But those things which afterward the emperor Zeno, having trampled upon the reverence of the order of God, decreed according to his own judgment and power, who would accept them? Who would heed them, in which an inconsiderate power attended not to what was expedient, but to what was permitted to itself, and did not understand that confusion does not make unity? For if unity is to be made not by the conversion of heretics, but by contagion and commingling, why should only the Acephali, and not all heretics, be admitted into the Church with their errors not first condemned, nor the definitions received which were established against their errors? Exhorting, indeed, the aforesaid Acephali to return to the Church, he speaks thus in the first place:
«Flavius Zeno, pious, victor, triumpher, ever Augustus the greatest, to the orthodox bishops, archimandrites, and peoples established throughout Alexandria, and throughout Egypt, and the Pentapolis, and Libya.» And after he called them orthodox, he admonishes that they be joined to the Church, saying: «Be joined therefore to the spiritual mother, the Church, that you may enjoy one divine communion.» O prudent man, circumspect on every side, who presumed to brood over the office of priests! He calls the Acephali orthodox, who are, if nothing else, separated from the Church. Why then does he exhort them to be joined to their spiritual mother, if, severed from her, they remained orthodox? «That you may enjoy,» he says, «one divine communion.»
Were those others, then, without the divine communion, estranged from God, while these were orthodox? Or did they indeed have a divine communion, but not one with the Church? Can there then be two divine communions dissenting from one another and contrary to one another? But if the God of Zeno is one, the divine communion also is one. But if two divine communions, dissenting from each other, are spoken of, it follows that not only must two gods be believed to exist, but also that they dissent from one another. And what evil would you not commit, O Augustus, first power of the age, when, not considering yourself subject to the divine power, you overstep the bounds appointed for you?
Calling those orthodox who dissent from the Church of God, you say they are partakers of another divine communion. If you understood that this very thing — that all things are permitted to you — were the furnace of your testing, admonished always even by the very appearance, that is, the color, of the purple in which you are clothed, you would believe yourself set as it were in the midst of the flame. But again he says: «For our holy mother the Church receives you as her own sons; embrace her. For after a long time she desires to hear your sweet voice. Add yourselves therefore to her.» With what fruit, I ask, would they embrace the Church? with what fruit would they add themselves to her, when he both calls those separated from her orthodox, and believes them to be partakers of the divine communion?
But hear what worldly power, trusting in itself and not in reason, may do. For, wishing to satisfy those same Semi-Eutychians, in this edict he set forth his own faith, professing that he received the councils of Nicaea, Constantinople, and Ephesus; but keeping silent about that of Chalcedon, and shunning the profession of the two natures of Christ: as though the diseased were not to be healed by an antidote, but to be gathered together unto the contagion of others. And whereas it is written: I spoke of thy testimonies in the sight of kings, and was not confounded (Ps. 118:46), the king was confounded to speak what is true in the sight of his subjects. This the despiser of God deserved from the divine justice — that he who would not be subject to His order, should stand in awe of his own subjects.
He even added something still more wicked, saying 'that the holy Catholic Churches which are everywhere, and the priests beloved of God who preside over them, ought to believe no otherwise.' As though the entire faith of the Churches depended upon his will, and as if it were lawful for no one to believe otherwise than the emperor commanded. He saw, as I judge, certain timid men, or men greedy of temporal goods, fawning upon him, and from these he formed his estimate of all the rest; from whom, even though he had taken away the voice of contradiction, he certainly could not change the mind. For the power of the world avails nothing further over those whom it has drawn back from the free profession of the faith, save that they fall into that which the Lord declares:
'Whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of Man be ashamed when he shall come in his majesty, and that of the Father, and of the holy angels' (Luke IX, 26). Therefore the right of worldly power can take some away from the Church, yet can acquire none for itself. It is better, then, that it once for all contain itself within its own limit, which when it transgresses, it can destroy many and gain none. For all the things we propose to teach have their own workshops and craftsmen. Never have we heard anvils resounding from a weaving-house, and fire panting there in furnaces. Never have we found inquiry made of a cobbler as to what proportion of breadth suited the length of any given structure, and what height agreed with both.
For those alone can know these things perfectly who have been instructed by the very teachers of that art. The divine Scriptures alone are held in contempt, which have neither their own school nor masters, and concerning which he believes himself able to dispute most expertly who has never learned them. Then, since the causes of the palace are transferred to the Church, how was he transferring a cause of the Church to the palace? Finally, had he by now tamed or pacified all the barbarian nations hostile to the commonwealth? Had he by now removed the seditions and the causes of seditions throughout the various provinces of his empire? Had he by now given a fitting end to all the complaints of criminal or civil suits?
Since, then, he was not sufficient for these matters, for which no one can be sufficient, how—if he had considered the great perils of his own station, and that he must render to God an account of all things—could he plunge himself even into perils that were not his own; or how, if he did so, would not the divine justice condemn such presumption? But not content with this, he added this also, to the injury of the holy synod of Chalcedon, saying: 'Unite yourselves therefore, doubting in nothing. For we have written these things to you, not innovating upon the faith, but that we might satisfy you. But everyone who thinks otherwise, whether now or at any time, whether at Chalcedon or in any synod whatsoever, we anathematize.'
But to this detestable crime we believe him to have been incited by the praises of flatterers, when they would say to him, as they are wont, that he surpassed all his predecessors in wisdom and religion; that no one could be compared to him among all the priests of God who were or had ever been; that in him alone, and up to his own time, did the Catholic faith stand firm. Believing these men, he supposed that through a singular wisdom—which none but his flatterers had attributed to him—he could find a method of effecting unity which no one before him through so many ages had been able to find. Finally, thus he spoke in the aforementioned edict: 'Let member be joined to member, which the enemy of good has hastened for a long time to separate;
for he knows that, if he attack the whole body of the Church, he is easily overcome. From this division, then, it has come to pass, through so many generations of so many years, that some indeed, defrauded of the laver of regeneration, departed from this life,' and the rest. Are we to consent to the preaching of secular power, which after so many generations, by deceiving or by being silent about what is true, believed it could effect unity? We too shall say that, unless we be joined to the Eutychians, the body of the Church is not whole. But woe to us, if we believe ourselves to have remained mutilated apart from the Acephali! And whereas most blessed Leo said: 'For in no way can it come to pass that those who dare to contradict the divine sacraments should be associated with us in any communion';
he sent contradictors into the Church, giving what is holy to dogs, and casting pearls to be trodden upon before swine. At length, turning against those very profaners, they rent them, and severed them from the Church. On account of which a great and long-lasting schism also arose, until the merciful God, through the ministry of your piety, should restore them to unity. Whence also you have obtained the greatest glory, which we hope you may keep unto the end, doing nothing contrary to this your praiseworthy deed. But remember what joy there then was among the Christian people, when the whole Catholic world proclaimed you the keepers of the paternal decrees, you the recoverers of ecclesiastical peace, you the avengers of its violated order.
O how sweetly was your name borne upon the lips of those who praised you! how welcome was the hearing of that memorable work of yours! And therefore consider, we beseech you, and behold both what you accomplished at that time, and what the princes Marcian and Leo accomplished in their own days through the ordained priestly office, and what Zeno did to the contrary—having trampled upon the order of the divine dispensation, and abusing an office not his own, when he trusts in flatterers, when he esteems himself by their praises, when he is exalted by those acclamations by which humanity is wholly burdened—not heeding what the Apostle warningly said: 'But let every man prove his own work, and so shall he have glory in himself, and not in another' (Gal. VI, 4):
that is, that a man may trust in the testimony of his own conscience, not that, abandoning that, he may glory in the mouth of the one who praises him. And flattery indeed seems sweet, but it is received to one's destruction; truth, on the other hand, though sometimes bitter, is yet always wholesome to those who receive it well. The one fawns and deceives; the other chastises and corrects.