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Whence we observe that this was attributed to it not so much for the magnificence of the city as because it is shown to be the first see of the first apostle, where the Christian religion also received its name, and which deserved to have the most renowned assembly of the apostles held within itself, and which would yield nothing to the see of the city of Rome, except that the latter merited it in passing, whereas this one rejoices that it was received and consummated within it. And so we judge, most dear brother, that just as you ordain metropolitans by your singular authority, so also you should not allow the other bishops to be created without your permission and knowledge; in regard to whom you will rightly observe this manner: that you decree those who are situated far off to be ordained by letters sent from those who now ordain them only by their own choice;
but those who are near, if you judge it fitting, you may establish so that they come to the laying on of hands of your grace: for those whose greatest care awaits you ought above all to merit your judgment. That, according to the decrees of the emperors, there ought not to be two metropolitan bishops. XLVI. For as to what you inquire—whether, when provinces have been divided by imperial decree so that two metropolises arise, two metropolitan bishops ought thus to be named—it has not seemed right that the Church of God be altered to suit the mutability of worldly necessities, nor that it endure the honors or divisions which the emperor has determined should be made for his own reasons: therefore, according to the ancient custom of the provinces, it is fitting that the metropolitan bishops be reckoned.
You assert indeed that the Cypriots, once worn down by the power of Arian impiety, did not keep the Nicene canons in ordaining bishops for themselves, and that up to now they have presumed to ordain by their own choice, consulting no one: wherefore we urge them to take care to be wise according to the catholic faith of the canons, and to feel one and the same thing with the other provinces, so that it may appear that they too, like all the Churches, are governed by the grace of the Holy Spirit. That the clergy of the Arians are not to be received in their offices, although the Church confirms their baptism, which is established to be catholic. XLVII.
Moreover, the Arians and the other plagues of the same kind: since we receive their laymen, when converted to the Lord, under the form of penance and the sanctification of the Holy Spirit through the laying on of hands, it does not seem right to receive their clergy with the dignity of the priesthood or of any ministry whatsoever; for to them we permit only their baptism to be valid, which indeed is performed in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit;
nor do we judge that they have the Holy Spirit from that baptism and those mysteries, since, when their authors broke away from the catholic faith, they lost the perfection of the Spirit which they had received, nor can they give the fullness of it, which operates chiefly in ordinations, which—through the treachery of their impiety rather than, as I should say, through faith—they have lost. How can it come to pass that we should judge their profane priests worthy of the honors of Christ, whose laymen, imperfect, as I have said, we receive with the form of penance unto receiving the grace of the Holy Spirit?
Therefore let your gravity bring these matters to the notice of your fellow bishops, either through a synod, if it can be done, or through the reading of these letters, so that the things which you yourself have so necessarily inquired about, and to which we have responded without polish, may be preserved by the common consent and zeal of all. Concerning the holy John, bishop of Constantinople. XLVIII. Innocent to Acacius, bishop of Beroea. We have judged that your fraternity rejoices in the letters concerning the clerics and peoples of the bishops Paulinus and Evagrius received back, and concerning the fellow bishops Elpidius and Pappus restored; and we have clearly perceived that, the grace of peace having been received even though late, you cherish it, all contention being set aside.
Whence we have transmitted these letters to your unanimity, to be delivered to our most excellent brother and fellow bishop Alexander: namely, that if all enmity, all rivalry, both concerning the name of the admirable bishop, holy John, and concerning all who share in that same communion, has departed from your animosity, you may receive these letters of our fellowship, most dear brother, provided only that all the things which here have been confirmed in the acts you confess with your own mouth before our beloved mediator Alexander, as it befits one in communion. For just as this matter of unanimity and charity is venerable to us, so it remains anxious lest anything crooked or left over be known to reside in anyone. Concerning the Bonosiacs, that they are to be compared to the Jews. XLIX.
Innocent to Laurentius, bishop of Senia. Having read the letters of your love, we have long marveled that heretics following the poisons of Photinus are not only present in the territory of your love, but even publicly prepare for themselves conventicles on the estates of certain persons, when from almost the whole world nowhere have so many chosen to dwell as among you. The author of their nefarious doctrine, Marcus, long ago driven from the city, has been led by the boldness of such great rashness that he claims for himself the first place among them; but lest they have the opportunity of raving any longer, and drag the souls of the simple and rustic with them into the gehenna to which they are destined:
action has been taken against them by the defenders of our Church, that they may be able to expel those who deny that Christ God was begotten of the Father's substance before the ages, so that these may have a share of damnation with the Jews, who denied His deity and even now still deny it. It is your task, most dear brother, to act not too sluggishly upon what has been enjoined, lest by dissimulation you lose the people entrusted to you, and begin to render an account to God for the lost. The same pope, concerning the receiving of clerics whom Bonosus is known to have ordained before he was condemned. L. Innocent to Marcianus, bishop of Naissus.
In a former time, if indeed I recollect rightly, I remember that I sent such letters concerning the clerics of Naissus both to your love and to our brothers and fellow bishops Rufus, Eusebius, and the rest. Namely, to those who asserted that, before the condemnation of Bonosus, they had been ordained by him, both as presbyters and as deacons: that, if having abandoned and condemned his error they wished to be joined to the Church, they should gladly be received.
Lest perhaps those who were worthy of recovering salvation should perish in that same error. But now, while I am stationed in the city of Ravenna on account of the most frequent necessities of the Roman people, Germanius, who asserts himself to be a presbyter, and Lupentius, who says he is a deacon, on behalf of many such men—as though having undertaken an embassy, with prayers poured out—have eagerly desired to express their own griefs, asserting that they indeed hold Churches established in the parishes of your love, but that they have not been able to merit your communion: for this reason, namely, that a certain man by the name of Rusticius had received the presbyterate by a repeated ordination.
And it becomes no light hindrance, while either they grieve that such a man is retained in the Church, or he judges that he ought thus to sin against others, who recognizes that there is sin in himself. And although my letters which I mentioned above contain more fully concerning the same matter, nevertheless even now we have thought your fraternity ought to be admonished: that if it is truly established that certain men were ordained by Bonosus before his condemnation, and afterward wished, or now wish, to return, we judge that they are to be received:
especially since the aforesaid men assert that they were ordained at so much earlier a time that the man of holy memory, Cornelius, bishop of the city of Sirmium, and also our brother Niceta, and several others, were present when they were advanced with the honors which they recall having received. Whence, most dear brother, if their assertion receives the credit of truth, you ought not to doubt that those are to be received whom you have so long allowed to retain the Churches entrusted to them. Innocent to Rufus, and Eusebius, and the other Macedonian bishops, and to the deacons, greeting in the Lord.
Great rejoicing took hold of me when, after so many crises of the whole (so to speak) world, Vitalis, archdeacon and bearer of your letters, came to us, directed all the way from those parts; whom, as soon as we had seen him, as was fitting, we questioned about your condition. But when we found that you were living according to your wish, we rendered abundant thanks to the Lord our God, that He deigns both to guard you, His servants, who serve at His altars, in adversities, and to govern you in prosperity.
When he had delivered those letters, I ordered them at once to be reviewed; in which I perceived that many things were set down which cast astonishment upon our minds, and made us doubt not a little whether we should suppose otherwise, or whether those things were set down as they sounded. And when I had had them repeated rather often, I observed that some injury was being done to the apostolic see—to which the report, as to the head of the Churches, ran when sent—whose sentence was still being drawn into ambiguity. Whence, concerning the things about which I remember I wrote long ago, now the doubled inquiry of your report compels me to repeat them, framed with clearer arguments. That if a priest or anyone of the clergy marries a widow, or a divorced woman, he shall lose his office. LI.
Those who are reported to have taken widows as wives, I have learned not only to have been made clerics, but even to have attained to the insignia of the highest priesthood, which no one is ignorant is against the precepts of the law. For since Moses the lawgiver cries out: Let the priest take a virgin to wife, and lest in this precept anything be thought ambiguous, he added: Not a widow, nor one cast off. Against which precept, supported by divine authority, no defense of another command is to be set—except your custom, which (as you yourselves confess) has been established out of ignorance, and, that I may say it more modestly, not from apostolic tradition and sound reason.
But let your love know that we, and all the Churches throughout the East and the West, by no means admit these things, nor take up such men even to the lowest place of the ecclesiastical order, and, if they be found, remove them. That if a catechumen has had a wife, and she having died, after baptism he has taken another, he cannot be a cleric. LII.
Next it is laid down that one who as a catechumen had, and then lost, a wife ought not to be called twice-married, if after baptism he has obtained another, and that she is to be seen as the first who has been joined to the new man, because that former marriage, through the sacrament of baptism, was wiped away along with the other sins. Yet when this is said of one wife, surely, if a man placed in the old state had three wives, the one who after baptism is the fourth will, according to those who so interpret, be the first, and will equally receive the name of virgin, she who was married in the fourth place. Who, I ask, does not see that this is against the precept of the Apostle, who says that a priest ought to become the husband of one wife (1 Timothy III)?
But it is objected that in baptism whatever was done in the old man is dissolved. Tell me (with your leave I speak): are crimes alone remitted in baptism, or also those things which are accomplished according to the Lord's precepts and God's institutions? Is taking a wife a crime, or is it not a crime? If it is a crime, then—with the aforesaid pardon I would say it—the author will be at fault, who, in order that crimes might be committed in paradise, blessed them when He Himself joined them (Genesis II). But if it is not a crime—since what God has joined (Matthew XIX) it is impious to call a crime, and Solomon added: For a wife is prepared by God for a man (Proverbs xix)—how is it believed to have been remitted among crimes, which is read to have been consummated with God as its author?
What is to be reckoned concerning the children of such men? Shall they not be admitted to a share of the inheritance, who were begotten of her who before baptism was the wife, and shall they be called either natural or spurious, because the marriage is not legitimate, except that one (as it seems to you) which is taken up after baptism? The Lord Himself, when He was questioned by the Jews whether it was lawful to dismiss a wife, and explained that it ought not to be done, added: What therefore God has joined, let no man separate (Matthew XIX); and lest He be believed to have spoken of those unions which are obtained after baptism, let them remember that this was both asked by Jews and answered to Jews.
I ask, and I anxiously ask, if she is one and the same wife of him who was first a catechumen and afterward becomes a believer, and he begot children of her while he was a catechumen, and afterward others when a believer—are they to be called brothers or not? Shall they, the father having later died, have a share of the inheritance to be divided, from whom the name of sons is believed to have been taken away by spiritual regeneration? Since to think and judge thus is absurd, what (curse it) reason is there that this be defended, and be flaunted rather by empty opinion than be strengthened by any authority? Since that cannot be reckoned among sins which the law has commanded, and God joins.
If indeed a catechumen has applied himself to virtues, has followed humility, has held to patience, has given alms, has by any means rescued those destined to death, has shrunk from adulteries, has kept chastity—I ask, when he has been made a believer, does he lose these, because through baptism all that the old man had done is thought to be taken away? Let us look at the gentile man Cornelius, devoting himself to prayers and almsgiving, who through a revelation saw an angel and Peter himself: were these things taken from him through baptism, on account of which baptism is seen to have been granted to him?
If it is so believed, believe me, no small error is made, because whatever has been well done, and kept according to the precepts of the law, cannot perish for those who do it. Therefore the bond of marriage, since it is accomplished by God's command, cannot be called a sin, and what is not a sin ought by no means to be believed to be dissolved among sins: and it will be sound to judge that the name of the former wife cannot be abolished, since it was not dismissed on account of sin, because it was completed by the will of God. That clerics ordained by heretics are not to be admitted. LIII. We have come to the third question, which by reason of its difficulty demands a longer disputation, since we say that those ordained by heretics have a wounded head through that laying on of hands.
Where a wound has been inflicted, medicine is to be applied, that it may be able to recover health: which health, following after the wound, cannot be without a scar; and where the remedy of penance is necessary, there the honor of ordination cannot have a place. For if, as it is read (Leviticus I; Numbers xix), whatever the unclean man touches shall be unclean, how shall that be conferred upon him which cleanness and purity are wont to receive? But on the contrary it is asserted that he who has lost the honor cannot give the honor: nor did the other receive anything, because there was nothing in the giver which the other could receive—to this we assent, and it is certainly true, since what he did not have he could not give.
Indeed, the damnation which he had, he gave through a depraved laying on of hands; and how he who has been made partaker with one damned ought to receive honor, I cannot find. But it is said that the true and just blessing of a legitimate priest takes away every vice which had been inflicted by one vicious. That in ordinations crimes or vices are not rightly believed to be taken away. LIV. Therefore, if it is so, let the sacrilegious, adulterers, and those guilty of all crimes apply themselves to ordination, since through the blessing of ordination crimes or vices are thought to be taken away. Let there be no place for penance, since ordination can furnish what long satisfaction is wont to furnish. But ours is the law!
the law of the Church—to grant to those coming from heretics, who nevertheless were baptized there, only lay communion through the laying on of hands, and to promote none of these to the honor of the clericate, even the slightest. That those who were ordained by the heretic Bonosus were therefore received, lest scandal should remain to the Church. LV. But those who passed over from the catholic Church to heresy, whom it behooves to be received in no other way than through penance, among you not only do not perform penance, but are even heaped with honor. Yet the chief deliberation of Anysius, once our brother, and of the other fellow priests, was this: that those whom Bonosus had ordained, lest they remain with him, and lest no small scandal arise if the ordained were received [should be received];
we have, as I think, overcome the ambiguities. Now therefore, that what was decreed for a remedy and for the necessity of the time did not exist at first is clear, and that there were old rules, which the Roman Church guards as handed down by the apostles or apostolic men, and commands to be guarded by those who are accustomed to hear her; but the necessity of the time greatly demanded that this be done. Therefore what necessity found out for a remedy, when the necessity ceases ought likewise to cease—the thing that pressed—because one thing is the legitimate order, another the usurpation which the present time impels to be done.
But [as to] the canons established at Nicaea which they permitted to be done concerning the Novatians, that canon first instituted by the Fathers must be set down, that we may be able to observe both what and in what manner was understood or prescribed by them. Concerning those, it says, who name themselves cathari, that is, the pure, and sometimes come to the catholic Church, it has pleased the holy and great synod that, having received the laying on of hands, they so remain in the clergy. But we can say that this was prescribed concerning the Novatians alone, and does not pertain to the clergy of other heresies; for if they had defined thus concerning all, they would have added that those returning from the Novatians and other heretics ought to be received into their own order: but if it were so,
that too especially which was said concerning the Paulianists could confirm it, from whom those coming over they even command to be baptized. Surely when they enjoin concerning the Paulianists, will all who return from heretics be baptized by this example? Since no one dares to do this, the very reason demonstrates that it was prescribed concerning these alone. Finally, those rightly baptized by the evangelist Philip, Peter and John consummate by the sole laying on of hands (Acts VIII); but those whom the apostle Paul found baptized with the baptism of John (Acts xix), and asked whether they had received the Holy Spirit, and who confessed that they had not even heard that name, he ordered to be baptized. You see, therefore, that for one rightly baptizing, that gift cannot be repeated:
and on the other hand, that those washed with water alone need to be baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. So too it is read with clear demonstration that the command was given concerning the Novatians only, which—why it was thus distinguished as regards those two heresies—plain reason declares: because the Paulianists by no means baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. And the Novatians baptize in those same awful and venerable names, nor among them has any question ever been stirred concerning the unity of the divine power, that is, of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit; and therefore, out of all the separated [sects], this one alone was chosen, to which they believed that should be granted, because they sin in nothing in the sacrament of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
But if anyone passing over from the catholic Church to heresy, or a believer returning to apostasy, coming to his senses should wish to return, can he by the same reasoning be admitted to the clergy? Whose offense can be abolished by nothing except long penance, nor after penance do the canons themselves by their authority permit him to become a cleric. Whence it is clear that those who passed over from the catholic Church to the condemned Bonosus, and allowed themselves to be, or desired to be, ordained by him, ought not to have received the dignity of ecclesiastical ordination, who, forsaking the common judgment of all the Churches, judged that their own private vanity should be followed in Bonosus;
but it is established that many suffered violence, and were drawn unwilling and resisting to be ordained by him. Let anyone who believes this tell me, I beg: if he was not present after the ordination of Bonosus, when he confected the sacraments, if he did not share in his communion, if he immediately, upon those departing from his most wicked conventicle, returned to the Church—then such a one can have some color of excuse. But as for the others, who returned to the Church after a year or a month, it is understood that those who knew, in the catholic Church, that on account of their own vices they could not receive ordination, for that reason went over to him, who indiscriminately and without any examination performed unlawful ordinations:
believing that through this institution they could find a place in the catholic Church, of which they had previously despaired. Now I ask that which remains: he who returned after a month or more, when he trusted that he had been ordained presbyter by Bonosus—if he did not confect the sacraments, if he did not distribute to the people, if he did not, according to custom, complete the masses; what do you decide concerning these, I beg you to declare more openly? In sum, certainly, those who received nothing from Bonosus are guilty of usurped dignity, who claimed for themselves—or did not claim—the authority of confecting the sacraments, and supposed themselves to be that which had by no canonical reasoning been granted to them. That a sin of the people in the Church is wont to be passed over unpunished.
56. Let your charity therefore consider that such matters have thus far passed by, and observe that, as you say, necessity has compelled that the Churches, now established in peace, cannot presume otherwise; but, as often happens, whenever a sin is committed by whole peoples or by a multitude, since on account of their great number it cannot be punished in all, it is wont to pass by unavenged. The earlier offenses, therefore, by dismissing them, I leave to the judgment of God; as for the rest, the utmost care must be taken beforehand. Whatever was wrested from the Apostolic See by deception, it has changed its sentence for the better when it rescinds the condemnation of Photinus. I will now come to the greatest theme, as it were, namely Photinus, and that which is for me a matter of anxiety and of utmost difficulty: I shall review the opinions of my predecessors.
Concerning him, by whatever means, as you yourselves also recall, something certainly more severe had been decreed; but since you declare that this was wrested from this See by a false rumor, as you assert, and elicited through treachery, since the matter has returned to a state of salvation, we now grant this pardon to you who so strive for it, after the condemnation, in the apostolic manner, and we judge it harder than all hard things not to give consent to such great assertions of yours, and to you who are so good and so dear. Therefore, according to your judgment, most beloved brethren, your sentence and your petition, hold it permitted thus to establish Photinus as bishop, even as you entreat; and receive our sentence, turned to the better, by your labor or your testimony, as men who have obtained their wish.
Likewise, do not expect that Eustathius, so very often approved by me, should be stripped of the grace of his diaconate. For I gladly hear you anxious for his salvation; but even against a chief person, if it must be done, I do not gladly admit such a thing. To him to whom you stretch out your hand, I stretch out mine with you; to him to whom I stretch it out, stretch out yours with me. For this is the apostolic kindness declared to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 1), that the good should always without distinction follow the sentence led forth and brought back in one spirit. For I confess that this matter first sets me well disposed toward Eustathius the deacon: that he has never spoken anything against the faith, nor admitted one who so spoke, nor committed any crime deserving of death, nor have I ever recognized anything alleged or cast up against him.
And he who is safe in these matters, if in some way he does not have amiable dealings, is to be reckoned as one less loved for the time being, not as one esteemed an enemy to be handed over forever to the devil. I recognize that he, amid those rivalries and storms, against the zealous efforts of many, held differing views—I will not say of what kind; and although from this the affairs and the very calamities have been amended, the correction has not yet been able to revive among you concerning the subdeacons Dizonianus and Cyriacus. Restrain, I beg, from him and from the aforesaid persons the spirits of whomsoever you see, and the unjust rivalries, so that he, whole among us, restored among you together with his own, may merit peace, perceiving a charity that is not feigned.
Let charity therefore meet you all and each one individually, and joined together with you forever in the bonds which by no means are loosed from Christ, let it rejoice in the Lord. THE DECREES OF POPE ZOSIMUS. That monks or laymen ought not to attain to the highest priesthood except through the grades of the Church. 1. Zosimus, bishop of the city of Rome, to Hesychius, bishop of Salona. Your charity has demanded the precept of the Apostolic See, in which the decrees of the Fathers concur, and you signify that some from the company of monks—whose solitude, though greater, is more frequented—and also laymen, are hastening to the priesthood.
But it is established that this has been specially forbidden, both under our predecessors and recently by us, by letters sent to Gaul and Spain, in which regions this presumption is common—though Africa is not held exempt from this admonition of ours—lest anyone whatsoever, contrary to the precepts of the Fathers, who had not been instructed in ecclesiastical disciplines through the proper order and trained in the divine service by the approbation of time, should presume in any way to aspire to the highest priesthood of the Church; and that not only would the ambition in him be held ineffectual, but also against those who ordained him, so that they should lose that rank which they had believed must be presumed without order, contrary to the precepts of the Fathers.
Hence we wonder that the statutes of the Apostolic See had not been conveyed to your charity. We praise therefore the resolution of your constancy, most dear brother, nor was any other kind of judgment to be expected from the ancient authority of the pontificate than that you, set in the array of the faith, should meet such ambitions on behalf of the precepts of the Fathers. Therefore, if you think that anything was lacking to your authority—which we do not suppose—we supply it. Resist such ordinations, resist the pride and arrogance that comes. With you stand the precepts of the Fathers, with you the authority of the Apostolic See.