講道與書信 第 99 章

Chapter I. — If the letters which were sent through our clergy in the cause of the faith had reached your Piety, it is certain that, with the Lord breathing His favour upon you, you could have provided a sure remedy for these things which have been done against the faith. For when did you ever fail the priests, when did you ever fail the Christian religion or the faith?

But since those who were sent could so little reach your Clemency that scarcely one of them, our deacon Hilarus, returned to us in flight, we thought it necessary to repeat our writings. And that our petitions might merit to have greater force, we have appended copies of the very documents which did not reach your Clemency; entreating you with fuller appeals that, the harsher those deeds are against which it befits your royal care to strive for the faith, the greater the glory with which you may hold the care of that religion in which you excel; lest the integrity of the catholic faith be violated on any occasion of human disputes.

For those matters which, when the synod had assembled at Ephesus, were believed to be about to be soothed and healed by the remedy of peace, have advanced not only into greater losses of peace, but — what is exceedingly to be lamented — even into the ruin of that very faith by which we are Christians. Chapter II. — And indeed those who were sent, one of whom, escaping the violence of the Alexandrian bishop who claimed everything for himself, faithfully reported to us the order of the events, cried out in the synod, as was fitting, against the fury rather than the judgment of one man;

protesting that those things which were being carried out by force and fear could not prejudice the sacraments of the Church and the very Creed instituted by the apostles, nor could they be separated by any injury from that faith which, most fully set forth and arranged, they had brought from the see of the blessed apostle Peter to the holy synod. And when the reading of this, though the bishops demanded it, was not admitted — namely so that, that faith being removed which crowned the patriarchs, prophets, apostles and martyrs, the generation of Jesus Christ our Lord according to the flesh and the confession of His true death and resurrection might be dissolved (which we shudder to say) —

we wrote on this matter, as best we could, to that most glorious prince — and what is greatest, a Christian — a copy of whose letter we have likewise appended, that he might not allow the faith in which, reborn through the grace of God, he reigns, to be corrupted by any novelty: since Bishop Flavian persists in communion with us all, and since no reason permits that this, which was done without regard for justice and against all discipline of the canons, should be held ratified; and because the synod of Ephesus had not removed but increased the scandal of dissension, let both a place and a time be appointed for holding a council within Italy, all the complaints and prejudgments of either party being suspended:

so that all the things which have generated offence may be more diligently reviewed, and, without wound to the faith and without injury to religion, those priests who through weakness were compelled to subscribe may return into the peace of Christ, and the errors alone may be taken away. Chapter III. — That we may merit to obtain this, let your Piety, of a faith most approved by us, which has ever aided the labours of the Church, deign to press our supplication before that most clement prince, the embassy having been specially committed to it by the most blessed apostle Peter: so that, before this civil and deadly war may grow strong within the Church, God helping, he may grant the opportunity of restoring unity;

knowing that whatever, by his kindly disposition, shall have been bestowed upon catholic liberty will profit the strength of his own empire. Given on the third day before the Ides of October, in the consulship of the most illustrious men Asturius and Protogenes.