the Christian name first arose — persevere in the order of the paternal constitution, and, placed in the third grade, never become inferior to itself. For sees are one thing, presidents another; and to each his own integrity is a great honour. And since this, in whatever places, does not lose its proper ornaments, how much more can it be glorious in the magnificence of the city of Constantinople, if by your observance many priests should have both the defence of the paternal canon and the example of uprightness? These things to you.

Writing these things, brother, I exhort and admonish you in the Lord that, laying aside the desire of ambition, you rather grow fervent with the spirit of charity, and be adorned, according to the apostolic doctrine, by advancing in its virtues. For it is patient and kind, and envieth not, dealeth not perversely, is not puffed up, is not ambitious, seeketh not the things that are its own (1 Corinthians 13:4). Whence, if charity seeks not its own, how greatly does he sin who covets what is another's? From which things I wish that you altogether abstain, and be mindful of that sentence which says: Hold fast that which thou hast, lest another take thy crown (Revelation 3:11). For if you shall seek things not granted, you will by your own deed and judgment deprive yourself of the peace of the universal Church.

But our brother and fellow-bishop Lucian, and our son the deacon Basil, so far as in them lay, zealously attended to those things which you had enjoined; but justice denied effect to their action. Given on the eleventh day before the Kalends of June, in the consulship of the most illustrious Herculanus. Since your love has proved by frequent experiences with how constant and fixed a purpose I guard the statutes of the holy Nicene canons — deeming all the ecclesiastical rules to be dissolved, if anything of that most sacred constitution of the Fathers be violated — I marvel that you could direct such writings to me through our brother and fellow-bishop Lucian,

in which you so far intervene for the appetite of a new transgression that you think something special should be granted to you, if I assent to those things which are unlawfully coveted. But however much I may embrace you with affection, in no way whatever will you be able to obtain that you should either impel me by persuasion or lead me astray by supplication into the ruin of the ecclesiastical order. For our brother and fellow-bishop Anatolius, if he wisely understands the divine benefits and the assent of my favour, it is enough for him to have obtained that the supreme prelate should render thanks to God for the honour of his episcopate, and should hold himself back from the covetousness of unlawful things; and whoever love him especially ought to confirm him with such counsel;

that he seek not at all things impossible, and by coveting such things do himself no harm: for by no patronages with me will he be able to be so aided that here I should consent to those things which he demands, the constitution of the Fathers being trampled upon. Writing back therefore to your letters, out of the affection with which I love you, I admonish you that the state of the universal Church — fortified by that most wholesome and true ordination of old — be of greater account with you than that you should wish to demand from me, for anyone's favour, those things which, without guilt of us both, it is lawful neither for me to concede nor for you to obtain. Given on the eleventh day before the Kalends of June, in the consulship of the most illustrious Herculanus. Bishop Leo to Theodore, bishop of Forum Julii.

The order of your solicitude ought to have been this: that first you should confer with your metropolitan about that which seemed to need inquiry, and, as if your love too were ignorant of what he did not know, you should ask to be instructed together; for in causes which pertain to the general observance of all the Lord's priests, nothing ought to be inquired into without the primates. But that in whatever way the uncertainty of the one consulting may be instructed, I will not be silent about what the ecclesiastical rule holds concerning the state of the penitents.

The manifold mercy of God so succours human lapses, that not only through the grace of baptism but also through the medicine of penance the hope of eternal life is repaired, so that those who had violated the gifts of regeneration, condemning themselves by their own judgment, might come to the remission of their crimes: the aids of the divine goodness being so ordered that the pardon of God cannot be obtained except through the supplications of the priests. For the Mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, handed down this power to the prelates of the Church, that they should both give the action of penance to those confessing, and, when the same have been purged by wholesome satisfaction, admit them through the door of reconciliation to the communion of the sacraments.

In which work the Saviour Himself unceasingly intervenes, nor is He ever absent from those things which He committed to His ministers to be carried out, saying: Behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world (Matthew 28:20): so that if anything, through our ministry, is fulfilled with good order and to a gladdening effect, we should not doubt that it has been granted through the Holy Spirit. But if any one of those for whom we make supplication to the Lord, intercepted by some obstacle, should fall away from the gift of the present indulgence, and, before he attains the appointed remedies, should end his temporal life by the human condition, that which, remaining in the body, he did not receive, he will not be able to obtain when stripped of the flesh.

Nor is it necessary for us to discuss the merits and acts of those who have so died, since the Lord our God — whose judgments cannot be comprehended — has reserved to His own justice that which the priestly ministry was not able to fulfil: so willing His power to be feared, that this terror may profit all, and that what happens to certain lukewarm or negligent persons, no one may fail to dread. For it is very useful and necessary that the guilt of sins be loosed by priestly supplication before the last day. But to those who, in the time of necessity and in the urgency of pressing peril, implore the aid of penance and of immediate reconciliation, neither is satisfaction to be forbidden, nor reconciliation to be denied:

because we can neither set measures nor define times for the mercy of God, with whom true conversion suffers no delays of pardon, as the Spirit of God says through the prophet: When thou art converted and shalt groan, then shalt thou be saved (Isaiah 30:15, according to the Septuagint). And elsewhere: Declare thou thy iniquities first, that thou mayest be justified (Isaiah 43:26, according to the Septuagint). And again: For with the Lord there is mercy, and with Him plentiful redemption (Psalm 129:7). In dispensing the gifts of God, therefore, we ought not to be difficult, nor to neglect the tears and groans of those accusing themselves, since we believe that the very affection of repenting is conceived from the inspiration of God, as the Apostle says:

Perhaps God may give them repentance, that they may recover themselves from the snares of the devil, by whom they are held captive at his will (2 Timothy 2:25-26). Whence it behoves each Christian to have the judgment of his own conscience, lest he defer from day to day to turn to God, nor appoint for himself the time of satisfaction at the end of his life: for human frailty and ignorance perilously conclude itself under this condition, so as to reserve itself to the uncertainty of a few hours; and when it might merit indulgence by a fuller satisfaction, it chooses the straits of that time, in which scarcely the confession of the penitent or the reconciliation of the priest may find room.

But as I have said, even the necessity of such persons must be so aided that both the action of penance and the grace of communion be not denied them, if they ask for it — even with the loss of the office of speech — by the signs of an unimpaired mind. But if they have been so weighed down by some force of sickness that they cannot signify in the presence of the priest what they were demanding shortly before, the testimonies of the faithful standing round ought to profit them, so that they may at once obtain the benefit both of penance and of reconciliation; the rule of the paternal canons being nevertheless preserved concerning the persons of those who have sinned against God by departing from the faith.

But these things, brother, which I have therefore answered to the inquiry of your love — lest anything contrary should be done under the excuse of ignorance — you shall cause to come to the notice of your metropolitan: so that if perchance there are any of the brethren who previously thought these matters were to be doubted, they may through him be instructed about all the things which have been written to you. Given on the third day before the Ides of June, in the consulship of the most illustrious Herculanus. Grave are the things, and to be lamented with no small sorrow, which your fraternity signifies that the crowds of false monks are perpetrating, the impious Eutyches through the frenzy of the deceived waging war upon the evangelical and apostolic preachings, turning it back upon the destruction of himself and of his associates;

which is therefore deferred through the patience of God, that it may appear how greatly the enemies of the cross of Christ serve the devil; while the heretical depravity, exceeding the ancient veil of its dissimulation, can no longer contain itself within the limits of its hypocrisy, and pours out all the venom which it had long concealed, raging not only with the pen against the disciples of truth, but even with the hand, so as to extort by violence the consent either of the untaught in their simplicity or of those trembling in their faith.

But the children of light ought not so to fear the children of darkness that, though sound themselves, they should yield to the raging, or judge that any reverence must be shown to men of this kind, who, if they prefer to perish rather than to come to their senses, must be so watched over lest by their impunity they do harm more widely, and, while long tolerated, rise up to the ruin of many. Chapter II. — I am not ignorant of what love and grace are owed to our holy sons, the true monks, who do not abandon the modesty of their profession, and who carry out in their conduct what they have vowed in their purpose. But the proud and the restless, who glory in the contempt and injuries of priests, are to be reckoned not as servants of Christ, but as soldiers of Antichrist;

and they are chiefly to be humbled among their own superiors, since they incite the untaught multitude to the defence of their own perversity. Wherefore, since our most merciful prince loves the catholic faith with all the affection of a religious heart, and is greatly offended—as has become known everywhere—by this audacity of the rebellious heretics, action must be taken with his clemency, so that the instigators of these seditions may be separated from their frenzied congregations; and that not only Eutyches and Dioscorus, but also whoever more zealously abets that raging depravity, may be placed in such regions where they may have no intercourse of blasphemies with their allies:

for perhaps the simplicity of some will be cured by this remedial course, and they will more easily be recalled to soundness of mind, if they are set freer from the instigations of pestilent teachers. Chapter.

III. — But lest, for the strengthening of the minds of the devout, or for the confuting of heretics, necessary instruction should either be lacking or lie hidden, I have sent the letter of Athanasius, bishop of holy memory, addressed to Bishop Epictetus, whose testimonies Cyril of holy memory used in the Synod of Ephesus against Nestorius, because it so lucidly and carefully established the incarnation of the Word that it overthrew Nestorius and Eutyches among the heretics even of that time. Let the followers of Eutyches and Dioscorus dare to charge this man of such great authority with either ignorance or perversity—they who boast that our preaching deviates from the doctrine and understanding of the Fathers.

But it ought to profit toward the strengthening of the perceptions of all good priests, that the heretics—foreknown and condemned of old in their originators—have now more openly begun to build up the dogma of their impiety, lest, while their meaning lies hidden in silence, it should seem doubtful whether truly in these men there sprang up the threefold error of Apollinaris and the insane opinion of the Manichaeans. Since these men now no longer strive to conceal themselves, but boldly rise up against the Churches of Christ, ought it not to be provided that the forces of all their attempts be withdrawn from them—preserving, as I said, that measure of severity whereby the incorrigible be divided from the more peaceable? For 'evil communications corrupt good manners' (1 Cor. xv, 33); and, 'When the pestilent is chastised, the wise will be the more cunning' (Prov. xxi, 11);

so that, the society of the reprobate being in whatever way dissolved, some vessels may be snatched from the devil? For we ought not so to be offended by their revilings and empty talk that we take no care for their correction. Chapter IV. — But Bishop Juvenal, whose injuries are to be lamented, had far too rashly joined himself to the blasphemies of the heretics; and while he embraced Eutyches and Dioscorus, he drove many untaught men headlong by his example, although afterward he corrected himself by sounder counsel. These men, however, who had more greedily drunk in the poison of impiety, became the adversaries of him whose disciples they had formerly been, so that he himself might suffer from his own nourishment:

and it is to be wished that they may imitate the same amendment which he chose, if they might come to their senses even by the very testimony of the holy places round about which they dwell. But what manner of man he is who crept into the place of a living bishop, cannot be doubted from the very nature of the deed; nor is there any ambiguity that he is perverse whom the assailants of the faith have loved. Meanwhile let your Fraternity deign to continue the care of a devout solicitude, so that by more frequent writings you may let me know how the matter is progressing. Given on the seventh day before the Kalends of December, in the consulship of Herculanus.