The same Augustus, to Mennas, most holy and most blessed archbishop of Constantinople and patriarch of all his region. In carrying out a matter not unusual for the imperial majesty, we have come to the present law. For as often as the verdicts of the bishops have cast down from their priestly seats certain men unworthy of the priesthood (such as Nestorius, Eutyches, Arius, Macedonius, Eunomius, and others of malice no less than theirs), so often also has the emperor's consent been added to the authority of the bishops, so that things divine joined together with things human might, by their right verdicts, bring about a certain symphony and a single harmony.
We know that something similar lately befell Anthimus, who was driven from the see of this royal city by Agapetus of religious and renowned memory, the prelate set over the most holy Church in old Rome; for he had leapt into a see in no way rightly belonging to him and against all the canons, and so by a common verdict
and though he seemed to honor that man of holy memory with many titles (which afterward by various contrivances he repudiated), pretending indeed that he followed the four holy councils—namely of the three hundred and eighteen holy Fathers at Nicaea, of the one hundred and fifty in this gracious city, of the two hundred first gathered at Ephesus, and likewise of the six hundred and thirty Fathers most beloved of God at Chalcedon—yet not in fact following their teachings, and unwilling either to embrace our kindness and the indulgence we extended for his salvation, or to renounce the authors of such impious doctrines who had been rejected by the holy Fathers in the synods, but holding that both the condemned and those who had condemned them should be placed in one and the same rank of authority.
For once he had been enslaved to thoughts foreign to the most holy Church, and made a stranger to right doctrines, he was deservedly unable to return to their rectitude, even though admonished by us also, who diligently and with the utmost zeal strove for his salvation and pointed out to him the way. On account of all these things therefore which were done in his case, our authority confirms also the sentence of deposition from his ecclesiastical rank pronounced by the holy synod—both for the cause of the unlawful intrusion, neither approved by the sacred canons, into the priestly see of this royal city, and for his turning aside from the right and true doctrines.
Indeed, neither do we leave without imperial confirmation the sentence justly promulgated against Severus, which proceeded from all the archiepiscopal and patriarchal sees together with the prudence of the monks—Severus, who having first against the sacred rites seized the see of the most holy Church of the Theopolitans, so threw all into confusion, and so transformed what he had confused, that he seemed to wage a kind of general war among the most holy churches, undertaken without the intervention of heralds.
And this too had been written against him by those who held the scepters of empire before us: that he employed deceits, blasphemies, and doctrines so manifold and so foreign to rectitude, throwing everything by now into utter confusion, and resting upon the error of both heresiarchs alone (namely Nestorius and Eutyches), having drawn from them their abominable doctrines that war against religion, and inventing notorious disputations of both these most perverse leaders—who, although they seem to differ somewhat among themselves, yet tend toward one single end of impiety.
For although the doctrines of Nestorius and of Eutyches (as we have said) are two contraries to each other, each of which equally brings death to the soul, since they are composed of the very impieties of the Arians and of Apollinaris, yet—marvelously and beyond expectation—he, being so disposed, fell alike into both, now granting the chief place to the one, now to the other, and so appears to have made himself and his discourses a common receptacle of so great crimes.
Let him therefore also be subject to the aforesaid anathema, which the whole patriarchal, priestly, and monastic order of our commonwealth (so to speak) has justly imposed upon him—cast out of the Church of the Theopolitans, because the see of that city too has repelled him, as one who from the very beginning did not duly occupy it, since indeed he who had exercised the priesthood before him was still living and was holding sacred assemblies here and there in the most holy churches; and now he has been excluded from the priesthood by his own successor. Nor did he stop within these bounds alone,
but he has also already been rejected under the general anathema of the orthodox and catholic Church, and has crammed our commonwealth with many slanderous and forbidden books. Wherefore we forbid all men universally to procure any of his books. And just as it is not lawful to copy or procure the books of Nestorius—because to emperors before us, in their constitutions, they appeared to be like the writings of Porphyry published against the Christians—so neither may the sayings or writings of Severus remain with any Christian, but as profane and alien from the catholic Church let them be burned with fire by their possessors, unless they wish to be brought into danger by retaining them.
Moreover, henceforth let them be copied by no one, whether some bookseller, or notary, or whoever else he may be, knowing that the cutting off of the hand shall be inflicted as a penalty upon those who copy his sayings. For we do not will that their blasphemy should creep on into other ages. In like manner we forbid him also entry into this royal city and its confines and any more distinguished city; but let him sit idle in some single place and in silence, neither corrupting others, nor leading them on to utter blasphemies, nor inventing anything new against the true doctrines, whereby he might again strive to throw our most holy churches into confusion.
But neither does the imperial majesty admit Peter, who was bishop of Apamea, removed from his ecclesiastical rank, and for the same causes as Severus, smitten (as they call it) with anathema. Rather, let what has been decreed against him stand valid; and as he has been brought under the general anathema, so let him remain brought under it, the sentence which proceeded concerning these very men from the most holy supreme pontiffs remaining valid. And we do not permit him to dwell in this royal city, or its confines, or any more eminent city, but let him imitate, in his manner of passing life, the rule of those whose error he followed, removing himself as far as possible from human society, and hiding himself in concealment.
For it is far better that this sort of men lie hidden than that they move about in public light and before the eyes of all. For if they keep silent, they will be harmful only to themselves; but if they publish their doctrines and put them forth to the common people, they afford to many of the simpler folk an occasion of ruin. And that this should in any way come to pass in the Christian sheepfold of God and among a pious and rightly-thinking people is neither just, nor to be conceded by the imperial majesty. And since the bishops, judging both religiously and justly, deemed Zooras also worthy to be brought wholly under anathema;
as being a kind of brief appendage of evils of this sort, to the perpetrating of which he was most ready and had great capacity—lest we wholly deprive him of the memory that he was endowed with some capacity in the matter—let Zooras indeed be a certain light appendage of this party (we speak of Anthimus, Severus, and Peter), and let him too be reckoned among those branded with anathema, being himself also placed there by the priestly sentence pronounced against him; which sentence, though sufficiently strong of itself, the imperial majesty renders yet much stronger, expelling him from this royal city and in every way forbidding him the confines and the inhabiting of cities:
so that he may dwell and take counsel only with those whom we have enumerated above, who blaspheme in the same manner and are banished in the same manner. And if anything else besides is contained in the sentence of the most holy bishops, which strips the aforesaid men of their ecclesiastical rank and strikes them with anathema, we hold it for valid.