Sermons & Letters 170

My son Adeodatus, deacon of our see, having returned to us, related that your Charity had requested to receive from us in these matters the authority of the Apostolic See, matters which indeed seem to present great difficulty of judgement. But according to the inspection of the necessities of the times, care must be applied, that the wounds which have been inflicted by the adversity of hostility may be healed chiefly by the reckoning of religion. CHAP. I. Concerning women who, on the occasion of the captivity of their husbands, married others.

— Since, then, through the disaster of war and through the most grievous incursions of hostility, you say that certain marriages have been in a manner divided, so that, the men having been carried off into captivity, their women remained forsaken — women who, since they thought their own husbands either slain, or believed they would never be freed from that dominion, passed, solitude compelling them, to the wedlock of others: and since now, the state of things, by the Lord's help, being turned to better, some of those who were thought to have perished have returned, your Charity seems deservedly to be in doubt what ought to be ordained by us concerning the women who have been joined to other husbands. But because we know it written that 'a woman is joined to a husband by God' (Prov. XIX.

14), and again we have recognized the precept, that 'what God has joined, let not man put asunder' (Matt. XIX. 6), it is necessary that we believe the bonds of lawful marriages ought to be restored, and, the evils which hostility brought in being removed, that to each one there be reformed what he lawfully had; and it is to be procured with all zeal that each one receive back what is his own. CHAP. II. Whether he is culpable who took the place of a captive husband. — Nor yet is he to be judged culpable, or held as an invader of another's right, who took upon himself the person of that husband who was already thought to be no more.

For thus many things which pertained to those who were led into captivity were able to pass into another's right, and yet it is full of justice that, on those same men's return, their own things be reformed to them. But if this is duly observed in slaves or in fields, or even in houses and possessions, how much more ought it to be done in the restoration of marriages, that what was disturbed by the necessity of war be reformed by the remedy of peace? CHAP. III. That the wife is to be restored to her first husband. — And therefore, if the husbands, returned after a long captivity, so persevere in the love of their wives that they desire them to return into their partnership, that which necessity brought in must be let go and judged blameless, and what fidelity demands must be restored.

CHAP. IV. That women unwilling to return to their first husband are to be excommunicated. — But if certain women have been so captivated by love of their later husbands that they prefer to cleave to these rather than to return to their lawful partnership, they are deservedly to be censured; so that they be deprived even of ecclesiastical communion: they who, out of an excusable matter, have chosen the contamination of a crime, showing that they have pleased themselves for their incontinence in that which a just remission could have expiated. Let marriages therefore return into their own state by voluntary restoration, nor let that which the condition of necessity extorted be in any way drawn to the reproach of an evil will:

for just as these women, who are unwilling to return to their husbands, are to be held impious, so those who return into an affection begun from God are deservedly to be praised. CHAP. V. Concerning those who, when they were captives, ate things sacrificed to idols, compelled by hunger or fear. — But concerning those Christians who, among those by whom they had been captured, are asserted to have been polluted by sacrificial foods, we have believed that this too must be answered to the consultation of your Charity: that they be purged by the satisfaction of penance, which is to be weighed not so much by the length of time as by the compunction of the heart.

And whether fear extorted this, or hunger persuaded it, let it not be doubted that it is to be done away with, since food of this kind was taken for fear or for want, not for the veneration of religion. CHAP. VI. Concerning those who through fear or error were rebaptized. — But concerning those, about whom your Charity likewise believed us to be consulted, who were either compelled by fear or led astray by error to repeat baptism, and now recognize that they have acted against the sacrament of the Catholic faith, this moderation is to be kept: whereby they may be received into the unity of our communion not otherwise than through the remedy of penance and through the imposition of the episcopal hand; the times of penitence, moderation being observed, being appointed by your judgement, according as you shall have perceived the minds of the converts to be devout:

having regard likewise to the consideration of senile age, and looking to the necessities of any perils or of sickness. Among whom, if anyone be so gravely pressed that, while he is yet doing penance, despair is felt of his very safety, it behooves that he be succoured, through priestly solicitude, with the grace of communion. CHAP. VII. Concerning those who have been baptized once, but by heretics. — For those who have received baptism from heretics, when they had not before been baptized, are to be confirmed by the sole invocation of the Holy Spirit through the imposition of hands, because they received the form only

of baptism without the virtue of sanctification. And this rule, as you know, we preach is to be observed in all the Churches, that the laver once entered be violated by no repetition, the Apostle saying: 'One Lord, one faith, one baptism.' Whose washing is to be profaned by no repetition, but, as we have said, the sole sanctification of the Holy Spirit is to be invoked: that what no one receives from heretics may be obtained from Catholic priests. And this our letter, which we have issued in answer to the consultation of your Fraternity, you shall cause to reach all your brethren and fellow-provincial bishops, that the authority given may profit the observance of all. Given on the twelfth of the Kalends of April, in the consulship of Majorian Augustus.