Sermons & Letters 80

CHAP. I. — The charity of our fraternal college makes us read over the letters of all the priests with a grateful mind, since through spiritual grace we embrace as though present those with whom we are associated by the mutual passing to and fro of discourse in letters. But greater affection seems to us to be in those matters in which, being made the more certain concerning the state of the Churches, we are compelled, by consideration of our office, to the vigilance of exercising our solicitude; so that, set as it were upon the watchtowers as the Lord willed, both according to our desire we may lend our assent to matters as they run their course, and may correct, by the remedies of applied restraint, those things which we perceive to be corrupted by some usurpation:

hoping that the seed cast will yield us abundant fruit in response, if we do not allow to grow those things which have begun to spring up to the detriment of the Lord's harvest. CHAP. II. — After, therefore, the petition of your love became known to us through our son Nicolaus the presbyter, that to you also, as to your predecessors, authority might be granted by us throughout Illyricum,

with our vicariate authority being bestowed for the sake of the guardianship of the rules, we, giving our assent, urge you by our exhortation that no dissimulation and no negligence should come about concerning the governance of the Churches situated throughout Illyricum, which we commit to your love in our stead, following the example of Siricius of blessed memory, who first committed them, upon a fixed principle, to your predecessor Anysius of holy memory — a man then rightly approved of the Apostolic See, and approved also by his subsequent deeds — that he might come to the aid of the Churches set throughout that province, which he willed to be held to discipline. Glorious examples are the more earnestly to be followed, so that of those whose privileges we desire to use, we may show ourselves in all things their like.

We wish you to be an imitator both of your predecessor and of your successor, who is known in like manner both to have merited and to have exercised this; so that we may rejoice over the progress of the Churches which we commit to you in our stead. For as to one who acts well, and more skilfully carries out the things which befit priestly authority, the burden imposed tends to his honour, so it is known to be otherwise for him who, with the power committed to him, does not use it with the moderation he ought. CHAP. III. — Hold, therefore, with ever-watchful care, most beloved brother, the helm entrusted to you, and cast the eyes of your mind round about upon all things which you see enjoined to your care, guarding them so as to profit unto your reward, and resisting those who strive to shake the discipline of the canons.

Let the venerable sanction of the divine law, and more especially the decrees of the canons, be observed. Throughout the provinces committed to you, let such priests be consecrated unto the Lord as are supported by the merits of their life and of the clerical order alone. Grant nothing to be lawful to personal favour, nothing to ambition, nothing to bought votes. Let those who are to be ordained be more diligently examined, and imbued with ecclesiastical disciplines through a long course of life. Provided, however, that all the things which have been established by the holy Fathers concur in them, and that they have kept the things which we read the blessed Apostle Paul to have enjoined concerning such men — that he be the husband of one wife, and have taken her as a virgin, as the authority of the divine law provides.

This we wish to be so carefully guarded that we take away room for all excuses, lest anyone believe he can attain to the priesthood who took a wife before he obtained the grace of Christ, and, upon her failing, joined another to himself after baptism. Since that wife cannot be denied, nor the number of the former marriage abolished, and he is thus the father of the children whom he received of her before baptism, just as he is also of those whom he is known to have received of the other after baptism. For as sins, and those things which are known to be unlawful, are abolished through the laver of baptism, so those things which are granted or lawful by the precept of the law are not blotted out. CHAP. IV. — Let no bishop be ordained throughout those Churches without consulting you:

for thus it will come about that there are, by their very nature, judgements about those to be chosen, while the examination of your love is held in awe. But whatever bishop shall have been ordained by the metropolitans contrary to our precept and without your knowledge, let him know that he has no firmness of his standing before us, and that those who have presumed this shall render an account of their usurpation. But to each of the metropolitans, as this power is committed that in their own provinces they may have the right of ordaining, so we wish those metropolitans to be ordained by you, yet with mature and well-digested judgement. For although it befits all bishops to be consecrated as approved and pleasing to God, yet we wish those to excel whom we shall have known to be about to preside over the fellow-priests who belong to them.

Of which we forewarn your love, solicitously and more cautiously, that you may be approved to guard that apostolic saying which is written: 'Lay hands hastily on no man' (1 Tim. 5:22). CHAP. V. — Whosoever of the brethren shall have been summoned to a synod, let him attend, and not deny himself to the holy congregation: in which he must know that especially is to be settled whatever can pertain to ecclesiastical discipline. For every fault will the better be avoided, if among the priests of the Lord a more frequent conference be held, and united fellowship contributes very much both to amendment and to charity alike. There, if any causes arise, they will, with the Lord granting it, be able to be so terminated that no contention remains, but charity alone grows up among the brethren.

But if any greater cause shall arise, which could not be settled there with your fraternity presiding, let your report be sent to consult us: so that, with the Lord revealing it — to whose mercy we profess to owe whatever we are able to do — we may write back what he himself shall have inspired in us: so that by our examination we may vindicate it to our own cognizance, according to the tradition of the ancient institution and the reverence due to the Apostolic See. For as we wish you to exercise your authority in our stead, so we reserve to ourselves those things which could not be composed there, or whoever shall have uttered the voice of appeal. CHAP. VI.

— These things, therefore, we wish to come to the notice of all the brethren, so that no one thenceforth, through ignorance, may find any means of excusing himself in the observance of these things which we have enjoined. To the very metropolitans of the several provinces also we have sent our letters, by which we might admonish them: so that they may know that the apostolic sentences must be obeyed, and that they obey us then, when they shall have begun to obey your fraternity, according to those things which we have written, by our delegation. But I have learned — what we could not pass over in silence — that by certain of the brethren only bishops are ordained on the Lord's days;

but presbyters and deacons, concerning whom the like consecration ought to take place, receive the dignity of the sacerdotal office indiscriminately on whatever day it pleases, against the canons and the tradition of the Fathers. This must be corrected, since a custom handed down concerning all the sacred orders ought to be guarded by all; so that through the long course of times he who is to be ordained a priest or a levite may be advanced through all the orders of such an office: that over a lengthy time, of which he himself is also to be a teacher. Given on the Ides of January, in the consulship of Theodosius for the eighteenth time and of Albinus.