Letters of Celestine I (to and concerning the Council of Ephesus)

Celestine, bishop, to Cyril, bishop of Alexandria.

The letter of your Holiness, sent by our son the deacon Posidonius, has turned our sadness into gladness, and we have exchanged grief for joy. For when we looked back at and reviewed what had been said by the man who is trying to disturb the church of Constantinople with perverse preaching, our mind, shaken by no small grief, was troubled by various goads of thought as to how the peoples might be helped to persevere in the faith. But when we turned our mind to the writings of your Fraternity, we found a remedy already prepared by which the deadly disease might be avoided with a healthy cure: the water of a pure spring flowing from the discourse of your Charity, to wipe away all the filth of the evil-flowing stream and to make plain to all what must be held concerning our faith. As, then, we rebuke and mark him, so in your letter we have embraced your Holiness as if present with the Lord's love, since we saw that we hold one

and the same view of the Lord. Nor is it surprising that a most provident priest of the Lord should fight for the love and strength of the faith, so as to resist the shameless audacity of adversaries and to strengthen those entrusted to him by this admonition. As bitter, then, as those things were to us, so sweet are these; as filthy as those were, so pure are these. We rejoice that there is such vigilance in your Holiness that you have now surpassed the examples of your predecessors, who themselves were always defenders of orthodox doctrine. Truly the testimony of the Gospel can fit you, in which it is said: 'The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep.' But as you are a good shepherd, so he cannot even be accused as a bad hireling, since he is blamed not for abandoning the sheep but is found tearing them himself.

We would add something, dearest brother, if we did not see that you hold in all things the same as we, and had not found you a most strong defender in the very assertion of the faith. Everything your Holiness wrote on this matter was set before us in order by our son the deacon Posidonius. You have uncovered all the cunning snares of his preaching and have so fortified the faith that the heart of those who believe in Christ our God cannot be drawn to the other side.

It is a great triumph of our faith both to have asserted our position so strongly and to have defeated the opposing positions by the testimonies of the holy Scriptures. What can he do now, where can he turn? He, a lover of impious novelty, preferring to serve his own wit rather than Christ, wished to infect the people entrusted to him with the poison of his preaching, when he ought to have read and held that perverse questions, which do not profit for salvation but lead to the ruin of souls,

are to be avoided rather than followed. But one who is hurrying to the precipice, indeed already set on the precipice from which he may fall, we ought to call back if we can, lest by not helping we hasten his ruin. Christ our God, about whose birth the question is raised, taught us to labour for one sheep, willing that it be brought back even on his own shoulders, so that it might not lie open as prey to the ravening wolf. And he who taught us to run for the safety of one sheep, how does he want us to labour over the shepherd of the sheep themselves, who, forgetting his office and his name, has turned himself into a ravening wolf, desiring to destroy the flock he ought to have

guarded? We must remove him from the folds of the lambs if we cannot correct him as we wish. Let there be hope of pardon for him if he corrects himself; for we prefer that he turn back and live, provided he does not destroy the life of those entrusted to him. Let there be a fixed sentence for him if he persists; for such a wound must be cut away, by which not one member is harmed but the whole body of the church is wounded. For what is he to do with those who agree with him, he who alone, wise in his own eyes, dissents from our belief? Let those be in communion whom he himself removed from communion for resisting him; and let him know that he cannot have our communion if he persists in this path of his perversity,

contrary to the apostolic teaching. Therefore, with the authority of our see joined to you, acting in our place, you will carry out this sentence with strict rigour: that within ten days, counted from the day of this notice, he either condemn his perverse preachings by a written profession and affirm that he holds that faith concerning the birth of Christ our God which the Roman church, the church of your Holiness, and the devotion of the whole world hold; or, if he does not do this, your Holiness, making provision for that church, must know that he is to be removed in every way from our body, since he would not admit the care of physicians for himself and, a plague, has hastened to the ruin both of himself and of all those entrusted to him. We have written the same also to our holy brothers and fellow bishops John, Rufus, Juvenal, and Flavian, so that our sentence about him, or rather the divine sentence of our Christ, may be known.

Celestine, bishop, to Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople.

For some days of our life, after the abominable and often condemned teaching of Pelagius and Caelestius, the catholic faith had quiet, when West and East struck them, together with the followers of their disputation, with the weapon of a united sentence. Indeed, Atticus of holy memory, a teacher of the catholic faith and truly the successor of the blessed John in this too, so pursued them on behalf of the common King that they were not allowed even a place to stand there. After his death a very great anxiety remained with us, as we asked whether his successor would also succeed to his faith; for it is hard for good things to be continued, since contrary things often succeed one another in turn. We had, however, after him, of whom we were to be soon deprived, holy Sisinnius, a colleague celebrated for simplicity and holiness, preaching the faith he had found. That simple holiness and holy simplicity had surely read that it is better to fear than to be wise in lofty things; and elsewhere, that higher things are not to be searched out; and again: 'If anyone preaches other than what we have preached, let him be anathema.'

When he departed from this world, as our anxiety extended itself as far as the Lord permitted, the account of the messengers who arrived gladdened our mind, and it was soon confirmed by the report of the colleagues who were present at your ordination. They bore you as much testimony as ought to be borne to one who seemed to have been chosen from elsewhere. You lived with such reputation before that a foreign city envied your own people for you; now you are

shunned with such horror that your own people see in others how they have been set free. Some time ago we received your letters, to which we could give no reply in a short time, since the language had to be turned into Latin. While we were doing this, though late, we received through my son the deacon Posidonius such writings about you from my holy brother and fellow bishop Cyril, a most approved priest, that we grieved that the testimony of those who had reported on your ordination had come to nothing. For, as far as we see, a bad outcome has followed your good beginnings, good beginnings, I say, which had been so celebrated among us that, in replying to the report of the brothers, we made ourselves sharers in their joy. But considering now both the complaint about you from the brother mentioned and your letters, at last translated, which contain open blasphemy, we see that we must say the apostle's words: 'I would change my voice, because I am perplexed about you.' Indeed, I have changed it, unless the impious disputer calls himself back from the precipice; for we must remove the evil from among ourselves, as is commanded. We read, then, the contents of the letters and the books which we received when the illustrious man, my son Antiochus, delivered them. In these, indeed, tracked down, caught, and held by us, you kept slipping away with a certain wordiness, wrapping true things in obscurities, again confounding both, either confessing what had been denied or trying to deny what had been confessed. But in your letters you have pronounced an open sentence, not so much on our faith as on yourself, wishing to dispute about God the Word otherwise than the faith of all holds,

Behold to what sentence on you we are called; behold what the benefits of your novelties are. Since you were chosen while unknown and are accused once known, we must now say with that teacher of the Gentiles: 'For we do not know what to pray for as we ought.' Do not these words fit that church which, following not knowledge of you but your fame, passed over men proven to it? Advantage was taken of the opinion of those who believed well of you. For who would think that a ravening wolf was hidden in a fleece within the fold? It is the voice of the same apostle that there must even be heresies, so that those who are approved may be made manifest. Open your ears and hear his words spoken to Timothy and to Titus: what does he command them but to avoid profane novelties of words? For these things advance toward impiety, which have always brought in thorns and thistles. He says, certainly, that he asked Timothy to remain at Ephesus and charge certain people not to preach otherwise. Before my eyes are the words of the prophet Jeremiah: 'Horrible things,' he says, 'have been done on the earth; the prophets prophesy iniquity.' Do these things, tell me, pass you by as unknown, or do you despise them as known? If they pass you by as unknown, let it be no shame to learn what is right, since it was no fear to teach what is perverse; if you despise them as known, understand that you will be without excuse when he asks of you an account of the talent entrusted to you, he who through us always awaits profit from this holy loan of his. See what punishment awaits the one who hid what he received, who certainly gave back intact what he received. From this note plainly what and how great a danger it is not even to have returned what you received. Or will you say to our Lord, 'Those you gave me I have kept,' when we hear that his church is being split into parties? With what conscience do you live, deserted by almost everyone in this city? I would have wished them to have been then as cautious as they are now, when they desire to be helped. Whence did you get the words to direct into these questions, which it is blasphemy even to have thought of? Whence that a bishop preaches to the peoples things by which reverence for the virgin birth is wounded? Blasphemous words against God ought not to disturb the purity of the ancient faith. Who has ever not been judged worthy of anathema, whether adding to the faith or taking away from it? For, handed down to us fully and plainly by the apostles, it requires neither increase nor diminution. We read in our books that nothing must be added and nothing taken away; for a great penalty binds both the one who adds and the one who takes away.

Hence we are preparing the cautery and the knife, since wounds that deserve to be cut away are no longer to be nursed; we know for certain that greater vices are always healed with greater pain. Among the many things impiously preached by you which the universal church rejects, we lament that from the creed handed down by the apostles those words have been removed which promise us the hope of all life and salvation. Why this happens your letters tell, about which there is no doubt, since you sent them yourself; we had not wished them to come into our hands, lest we be forced to judge so great a kind of crime. Their brief discourse has closed off the paths of all your disputations. You extended yourself widely, you went round with many windings; yet at last, by a different road, you arrived at an impious conclusion. We know what he guarded against who commanded that contentions and battles about the law be avoided: 'for they are,' he says, 'useless and vain.' What, then, is judged vain and useless,

let no one doubt will be of no profit. Therefore, although brother Cyril states in his second letter that you have been admonished, I want you to understand that after his first and second admonitions and this rebuke of ours, which is plainly the third, you are wholly cut off from the whole college and assembly of Christians, unless what has been badly said is soon corrected, unless you return to that way which Christ testifies that he is. Wrongly, in desperation, have you taken up arms against him who had allowed you to be set over his household as a faithful and prudent servant; the blessedness promised for this office is lost to you. Not only do you not give food in due season, but you even kill with poison those whom he sought with his blood and his death; for there is poison under your lips, which we see full of cursing and bitterness,

while you strive to dispute against him who is gentle. Where is pastoral diligence? 'The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep'; but the hireling is he who, as he abandons them, also hands them over to the wolves. What will you do here, shepherd, who yourself tear the Lord's flock in place of the wolves? To what folds will the holy flock now flee, if it is wounded within the sheepfolds of the church? By what protection will it be defended, when it endures you, a robber, as its guardian? 'And I have other sheep,' says the Lord, 'which are not of this fold, and I must bring them also.' He promises to bring others; you lose those you had, since it is certain that, whenever such things happen, it is not the sheep that perish for the shepherds, but rather the shepherds that perish for the sheep. 'And they will hear,' he says, 'my voice.' Why? 'That there may be one flock.' At his voice there becomes one flock; at yours it is either infected or put to flight.

It is hard that the words of the blessed Paul from the Acts of the Apostles should fit you: 'I know,' he says, 'that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among yourselves men will arise speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.' We would wish that these words were spoken by you to others rather than to you; for what we say you should have been teaching, not learning. For who could bear that a bishop be taught how he ought to be a Christian? Look carefully at the condition to which you are called: you are assailed, reproved, accused. Which of these befits a priest? A hard answer for hard words, if indeed it is a fair return to punish blasphemies with words. Or do you think you should be spared by us, when you do not spare your own soul, so that you

wish to take away the benefit of salvation from all, past, present, and future? Plainly, as a faithful servant, I pursue the enemies of my good Lord, since the prophet asserts that he hated them with perfect hatred; and I am warned again, by another speaking, not to spare. Whom should I regard here? For whom should I keep some honour, when what is being done is that the cause of all my hope is taken from me? The words of the Lord himself are in the Gospel, in which he says that neither father nor mother nor children nor any other bond ought to be preferred to him. For there is often a kind of piety from which impiety is born, when, carnal affection prevailing, bodily love is preferred to that love which is God. Out of regard for this we often defer to some people; but when the attack is aimed at him who is love itself, it is necessary that those things not be kept whose author is called to account.

Wake up at last, for these are not to be called vigils which you keep not for guarding but for plunder. We would wish you were asleep in what you preach and awake in what you attack; we would certainly bear it more lightly if you slept in both. No one would be lost by you, no one gained; the church would grieve at no loss of souls and would rejoice at no gain; it would be enough for her if you handed her back to her Bridegroom as you received her. But why do I linger over many words? When Paul the architect speaks, in vain do I look for anything built up by you, in which I find no foundation.

I hear that the clergy who hold the catholic faith, with whom we are in communion, are enduring very great violence, so that even the city is said to be forbidden to them. We rejoice that they are gaining the reward of confession, but we grieve that it is with a bishop as their persecutor. The blessed apostle Paul was changed from persecutor into preacher; it is the greatest wrong for a preacher to be changed into a persecutor.

Count back through the heretics who brought such questions into the churches. Who ever came back victorious from this contest? You certainly have the example of your own city: Paul, a citizen of Samosata, having occupied the church of Antioch, when he preached certain things, reaped the harvest of his own seeds. The censure of sentence, always the same, cast out the other inventors of evils who had occupied churches; and these heretics too, about whom you wished to consult us as though ignorant of what had been done, a just condemnation drove from their sees for saying unjust things. We do not think it surprising that they found rest there; for they found an impious preaching, in comparison with which they may think themselves innocent.

At this point, since the course of the discourse demands it, we cannot keep silent about what amazes us. We have read how well you hold original sin, how you have asserted that nature itself is a debtor and that he rightly pays the debt who has descended from the race of the debtor. What are those doing with you who have been condemned for denying these things? Things contrary to each other never come together without suspicion; indeed, they would be thrown out if they displeased you as they should. Why, though, are the acts then taken against them now being looked into, when it is certain that the acts were sent from there to us at that time, when Atticus was the catholic bishop? Why did Sisinnius of holy memory not look into these things? Because he had found under his predecessor that they were justly condemned. Let the unhappy men weep that they were deceived by hope in human beings, whom only repentance could now have helped toward communion. See, you are beginning to know about them, if you did not know anything before. Attend now to your own case rather than to others', with catholic and speedy deliberation, since we fittingly say, 'Physician, heal yourself,' to you who wish to help others. The nature of your

illness does not admit or allow a delay to be granted. We have approved and do approve the faith of the priest of the church of Alexandria; and you, admonished through him, think again with us, if you wish to be with us. If you give your assent to this brother, condemning all that you have thought up to now, we wish you at once to preach the things which you see him preach. We wish even priests who act against right to be corrected; as we take counsel for them by first giving warning, so we must confirm a sentence of condemnation against them if they abuse our salutary warning. This, however, will be the full sign of correction after the condemnation of the perverse doctrine: let all be recalled to the church who seem to have been excluded for the sake of Christ, its head. Let all be recalled; and unless what we say is done, the one who cast them out is to be cast out. Indeed, those against whom such a sentence is known to have been issued are in our communion.

We have also sent writings, such as necessity requires, to the clergy of the church of Constantinople and to all who are reckoned by the Christian name, so that, if you persist in the obstinacy of perverse disputation and do not preach what brother Cyril preaches with us, they may understand that you are separated from our college, with which you can have no communion, and, knowing it and already warned by the example, may learn how they ought to provide for their souls with ripe and mature judgment. Know plainly, then, that this is our sentence: unless you preach about Christ our God the things which the Roman, the Alexandrian, and the universal catholic church holds, as the most holy church of the city of Constantinople also held excellently until you, and unless, within the tenth day counted from the first day on which this notice becomes known to you, you condemn by an open and written profession this faithless novelty, which tries to separate what venerable Scripture joins, you are to know that you are cast out from the communion of the universal catholic church. I have sent this form of our judgment for you through my aforementioned son, the deacon Posidonius, with all the papers, to my holy fellow priest, the bishop of the aforementioned city of Alexandria, who reported to us more fully on this very matter, so that he may act in our place, in order that our decision may become known both to you and to all the brothers; for all must know what is being done whenever the cause of all is being treated. And in another hand: May God keep you safe, dearest brother.

Celestine, bishop, to the presbyters, deacons, clergy, and people dwelling at Constantinople, dearest brothers: greeting in the Lord.

As I am about to speak to those who make up the church, let the apostle's word give me my beginning, so that the holy disciples may first hear the words of the teacher who preached to the Gentiles: 'Besides the things that are outside,' he says, 'there is my daily pressure, the anxiety for all the churches'; and again: 'Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I do not burn?' So we too, though placed far off, when we learned that our members were being torn by perverse doctrine, with fatherly anxiety burning us on your behalf, have blazed with another's fire; although among the churches of God, which everywhere are brought into the one bridal chamber of Christ,

nothing is far off, nothing is reckoned foreign. Since, then, you are our own heart, we rightly trembled lest the insinuation of a bad teacher turn your faith, which is proclaimed everywhere, from the path of truth. For Bishop Nestorius, as if forgetful of reverence for it and of the common salvation of all, preaches abominable things about the virgin birth and the divinity of Christ, God our Saviour, and urges what should be avoided, as both his writings sent to us by him with his own signature and the report of my holy brother and fellow bishop Cyril, sent to me through my son the deacon Posidonius, have made plain. Having reviewed all these, we found a great perversity of impious preaching, to be avoided. For he tears apart the human and divine nature in our Christ, now assigning to him to be only a man, now association with

God, whenever he deigns to. But we, as Jeremiah says, cannot listen to the empty words of such prophets. Let him hear Ezekiel, and what to himself

Celestine, bishop, to John, Juvenal, Rufus, and Flavian, bishops in the East; in the same terms.

We would wish indeed that, as the essence of the Godhead is one, so among all people everywhere one truth of the right faith were held. Yet the lament is less if some, separating themselves from the Lord's flock and lurking in corners and hiding places, persuade themselves, or the few who think with them, of something else by a hidden error.

But when someone set over the holy church of God under the name of priest turns the very people of Christ from the path of truth into the precipice of a devious persuasion, and that in a very great city to which a multitude flows together from the whole world out of reverence for the empire that dwells there, then truly the lament must be doubled and greater anxiety applied, lest the ravening of the wolf prevail. For the care is less over an enemy besieging than over one raging within the walls, and a wolf roaming outside the folds troubles less than one seizing the shepherd's place among the flock; for it is a war worse than civil when the darts of a sect

are hurled within the church, that is, within the very bridal chamber of Christ. Hence our heart is greatly saddened that the man who seems to hold the church of Constantinople pours into peoples most devoted to Christ certain perverse things against reverence for the virgin birth and against the hope of our salvation. These things reached us, the grief of the faithful pressing them upon us; they were published in the books he himself sent; and, what is greater proof, they were set before us in letters he sent, fortified by the author's own

signature, so that it is no longer permitted to doubt. Hence, since in such cases longer connivance is not safe (for it is almost as great a crime to connive at such things as it is a sacrilege to preach them), we have separated from our communion both Bishop Nestorius and anyone else who follows him and preaches these things, until, by issuing a written profession, he condemns the perversity he had begun to teach and asserts that he holds that faith concerning the virgin birth, that is, concerning the salvation of the human race, which according to the apostolic teaching the Roman, the Alexandrian, and the catholic universal church holds, venerates, and preaches. But if anyone, since they began to preach such things, has been excommunicated or stripped of the dignity of bishop or cleric, either by Bishop Nestorius or by others who follow him, it is plain that he has remained and remains in our communion, and we do not judge him removed, since the sentence of one who had already shown himself deserving of removal could not remove anyone.

We have thought it right to write these things to your Holiness, dearest brother, so that, strengthened in the Lord and clothed with the breastplate of Christ, familiar to your heart, together with the shield of catholic preaching, you may defend from the depravity of the worst persuasion the flocks of our Lord Jesus Christ, who was born and suffered for us, who, having opened the underworld and conquered death, rose for us on the third day. And as we have written also to our holy brother and fellow bishop Cyril, a good defender of the catholic faith, let your Holiness know that this sentence about the same Nestorius has been passed by us, or rather by Christ God: that within ten days counted from the notice of this day he either condemn by a written profession his sacrilegious preachings about the birth of Christ and profess that he follows the faith which the Roman, the Alexandrian, and the universal church keeps, or, removed from the assembly of bishops, he understand that his own ruin has harmed him. And so that what we have decreed might be carried out more readily, we wished our letters to travel more faithfully to your Love through our son Posidonius, deacon of the church of Alexandria.

Celestine, bishop, to the holy synod assembled at Ephesus.

The gathering of priests bears witness to the presence of the Holy Spirit. For what we read is certain, since our Truth cannot lie, whose saying in the Gospel is this: 'Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them.' Since this is so (for the Holy Spirit is not absent even from so small a number), how much more must we believe that he is present now, when a crowd of saints has come together into one! For holy, with the veneration due to it, is the college in which the reverence of that most crowded assembly of the apostles, of which we read, is now to be seen. Never were they without the one whom they had received to preach; the Lord and Master was always with them, and the teachers were never deserted by their teacher. He who had sent them was teaching; he who had

told them what to teach was teaching; he who affirms that he is heard in his apostles was teaching. This care for the commanded preaching has come to all the Lord's priests in common; by hereditary right we are bound to this anxiety, all of us who, in their place, preach the name of the Lord throughout the various lands, since it is said to them: 'Go, teach all nations.' Your Fraternity notes that we have received a general command; he who commanded all of them thus in common willed that all of us also act. We must follow the office of our forebears; let us all undertake the labours of those whom we have all succeeded in honour; let us show their diligence in what they preached, after which, as the apostle warns, we are commanded to admit no other preaching. The guarding of what has been handed down is no less a duty than the handing down. They sowed the seeds of faith; let this care of ours guard them, so that the coming of our householder may find fruit incorrupt and manifold, to whom alone the abundance is ascribed. For as the vessel of election says, to plant and to water is not enough unless God gives the increase. We must act now, then, with common labour, to keep what has been believed and held up to now through the apostolic

succession. What is called into question in us is that by which, according to the apostle, we walk; for it is not sight but our faith that is now called into court. Spiritual arms must be taken up, since the wars are of minds and the weapons are words, so that we may persevere in the covenant of our King. The blessed apostle Paul admonishes all who are now placed where he commanded Timothy to remain. The same place, then, and the same cause require the same duty. Let us too do now what he then undertook to be done, that no one think otherwise and that no one attend to questions supplied by fables; as he commanded, let us be of one mind, thinking one thing, since this is expedient. Let us be eager to do nothing through rivalry, nothing through vainglory; let there be one soul with one heart in all, since the faith, which is one, is under attack.

Let the whole college in common grieve, or rather mourn, this with us. He who is to judge the world is called into judgment; he who is to examine all is examined; he who redeemed us suffers slander. Let your Fraternity gird itself; you know what helmet protects our head, what breastplate encloses our breast. It is not only now that the camps of the church have received you as their leaders. Let no one doubt that, with the favour of the Lord who makes both one, there will be peace when arms are laid down, since the cause itself defends itself.

Let us look again also at those words of our teacher which he addresses specifically to bishops, foretelling this: 'Take heed,' he says, 'to yourselves and to the whole flock in which the Holy Spirit has placed you as bishops to rule the church of God, which he acquired with his own blood.' We read that those who heard this were called to the very place where your Holiness has now gathered, Ephesus. To those, then, to whom the preaching of the faith is known, let our defence of it also now be known. Let us show it the constancy of our mind with the veneration of which great things are worthy, the constancy that long tranquillity has kept with pious understanding; the things preached by the apostles have reigned inviolate among us. Never have words of tyrannical domination against the King of kings been admitted, nor could the business of truth be overwhelmed by falsehood. I exhort you, dearest brothers: let that love alone be regarded in which, according to the voice of the apostle John, whose relics you venerate in your presence, we must abide. Let there be common prayer to the Lord. We know what the force of that divine presence will be when so great a multitude of priests prays with one accord, since that place could be shaken in which we read that the Twelve prayed with one mind. And what was the petition of the apostles as they prayed? Surely that they might receive the gift to speak the word of God with boldness and to do through his hands, by mighty works, those things whose power they had received through the gift of Christ our God. And what else is to be asked now for your holy assembly than that you speak the word of the Lord with boldness, that he grant you to keep what he has allowed you to preach, and that, filled with the Holy Spirit, as it is written, though with different mouths, you bring forth the one thing which the Spirit himself taught? Encouraged briefly by all these things (for, as the apostle says, 'I speak to those who know,' and 'I speak wisdom among the perfect'), stand by the catholic faith and the peace of the churches; stand by, for so it must be said, past, present, and future, asking for and keeping the things that are for the peace of Jerusalem. In our anxiety we have sent our holy brothers and fellow priests, of one mind with us and most approved men, the bishops Arcadius and Projectus and the presbyter Philip, to be present at what is done and to carry out what was decided by us before; we do not doubt that your Holiness will give them its assent, since what is read will be seen to have been decreed for the security of the universal church.

Celestine's instruction to Arcadius and Projectus, bishops, and Philip, our presbyter, sent to the East in this same case.

When, with God as our guide, as we believe and hope, your Charity has come to the appointed places, turn all your counsel to our brother and fellow bishop Cyril, and whatever you see to be his judgment, you will do. We command that the authority of the apostolic see be guarded. Since the instructions given to you say that you should attend the assembly, if it comes to debate you must judge their opinions, not enter the contest. But if you find the synod over and all the bishops gone home, you must inquire how matters were concluded. If things were done in accordance with the ancient catholic faith and you learn that my holy brother Cyril has gone to Constantinople, you must go there, so as to hand our letters to the emperor. But if things were done otherwise and matters are in dissension, you will be able to judge from the circumstances themselves what you ought to do with the counsel of our above-mentioned brother.

Celestine to Theodosius the Younger, Augustus.

Your Clemency's care for the defence of the catholic faith may well suffice. For the love of Christ our God, who is the ruler of your empire, you hasten to support it in every way, keeping it whole and spotless by condemning the error of depraved doctrines, always setting in this the bulwark of your empire, knowing that your reign, fortified by the observance of holy religion, will endure the more firmly. Yet to this heavenly care and glory each of us, according to his priestly office, devotes our effort as far as we are able; and to this synod, which you ordered to be held, we show our presence in those whom we have sent, beseeching your Piety, under the adjuration of the divine judgment, that your Mildness not allow anything to be permitted to turbulent novelty, nor any opportunity be granted to those who strive to confine the power of the divine majesty within the reasoning of human disputation, by which the peace of the church may be disturbed.

The cause of the faith ought to matter more to you than that of the kingdom, and your Clemency ought to be more anxious for the peace of the churches than for the security of all lands. For all prosperity follows if first the things that are God's are kept dearer. Abraham flourished by faith and filled the whole world with the glory of his prosperity. Moses, the liberator of the people, armed himself with zeal for the Lord against those whom he had found to have withdrawn from the true worship of God. The Lord guarded King David in his kingdom, because he kept his precepts, so as to subject his enemies to him. Fortified, then, by the defence of these examples, guard by faith, observance, and virtue the most pious worship of the universal church toward our God, so that dissension may claim nothing for itself. For whatever is laboured for the quiet of the church or the reverence of holy religion is done for the ease of your empire. These things, most glorious and most serene emperor Augustus, which we know to be in your heart, where we do not doubt that God dwells, we make known also to your august ears through my brothers and fellow bishops Arcadius and Projectus and my fellow presbyter Philip, whom we have sent, humbly asking of your Piety what we believe you have in your prayers: that what you ask of God, you grant for the cause of faith itself.

Celestine to Cyril, bishop of Alexandria.

I perceive that the saying of the most wise Solomon has been fulfilled: for not otherwise than one thirsting for cold water have I received a repeated message from a distant land through the letter of your Love, which joins us to each other in sharing counsel. The peace of the churches and of the catholic faith is to be hoped for without difficulty, when we see the most Christian princes labouring for it in this way. Royal care is not ineffective, especially in divine causes, since it belongs to God, who faithfully holds the hearts of rulers. So we give your Holiness a brief reply. For you ask whether the holy synod ought to receive a man who condemns what he has preached, or whether, since the time of delay has run out, the sentence passed long ago should stand. On this let us both consult our common Lord in common consultation. Does he not answer us at once through the prophet that he does not want the death of the one who dies, and through the apostle Paul that he wants all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth? A speedy correction in anyone never displeases God. Let this perhaps be reserved by God for your Holiness and the venerable council of brothers, that the uproars arisen within the church be

suppressed and that we may learn, with God's help, that the business has been finished with the correction we pray for. But we do not say that we are absent from the assembly; for we cannot be absent from those to whom, wherever we are placed, one faith nevertheless joins us. I do not want us to be reckoned by this body, whose presence the apostle calls weak; we are there, we who are thinking about what is being done there for all; we do spiritually what we are not seen to do bodily. I am devoted to catholic peace; I am eager for the salvation of the one perishing, if only he is willing to confess his sickness. We say this so that we may not seem to fail one who may perhaps be willing to correct himself. For if, while we wait for grapes, he adds thorns to himself, let the former decisions remain in force and be fulfilled with the fruit of judgment; let him gather what he sowed in the devil's furrow. Not by our counsel, but by his own doing, perishing, he proves that we do not have feet swift to shed blood, since he knows that a remedy too has been offered to him. As for those whom your Fraternity says you hold suspect concerning the catholic faith, if they send writings, we must answer them according to the nature of the matters; in this business let no one be deceived, since it is being handled with all caution.

Celestine, bishop, to Theodosius the Younger, Augustus.

We have recognized that divine providence has granted to its own cause what we hoped for. Nor could the minds of the faithful expect anything else to happen during your reign than what we rejoice has come about: that the impious preaching against God has fallen, and that the depravity of the new doctrine, condemned with its author, has perished. Wars were indeed waged against the faith, and the birth of the eternal King was assailed with sacrilegious darts of words; but you, who reign with Christ our God as your author, have conquered the impious enemies by the strength of your faith, bringing back a heavenly triumph, by which you may furnish a defence to a religious empire forever. For truly the prophet's voice fits your glory, and your kingdom can be called a kingdom of all ages, which is extended by the merit of the faith defended, and, grafted onto Christian reverence, ever grows as the observance of holy religion increases, most glorious and most serene emperor Augustus. Behold, now the houses of the Lord are free for prayer, and your empire is commended to our God throughout all the churches in the sacrifices offered. With the daring of the disturber removed, nothing is permitted to scandals; a pestilent speech no longer wounds the souls of men; while you take thought for the universal church, you have restored to all the salvation of their souls. This is your clemency, to be proclaimed of your reign, by which not lands, not provinces, but the souls of all have been defended. You will credit to the whole world this victory, which you won not by wars, not by swords, but by the devotion alone by which you are dedicated to God. This title of your glory remains and will remain, so that no age, no length of time, will abolish it; for eternal are the things done for love of the eternal King. So the faith of Abraham endures through the ages; zeal for God made King David's merit everlasting, since he believed God's enemies to be his own enemies and hated those whom he had found hateful to God. The prophet Elijah, too, was not content to refute those who prophesied falsely, but wished so to punish them that he destroyed by pursuing those whom he saw striving for the ruin

of his people. Your glory is equal to his. He resisted those who prophesied falsely, you those who teach falsely; he pursued the prophets who lied against God, you drive away the priests who preach impious things about Christ our God. He was intent only on punishment; your Piety so punishes impiety as to defend what is religious. For it would not have been enough to drive away the diseases and repel the pestilence, unless you had also restored healthy air and supplied life-giving substance to the infected, by appointing for that church such a bishop as had long since proved himself worthy of this height to all who knew him. The Roman church, which always had and counted him among its own, bears him witness as though to a part of its own body; the merits of his predecessors, to whom he had been holily attached, bear him witness. For he was so joined in mind and in office to the man of most reverend memory, Atticus, the bravest champion of the catholic faith, that already then the marks of the future episcopate in him

shone out beforehand. But this happens by the hidden decision of the divine majesty, that whatever things are better are kept for later, and that peace is reached through certain scandals of disturbers. It is due to the glory of my brother Bishop Maximian that the city should regret, in view of what it endured, that anyone was preferred to him, and should now feel, having chosen him, that it owes to him the integrity of the faith. But for this priest, chosen for that church as his merit deserved, and ordained also with the consent of the holy assembly that was present, to settle the state of the church and to tear out by the roots every wound of depraved heresy, lest what has been cut off dare to sprout again, we beseech and ask, invoking him whom you worship, that you furnish the arms of your faith as you are accustomed. For now every guard must be set, lest the ravening wolf, shut out from the folds of the Lord's flock after his raging, return again by serpentine stealth to the death of souls, having dug tunnels wherever he can. For he cannot rest, since in his rage he longs to brood over his prey. Give protection to the healthy and remedies to those who are to be healed; surround the truth of the catholic religion with the walls of your faith, by which believers may be protected and the followers of so great an error may not dare to enter. For this is the full fruit of your victory, to leave nothing that the church of God should fear again. Him, then, whom the sentence of all the priests cast out for persisting in sacrilegious preaching, let your Clemency remove from all fellowship, so that he may have no opportunity of destroying anyone. My religious sons John the presbyter and Epithymitus the deacon, the messengers of so great a matter, we received with the rejoicing of the whole church; and having read the letter of your Piety in the assembly of the whole Christian people at the church of the most blessed apostle Peter, we paid our vows to our God for you. For by the Lord's arrangement they reached us so as to arrive on the very day of the birth according to the flesh of Christ our God, about which the question had been raised, so that the whole assembly refuted the impiety now convicted. To the cause of the faith is fittingly joined a matter of benefit to the church and to the poor, so that you who have secured the integrity of the faith may also take thought for the interests of the poor. Proba, of illustrious and holy memory, so left her estates situated in Asia, held from her ancestors for a long time, that she directed the greater part of their revenues to be paid out every year to the clergy, the poor, and monasteries. But these estates there have been so handled, to the loss of the poor, through the negligence, to say nothing worse, of the man who managed them, that not only do they not pay the customary sums, but even their right and ownership is being violated by a grant obtained by stealth. We ask your Piety that, of your clemency, you grant this to the religious and illustrious house and to the church: that all disturbance from those lying in wait depart from them, and that the possession be secure both for the church and for its owners, so that what is gained from it for the feeding of the poor may be counted as yours.

Celestine, bishop, to Maximian, fellow bishop of Constantinople.

We have seen and embraced your Fraternity in your letter, and we beheld your Holiness such as we had known it, glorious in simple purity and conspicuous for brightness of mind rather than of speech. That church, of whose faith we always boasted, returns to itself and to its own state, now that, after casting out the one who besieged it, it has received you as its bishop by divine judgment. Take the helm of the ship known to you, and steer it as we know you learned from your predecessors. Withstand the waves which that wind stirred up, troubling what was calm, the enemy not only of those he had as passengers in that ship but of all, desiring to break it apart in every joint of its sides so that he could devour it in swift whirlpools, having falsely professed (for what does iniquity not profess?) the office of helmsman, so as to seem to steer those whom he was striving to destroy. The waves he stirred up still sound around you, and the swollen billows and storms trouble you. Resist, ever watchful, and as master of the ship entrusted to you, help with what care you can the safety of those entrusted to you. Make calm the sea you sail; by your skill make safe the ship you steer, after the tempests it has endured. Follow that fisherman who trod the waters of the sea with his feet so that he might come to Christ our God, whom he had seen walking on the sea.

Follow the examples of the earlier bishops by whom you were taught and nurtured: the knowledge of the most blessed John in preaching, the vigilance of holy Atticus in opposing heresies, the simple purity of your predecessor holy Sisinnius, whose successor we believe you to be, so that we may rejoice over that church as we used to. Gather the scattered, and exercise the pious spirit we know you have toward those whom the disturber had dispersed. Gather your peoples to their mother's breasts; call back those whom the enemy had drawn away against their will by the taste of poison. Confirm in the faith those you see assailed, heal those you see wounded, remove those who do not respond to the medicine. Sometimes poison is removed with pain, and when the harmful parts are cut off, health is prepared for the rest. A field has been given you, dearest brother, in which to exercise the glory of a watchful shepherd and a kind priest, and to pour the taste of Christian health into the mouth, so that it may be clear that you could do more in restoring than he could in harming, who preferred to be an imitator of the devil rather than of Christ, disturbing the peace of all the churches. To this peace we must now give our effort in common, so that there may be one faith and one mind of all the priests. Let your hand hold the Lord's winnowing fork and purge the threshing floor entrusted to it, so that the chaff may be separated from the grain and the wheat, cleansed with all care, may be gathered into the barns of Christ our God. Let the new impiety have no place, and let your vigilance resist the Caelestian error, long since suppressed throughout the world and known by its condemnation, so that all who follow this doctrine may be driven from all fellowship of men. May the Holy Spirit oppose them through you, he who opposes them in all the provinces they try to reach, lest their impious preaching rise again. For wherever they arrive they become known, so as to be condemned; and, as though a sentence so often repeated were not enough for some, they disturb distant lands and remote provinces. But he pursues them whose faith they tried to persecute by their depravity, and from whom they cannot hide, to whatever hiding place they flee, since their impiety betrays them. Our sons, the religious men John the presbyter and Epithymitus the deacon, we received with great joy and sent back with greater rejoicing.

Celestine, bishop, to the clergy and people dwelling at Constantinople.

The gathering of her children is a mother's exultation; indeed, the church rejoices that she has gathered again the children whom the devil had scattered, so that of them none is lost except the son of perdition, since the Father in no way acknowledged him as his son. For, imitating the one from whom he was, as we read, he was trying to take the inheritance away from you, the legitimate children of God, whom, as the apostle says, we believe for your faith to be heirs of God and future co-heirs of our Christ. So he was not allowed to carry off the palm from those who instead triumphed over him by the arms of faith. The tyrant shut out proclaims you victors, or rather proclaims the victory of our common King over the enemy; he conquered in you whose divinity was thought to be made uncertain. If the birth admitted

a question, a question I would say which each one who believes rightly should simply lay open for himself. For who would dare to call God into examination and discuss how he came to help us? It was not hard for God to be able to do what he willed, since he who was able deigned to set us free. But how could that sinner see light in such darkness of his own? How could he gather by earthly subtleties the truth set on high? These things cannot be seen in their darkness by those who do not know the lamp of his word, which the prophet David testifies is a light to his paths. With this psalmist, as we said above, it delights us to sing of the mother, rejoicing at the return of her children into her womb, which a disputation, ridiculous and blasphemous until now, was disturbing: 'Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell in unity.' I might fittingly have borrowed these words from him; for by the help of the venerable Trinity I claim for myself in very great part the peace of the universal church, the sum of the present joys, I whom until now everyone who was made to stumble set on fire, and whom the weakness of some made weak. Your Charity remembers that some time ago I spoke to you about patience; as a priest I sowed the seeds I ought in Christian minds, and the harvest expected in you has not disappointed me. What the harvest of your patience has brought, you prove by its very fruits. Envying these, the farmer who is to perish had sown perishing darnel within the minds of some; he had sown something far other than he had received to sow or found sown. We certainly have the seeds of our faith, which the word of the Lord himself and the teaching of the apostles sowed; whenever such things happen, it is not the soil that received them that spoils them, but other seed scattered over them. The Lord of the harvest will be able to charge nothing to your simple faith, he who, when asked, showed in the Gospel the author of the darnel. They then said: 'Whence the darnel in good seed?' Let us say: whence faithlessness in so great a kingdom of faith? Let us answer you, however, with the words of Christ: 'An enemy has done this.' The strength of your mind has shown how the wrestling school of earlier teachers trained you. To them you owe your recognition of this error, and of their praise this man was unworthy, who despised such glorious goods. He studied not in part but wholly the serpent's cunning, not the simplicity of the dove. Nor is it surprising if, preparing to kill simple souls, he followed by persuading the one who first killed by persuading. Indeed, we read that he deceived by words;

this man tried to bring death only through words. Yet he did not follow his author with impunity, since, after the example of Judas, another has taken his office as bishop. One sentence rightly holds both, since, as we read, both sinned in one. Though each stands before our eyes, the slanderer and the betrayer of our Saviour, it is still hard to decide between the one who disputed his birth and the author of his death. Judas, at least, repented of his deed at once, though in vain; the punishment of the betrayer came before the end of the one betrayed. He chose the noose at once, confessing his sin; this man glories in the obstinacy of impiety. Nor will I give this faithlessness the name of error; not all impiety is error. Indeed, whenever the envious devil turned against the church or its peace, the contention born within it kept safe the cause of the contest itself. To what end did this conflict advance, in which the struggle was not

that someone might win by religion, but that religion itself might be conquered? You surely remember him, since one must remember a blasphemer; but now I want forgetfulness of such great evils to be enjoined on holy minds. Let him be taken from your minds who has been taken from your eyes; let him be taken away, I say, for so he must be called, the slayer of the inner man. The sinister preacher laid frequent ambushes, he often bent his bow, as we read, and shot poisoned arrows from his mouth; yet he found no one among your number to strike. His darts turned back upon himself, after he could not shoot in the dark at the upright in heart, and nothing was permitted to the son of darkness against the children of light. What care, what anxiety held us for you then, set as you were in an internal war! We spent the nights like days, since in such causes all time is short; we did not let our eyes sink in sleep nor loosen our mind in rest. For whom would the delight of sleep seize, with the robber so watchful? We knew what fear there was within the folds, how great the dread within the pens, whenever the hunger of wolves nearby seeks by a long circuit an entrance to its prey and rages, threatening destruction to those who are away. Of how great praise for its caution is this flock worthy, which the robber shut in with it did not touch? The cause of this protection is plain; it is in the open who resisted the enemy. Let us all understand and confess that the shepherd who in the Gospel says that he is the shepherd protected you; he who suffered in you was with you and did not desert you. For against him the tongue was sharpened with daily blasphemies; against him the impious expounder armed his teeth. Yet he was always mocked by an empty bite, since the rod and staff of the same shepherd comforted you, who, when about to go to heaven, even handed over his flock to be fed. These pastures have not been changed for you until now; you have been filled with the same fodder; apostolic and pious teachers have always fed you with their word. But a harmful food had been substituted for healthy fare, when the adversary presented to hungry souls thorns mixed with flowers; yet this fraud did not deceive you, who are the sweet fragrance of Christ in the Lord. After something smelled to you quite different from what it used to, you shrank from the herb of deadly grass; you hedged your ears with thorns, so as not to hear the wicked tongue. What

offended the hearing did not reach the mind, and what the outer man did not receive could not strike the inner. You avoided him, and, as we have learned, you even resisted him to his face; you avoided him, according to the sentence of the blessed apostle Paul, as one whom you knew had already been rebuked. For you have read, and already hold in memory, since they are all worthy of memory, the writings of the priest of the Alexandrian church, that is, of a catholic teacher, to him, by which he so rebuked him as to want him corrected. He strove to call back a slipping colleague; he stretched out the right hand of his teaching, wishing in one man to help very many. The ruin of many, as their bishop wavered, struck the mind of the aged priest. He did, as it is written, the blessed work of the Lord diligently. The apostolic man failed in no part of the apostle's office: he besought, admonished, rebuked. But the other, sinking into the depths by the weight of his blasphemies, refusing the teaching of so great a man and abusing his exhortation, would not be teachable, though he could not be a teacher. The champion of perversity attacks with insults one who holds fast to what is right; yet the brother gloried in this and was not saddened, reckoning that one who so disparaged his Lord would naturally not spare his fellow servant. By his diligence he has been found to be that thrifty son and provident servant of the Gospel. For he both kept the father's substance and increased the number of the talents. I would say that he did not double but multiplied the sum, since we see him helping even those far away with pious interest. O usury of holy preaching! What favour before the common Lord will this merchant of the faith find, who for the gain of souls carried on business even where another had received the trust? Will he not deservedly hear from the householder: 'Well done, good and faithful servant; enter into the joy of your Lord'? These words fit him who kept also what was entrusted to others. What will that other hear, or what will he say, when an account is required of him for what was entrusted to him? He is surely entangled in guilt, even if you, though lost through others, had been kept by him. You surely know, in your learning, what punishment awaits negligent priests, since the apostle commands them to rule diligently even their own houses. Eli, indeed, blameless in himself, incurred God's displeasure through his sons. The high priest and father offended on account of his sons; his authority and his tenderness offended. If, then, he incurred it when he did not restrain his sons' presumption, how much more does this man offend the Lord when he does not even spare himself? I would not call him idle; I would not call him negligent.

You had a man of constant speech and, since I speak to those who know, you had a watchful destroyer. Yet the blessed apostle Peter did not desert one labouring so grievously. For when the putrefaction, horrifying to all, urged that such a wound be separated from the body of the church, we offered a poultice together with the knife. But he, abusing our zeal (for we follow him who wills that not one of the little ones should perish), chose death in his despair. Indeed, rejecting the medicine, he chose to be cut off; agreeing with us at least in this, he himself pronounced on himself the apostolic judgment, that he who troubled us and wished to pervert the gospel of Christ should be cut off. As we have said, we failed in no skill of a physician toward one sick by his own fault; it was not by the haste of our sentence that he became to us a tax collector or a Gentile. We know how, and how often, Scripture commands that those who tend toward these names be admonished, and this is seen to have been fulfilled now too. First brother admonished brother; then, being obstinate, he was admonished with one and another witness, indeed with many; and consequently he was rebuked by the universal church, and by our word also. We did nothing premature, nothing unripe in this, since the order of divine ordinance, duly observed, condemned him. We could not put it off any longer, lest, as it is written, we seem to run with the thief and set our portion with the adulterer of the faith, especially since the eye that causes stumbling is commanded to be removed.

To these remedies, so often offered without delay, he answers by demanding a field for combat; he asks for a priestly examination which he was not going to attend; he goes out to war, a leader of the camp who has declared himself an enemy, a teacher of the faith bearing the arms of faithlessness against the faith, though he seemed not so much to have set out as to have been expelled. I do not ask what prayers you poured out then to our Lord, since the outcome teaches what you could have wished for. And do not think us ignorant of what was done, the course of which the report of our holy brother Cyril has made plain to us. The summons, according to custom, admonished the man, which would make him inexcusable; he scorned to attend. Who would believe that the one who demanded a synod would be absent from the synod? There the lightness of falsehood was pressed down by the weight of truth, and the darkness of the hidden faithless one did not dare to mingle with the brilliance of the radiant priests. The darkness fled from the light, since we read that they can have no fellowship; contraries always offend each other. Where is what was said to him, that what is said in darkness he should speak in the light, and what he heard in the ears he should preach on the housetops? But he wished to hide while present for this reason, that shame might anticipate the sentence to be passed, his conscience judging him. Why did he want to keep his lamp under a bushel, if he thought it was well lit? It ought to have shone to the whole holy assembly, so as to be approved by the true light of all. The divine sentence does not deceive, that those who are in darkness cannot see the light. He remained hidden and, by avoiding the priestly college, in a manner renounced his very dignity. So the first man, Adam, conscious of his sin, hid himself naked before the face of the Lord, and, having sinned not against him but against his commands, he was terrified at the voice he had despised, and, deceived, fell into fear, after he had lost the confidence of simplicity through the vice of transgression. Confession of hiding

does not allow doubt about the crime; no one hides innocently in grave cases. Let him, then, having lost the garment of honour and glory, follow the example of that author of our death; rightly has he done this with the first man Adam, who so denied the Godhead of the last Adam. He could not face the vexation of so many priests, a council gathered from almost every part of the world; he was absent from those with whom he knew he did not stand. What did it profit him to avoid this? He wished to flee those whom he was not granted to escape. For by what means could he escape, when the pursuer is the one from whom no one hides? Or, since he had such companions, thinking himself without sin, did he not deign to consider what the prophet cried: 'Where shall I go from your face, and from your Spirit where shall I flee? If I go up into heaven, you are there; if I go down into the underworld, you are present'? The prophet cries that his sins have no hiding place and cannot be concealed from God; for he confesses as present everywhere the one whom this man tries to assert was absent within the womb

as assumed. At last, in his holy priests, as always, the one living Spirit in all decided what would help all. He received nothing from putrefaction, nothing from a spreading wound, since what the spiritual hand cut off was diligently amputated. 'Cast out,' says Solomon, 'the quarrelsome man from the council, and strife will go out with him.' He carried back with him the scandal he had brought, since what he found among you he left. As the Lord says, the plant which the Father had planted, and which was proved to bear abundant fruit in it, could not be uprooted; the Lord kept his vineyard, Israel. His house is the vineyard of the Lord, and so it is no wonder if it escaped the thief of his house, whose guardian, we read, neither sleeps nor slumbers. What does the obstinate impious man do? What hope is left him, what help? He has no place for pardon, of whom it is written that he cannot be forgiven either here or in the future. Every proud man is brought low; against exaltation, humility brings forth for the Christian, since he who rests upon him exalts him. His words through the prophet are: 'He who acts proudly shall not dwell in the midst of my house,' he who through the apostle promises that he will destroy the foolish wisdom of the world.

Let him now hear from you what Paul once heard, though he was already preaching: 'He has come to madness by the road of many letters.' Yet far be that example from him; for the unlearned man does not deserve to hear what was said of a teacher. Why, besides, should we bring forward the vessel of election against a vessel of rejection? To reproach him, that man suffices whom the benefit of punishment, as he hung on the cross with Christ after so many crimes, made confess the Lord. He asks to be remembered by him in his kingdom; by this brief word he washes away whatever he had committed, helping the crimes of years by one moment of time. Nor does the reward keep the one confessing waiting; at once his recompense and return answered from him who gladly receives one turned to him at any hour: 'With me,' he says, 'you will be in paradise.' He promises fellowship in the things to come to one who was suffering the present things with him. In so great a concord, belief of the heart became for him righteousness, and confession with the mouth became salvation. At this contrast of things we must both rejoice and weep; it is a wickedness that a bishop should have lost what a thief could find. O the reward of faith and of faithlessness! 'O the judgments of God, a great abyss!'

The thief earned paradise and the priest exile; let us, however, take both as interpreters of this matter. The one, placed among torments, recognized him whom the other, placed in honour, did not know. Is this not that saying: 'And man, when he was in honour, did not understand; he was compared to the senseless beasts'? What other sign of understanding is there than to know wisdom and discipline and to understand the words of prudence? That is true wisdom which, as Solomon himself says, takes its beginning from the fear of the Lord, which the blessed Paul affirms that he speaks among the perfect, and it is not so grave that the world did not recognize it then as that a bishop has now not known it. Here I use the words of our God through the prophet Jeremiah: 'Those who handle my law did not know me,' and 'The priests clapped their hands at the prophets prophesying iniquity.' And through the same prophet elsewhere. He was already using, falsely, the defence and praise

of the pagans, who testified that there had never been such a bishop. Truly and plausibly did they say this. For when could a bishop be found who did not know how to be a Christian? He was approved by enemies for this reason, that traitors never displease the enemy. We have heard that he was acting against the law, and what comforts attended the wicked man. Among others, the workers of the Caelestian iniquity were with him and did not desert him, whom the plain sentence of our psalmist pursues: for long since 'the enemies of God are scattered, and those who work iniquity perish.' As the same says, they were devouring the Lord's people as a meal of bread. So he had with him the masters of his own exile; the novice had perfect teachers in this matter. For it is hard to separate those whom crimes alone have joined, since alliances of vices are bound by a stronger glue. Yet what is their end? Surely the one we read: 'The Lord will provoke them, and after this they will fall without honour, in disgrace among the dead forever.'

But why do we linger longer? A longer speech may perhaps cause weariness; let us leave the dead to bury their own dead. Hear now and grasp the words of a simple teacher; hear from him what, living among us, he often heard from our elders; hear things certainly always heard and not discovered by a zeal for novelty. Our colleague speaks to you with our mouth, since one faith must be preached as one. We do not here borrow anyone's testimony concerning his person; he who was chosen from among us has been given by us. He is not unknown, not brought in from elsewhere. You have had a praiseworthy judgment about one present, you whom fame formerly deceived with its prejudgment of one

absent. To say more of him calls for caution, since it is superfluous labour to praise what is known; yet we wish, after our custom, to admonish you with our own words. Let no one among you shake that foundation which the firm rock and that cornerstone laid. Build upon it as catholics, as you are accustomed; you have learned what it is to build on it what remains and what it is to build on it what burns. The one will be weighed against the loss of the other, when the testing fire begins to prove the works of each. I rejoice that you have placed on this foundation not stubble, not wood, not hay, but those riches which the precepts of wise architects commanded to be placed there. You will remain well, you who build so carefully. Such expenditure promises a great dwelling; with gold, silver, and precious stones you are building for yourselves that mansion which cannot be valued. Eternal things are rated by no price, since they are dissolved neither by injury nor by age, for the Lord prepared them for the righteous from the foundation of the world. Let the tired hands of the faithful be strengthened; let the failing knees, as the prophet exhorts, be made firm; let the faint-hearted grow strong. There is nothing they can fear any longer; behold, our Saviour has appeared as victor; God has shown falsehood what it is to strike and assail the truth, after controversy was raised against him over the very thing by which he came to help. Therefore, dearest brothers, abide in him who is in you, so that you may conquer; be perfect in the same mind and in the same judgment, so that from the Son of Man, when he comes in his majesty, you may hear not 'Depart from me, you cursed,' but 'Come, you blessed.' Let the rejection by the one who is coming await the goats; we wish you to be found such that, while they stand cast into the fire on the left, he may invite you on the right to the kingdom. You will not wait for it to be prepared; it has long been waiting for you to reign. Enter quickly now the narrow gate, which has received those whom the wide one never pleased. Let these words to your Love for the joy of catholics suffice; we wish you to review them often, so that, rejoicing in the triumph of faith, you may understand that the God of love and peace is with you.

Celestine, bishop, to the holy synod assembled at Ephesus. At last we must rejoice at the end of evils; at last we must all say in common: 'Your right hand, O Lord, has been glorified in power; your right hand has shattered the enemies.' For properly they have been shattered, since, as David says, we see the mouth of those who speak iniquity destroyed. Yet we see that you, priests of the faith, were with us the executors of this matter so faithfully accomplished, you who, coming together into one and, according to the apostle, seeking not your own things but those of Christ Jesus, carried out the business of our common Lord. With you, then, we speak of your holiness, whose sound we rejoice has gone out into all the earth, since the words of the truth preached by you have come even to the end of the same world. Our God does not allow what he has granted to be hidden, since heavenly benefits are never concealed. So it comes about that, as so great a heavenly gift becomes known according to the divine will, as it is written, every man may be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. I speak, then, to victors, who carried into the battle against the enemy faith alone, which, as the apostle John says, conquers even the world; I write back to you properly in the words of the same apostle, you who, according to the divine page, have known as fathers him who

is from the beginning, and as young men, since you are strong and the word of God abides in you, you have conquered the evil one. Rejoicing in such companions, we did not doubt at all of this outcome; confidence of victory held our mind, since we saw the weight of the divine cause resting on you, whom we knew well, according to that prophetic saying, to hate the assembly of the wicked and not to sit with the impious. I have obtained, then, what I believed, since against the guilty and the perverse, as the same prophet says, the innocent

and the upright have clung to me. In one and the same report, then, brought by our sons, the religious and God-beloved men John the presbyter and Epithymitus the deacon, we learned of a just deposition and a still more just exaltation, approving what we read in the Gospel, that our God exalts the humble and casts down the mighty from their seat; from which sentence that most wise man of ours did not stray, who says that the memory of the humble is kept by our God and that of the proud destroyed. When could this be seen more fulfilled than now, when our Saviour, preparing to honour the well-deserving, has scattered the bones of men who please themselves, and the spotless Lamb, having provided a most worthy shepherd, has cast the deadly wolf out of his folds? We have read the praises of the new bishop written by your Fraternity, and none of us could be surprised, since you said what is known. Assertion is spent on uncertain things; things ascertained do not seek testimony. The wrestling school of good deeds has always trained him; we gave him such as we find him in your letters, such, certainly, to put it briefly, as our teacher commands a priest to be, so that by the judgment of all he deserves fittingly to hear: 'Behold, truly an Israelite, in whom there is no guile.' Do not these words fit him with your praises? Did you hear otherwise what you said? Such a successor the blessed simplicity of Sisinnius of holy memory was seeking, so that his place should be held only by one like himself. Indeed, we do better if, refraining now from the name of that sacrilegious man, we say that the see was vacant. It was done by divine judgment that the church should merit him as a remedy. Indeed, once ordained, he took away discord and restored concord: what will he not

be able to provide over time, whose beginnings have provided this? We say these things to one another about him whom the restoration of peace was seeking. We were present, and would not call ourselves absent, when the mystical words were spoken over his head, when the joy of divine salvation was restored to all; finally, no catholic was absent there, where all conquered in common. We rejoiced, besides, at the testimony of the most clement and most Christian emperor on this matter, since we saw that his judgment agreed with the letter of your Love. Nor is it surprising if the king's heart, which is in the hand of God, agrees with those whom it knows to be God's priests. So runs the royal word: 'By carrying out divine things he has served the Augustus.' Happy the empire which the carrying out of divine things serves, and no less happy the man whom the ruler of earthly things so proclaims. Worthy of this testimony is one who could be approved before ordination, not one who could be disapproved after it. We know by what road our holy brother and fellow bishop Maximian came, by what stages of service, step by step, he reached the priestly summit. Not the glory of riches, not a leap of honours such as unbridled desire usually brings to the ambitious, raised him; by the vote of the poor, to whom as a faithful and prudent servant he gave food in due season, he was set over all his Lord's goods; and yet, even if there was a desire, he desired the episcopate only for the sake of the good work, as the apostle says. So our God attends to both what we want and why we want it. Who would doubt that, presiding, he can do more fully what he could exercise as a subordinate?

The blasphemer is hated. One who strove to wound souls could not hold this office, that is, the care of souls; his ruin was great, as great a ruin as his teaching was depraved. Now, since we rejoice at the correction of the past, it is fitting that we take care for the future, lest what has been cut off may sprout more and more. Since it is inevitable that, wherever this pestilence is, members of our body are troubled, and that through our patience worse things than before may seem to have been nursed, we have written to the emperor's clemency that the sickness be removed farther from the midst of health; for we have learned that he has returned to Antioch and that he has been granted the opportunity of living there, where he came from. This exile is the destruction of the innocent. Let us look more carefully at what the things conceived there before may bring forth there. It is not hard for him to persuade those who know him; the church of that same city is before our eyes, which through him lost a priest; and yet do we labour to notice who was the cause of sin to whom? Unless perhaps, and we say this for the peace of the churches, its bishop shows that he was deceived by deserting the condemned man. But who would hope that anyone can be corrected there, where he sees the author of perversity holding the citadel, where the exile is honoured by all? Great is the despair of health there, we say it mourning, where, as Isaiah says, every head is in pain and every heart in sorrow, from the feet to the head. When will any member there have hope of health, where the whole frame of the body is in danger? Labour, dearest brothers, labour, I beseech you, that he who did this deed be truly removed from your midst. Solitude alone befits such men. For where ought he to find comfort who so treated him who reigns everywhere? The whole sum of the business has been accomplished by you; what now presses and remains must be done, lest the labour be in vain. We are placed far away indeed, but through our anxiety we view the whole more closely. The care of the blessed apostle Peter keeps all present; we cannot excuse ourselves before our God for what we know. For although your Holiness has kept silent about what we are saying, we have nevertheless learned everything by inquiring more diligently. Let the end of so great a cause, which remains, then, I beg you, correspond to your acts, since we do not want you to fail in a small thing who have accomplished the greatest

things. Be a help before the kings of the earth to what we have written. They themselves know what they owe to their times; they know that their kingdoms stand on the foundation of the catholic faith. The vein of their fathers' and grandfathers' belief is kept pure by its holy heirs; it flows from them uncorrupted through their descendants, and no mud has ever fouled it in them. The faithful course of a spring keeps its beginning, when what was received at the source is seen in the offspring. Let us pursue alike the dog and the evil worker; do, being present, what we, being absent, exhort. For although we owe this care to all in general, it is especially fitting for us to help the endangered people of Antioch, whom a pestilent disease has besieged. Let us free from such knots the city in which, as the Acts of the Apostles say, we read that they were first called Christians. Let us, then, with all our strength provide for those to whom we know we owe, according to religion, the name we are called by. This anxiety of ours the God-beloved sons, most dear and most welcome to our hearts, John the presbyter and Epithymitus the deacon, have proved by their presence; we have sent them back to you in haste after their arrival, taking care that those whom we received in the days of the Lord's nativity we might give back at the time of the Lord's resurrection. As for those who seem to have shared Nestorius's impiety and joined themselves to him as associates in his crimes, although your sentence against them is read, we too decree what seems right. Many things must be considered in such cases, which the apostolic see has always considered. What we say the example of the Caelestians attests, who until now have held out hope from a synod. They have, if they come to their senses, the opportunity of returning, which is denied only to those who are known to have been condemned by name with the authors of the heresy by the signature of all the brothers; for by God's mercy we rejoice that some of their number have already returned to us. This was done with the intention that a sentence at least might separate those whom a mixed conscience could not. I advise your Fraternity to follow this example. Let the head of the crime be condemned with those whom the synodal decrees name; the rest, who share his views and whom we do not hold in ecclesiastical communion, are to know that they are to be expelled from their cities and will not be in our college, unless, in accordance with the decree of the church and of the most Christian emperors, condemning what has been condemned together with its authors and associates, they profess themselves catholic priests. We wish this form to be kept also regarding those who believed that the Christian emperors could be deceived in church cases and who by another procedure have again occupied churches. As for the bishop of Antioch, if there is hope of his correction, we wish him to be summoned by your Fraternity, so that, unless he comes to think what we think, condemning the new blasphemy by a written profession after the same example, he may understand that the church will make arrangements concerning him too, as regard for our faith commands. Yet we must trust the divine mercy that all will return to the way, if the head and cause of these evils is removed from the aforementioned place.