and I give thanks to God, that I see you have so great a care for the universal Church, that I may confidently suggest what I judge to accord both with justice and with benevolence, whereby the more speedily those things which, Christ being propitious, have hitherto been blamelessly done by the zeal of your piety, may be brought to a rejoicing effect, most glorious Augusta. For as to your clemency's having commanded a synod to be held at Nicaea—whereas your gentleness retains the request that it be held in Italy, so that all the prelates of our parts, being convoked, might come together, if the security of the time should suffice—yet I received it so far not disdainfully, that I appointed two of my fellow-bishops and fellow-presbyters, who might suffice to fill my place, fitting writings also being given to the venerable synod, whereby the summoned fraternity might know what form it ought to observe in this adjudication:
lest any rashness should run counter either to the rules of the faith, or to the statutes of the canons, or to the remedies of benignity. CHAPTER II. — For as, from the beginning of this cause, I have written most frequently, I willed this moderation to be kept amid discordant perceptions and carnal rivalries: that indeed nothing be plucked away from, nor lawful to add anything to, the integrity of the faith; but that to those returning to unity and peace a middle course of pardon be afforded. Because then the works of the devil are more powerfully destroyed, when the hearts of men are recalled to the love of God and of neighbor. But how contrary to my admonitions and beseechings the things done then here were, it is much to explain; nor is there need that there be comprehended on an epistolary page whatever in that Ephesine—not a judgment, but a brigandage—could be perpetrated;
where the chief men of the synod spared neither the brethren resisting them nor those consenting: since, to overthrow the catholic faith and to strengthen the execrable heresy, they stripped some of the privilege of honor, and infected others with the fellowship of impiety—far more savage indeed against those whom by persuading they separated from innocence, than against those blessed confessors whom by persecuting they made blessed. CHAPTER III. — Nevertheless, because such men have injured themselves most of all by their own iniquity, and to greater wounds a more diligent medicine is to be applied, I have never by any letters defined that pardon must be denied even to such men, if they should come to their senses.
And although we unchangeably detest as most hostile to the Christian religion the heresy itself, nevertheless the men themselves, if they be corrected beyond doubt and cleanse themselves by worthy satisfaction, we do not judge to be estranged from the ineffable mercy of God; but rather we groan with those who groan and weep with those who weep, and we so employ the justice of our indignation that we do not forfeit the remedy of charity. And this, as your Piety recognizes, is promised not by words alone but is also taught by deeds. For nearly all who had either been led astray or coerced into agreement with those presiding, by rescinding what they had decreed and condemning what they had written, have obtained the perpetual abolition of their guilt and the grace of apostolic peace. Chapter IV.
If therefore your Clemency should deign to consider my purpose, you will approve that I did all things by this counsel: that, without the loss of any soul, only the extinction of the heresy might be secured, and that on this account I lessened somewhat of the customary severity toward the authors of these most savage upheavals, so that their delay might be roused by some compunction to seek indulgence. Although, after that judgment of theirs so impious as it was unjust, they were not held in such honor by the catholic brotherhood as they once had been, they nevertheless still retain their sees and enjoy the honor of their episcopate, being about either through true and necessary satisfaction to receive the peace of the whole Church, or, should they defend the heresy — which God forbid — to be judged according to the desert of their profession.