Petition to the Emperors 29–36

We must now necessarily state what has been done in these parts, where distinguished bishops, clothed not with the truth of faith but only with the name of Catholic, scatter the faithful and true Catholics not only through judges, nor only through the military hand, but also sometimes through their clergy, with the judges unaware or even pretending not to see, committing atrocities. And what end will there be, if we relate everything that each of the faithful has suffered and suffers? Yet one atrocious deed of persecution must be related in brief, which was committed in Egypt at Oxyrhynchus, with the whole city as witness. There is a certain part of the holy people at Oxyrhynchus, in whose sacred number most, the more intently they have given their zeal and care to divine things, the more anxiously and diligently they strive to keep the Catholic faith inviolable, so that they mingle with no heretics and no prevaricators through the divine sacraments. To this observance most of them were trained by the example and admonition of blessed Paul, who lived in the same times as the very famous Antony, of no less life, zeal or divine grace than holy Antony was. The city of Oxyrhynchus itself knows this, which today most devoutly celebrates the holy memory of Paul. And this part of the people, when it saw that the bishop of that city, named Theodore, had fallen into impious prevarication, so that he not only condemned the whole faith, nor only subscribed impiously, but allowed himself to be made a lay person by the impious George and to be ordained bishop again by that same heretic, cursed his communion, having with them presbyters and deacons of that unblemished faith, through whom they enjoyed the divine sacraments, together with the most blessed Paul mentioned above. But afterward it also had a bishop ordained for itself by the Catholic bishops of that time, holy Heraclidas, all the more suitable as he had to be ordained the more firmly against heretics and prevaricators, who was both clear in his life, serving God from his earliest age, despising worldly goods, and perfect in faith and doctrine. Hence, for his apostolic faith, his gospel doctrine and his heavenly way of life, he is venerable to all there, displeasing only the heretics and prevaricators. Hence too he pleases God the more when he displeases such men. But this man, so great and such, began so to exercise the pontificate that, at the report of his faith and doctrine and of his most holy way of life, many came even from very distant regions, cursing the wicked fellowship of the prevaricators and desiring his sacrosanct fellowship. But that distinguished twice-bishop does not allow this. And first he harasses him through the public authorities, so that several times he had him seized alone in the dead of night by lancers and taken from the city. But when these same authorities did not persist in what they had rashly begun (for what right could they have against a Catholic bishop?), they rightly ceased from the persecution they had begun, especially since one of them was warned by a divine plague. Then this distinguished twice-bishop now relies on his own forces, and sends a crowd of clergy to the church of blessed Heraclidas, the Catholic bishop, and overthrows it, destroying the walls on every side, so that he broke up the very altar of God with axes, with the horror and groaning of the whole city that the church was overthrown whose bishop even men of the other party confess to be of right and unblemished faith.

Consider, we pray, most pious emperors and champions of the right faith: do you issue edicts for such impious bishops, so that those are afflicted who, by the merit of their faith and most holy life, are more precious than the world itself? Believe, most religious emperors, that blessed Heraclidas is one of that number of saints of whom the divine Scripture speaks, saying: "They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, afflicted in tribulations and sorrows, of whom the world was not worthy." For how is blessed Heraclidas not such a one, who, rejecting all the delights of the world, through the very bitternesses of this rugged life, emulating the Lord's footsteps, naked and unencumbered follows the saving road of virtues; who so takes counsel for the love of the divine faith as we read the saints conspired, having nothing of the world but tribulations and sorrows for the faith, so living, so walking, as those saints too to whom the testimony above was given? Rightly, then, blessed Gregory and the other holy bishops are relieved, as by divine consolations, in the evils of the afflicted church, by the venerable fellowship of this holiness. And Theodore raged not only against so venerable a bishop, but also against his most holy people itself, which has been formed by the teaching and morals of a most sincere and faithful priest. And it would take long to relate what he contrived against the modesty and profession of the sacred virgins, whose monasteries the city itself venerates for the merit of their holiness. And he afflicted several times with atrocious injuries the very servants of God whom he had found to be holier. But what wonder, if he afflicted the sheep like a wolf, whose good shepherd he often afflicts?

Behold the man who, under you pious emperors, who come forward for the Catholic faith, boasts that he is a Catholic while overthrowing the church of the Catholics, persecuting Catholic priests and servants of Christ, and impiously afflicting also his sacred virgins. This is that distinguished and most holy bishop who, though he had first been ordained bishop by Catholic bishops, was afterward reduced to the number of lay people by the impious George, and nevertheless was ordained bishop by that same George, to harass the faithful: sitting and communicating in one and the same city with Apollonius, bishop of the Meletians, who consented to George's impieties, and this same Theodore persecuting, together with this same Apollonius, blessed Heraclidas, the champion of the Catholic faith. Behold, to him the basilica of Apollonius has now been handed over as if to a Catholic, by the authority of your general edict; though this same Theodore, who received the basilica of the heretic Apollonius as if a Catholic, acted just as impiously as Apollonius acted, except that Theodore acted more atrociously, since from a Catholic bishop he became a lay person, condemning the devout faith and subscribing to the Arian impiety, so as to be ordained bishop again by a heretic. Indeed he wishes to seem Catholic from this, that he himself now, by some persuasion, makes certain presbyters or deacons of Apollonius lay people and ordains them again, so that he seems to repay in kind that most shameful ordination which he suffered. Does it not surpass every sacrilege to uphold these mockeries under the Catholic name, to the affliction of faithful priests and lay people?

And in Palestine, at Eleutheropolis, there is a sacred virgin of Christ named Hermione, born indeed of noble birth, but made much nobler by faith and holiness, adorning her very virginity with contempt of worldly things and of human glory, after which very many strive, even those who boast that they have renounced the world and the lust of the flesh. As much as she guards the chastity of her body with sacred rigor, so much she preserves the purity of her soul by the chaste observance of the devout faith, communicating neither with heretics nor with prevaricators, because she understands that virginity of body profits nothing unless she also protects the integrity of the soul by sacred confession, fleeing the stain of adulterous communion and following the saving sacraments of faithful priests. In short, she begs blessed Heraclidas by devout letters that she might be helped by his sacred visits. But in place of blessed Heraclidas, holy Ephesius visits, who at that time had come from the city of Rome to bishop Heraclidas for the needs of the church. This is the Ephesius whom we said above was ordained bishop for the unblemished Roman people by the most constant bishop Taorgius. And when he had come to Eleutheropolis, not only Hermione with her sacred monastery was relieved, but also certain most faithful servants of God. Among them also the noble house of Severus, a former tribune, devout toward the Catholic faith, which had long not communicated with heretics and prevaricators, but had not yet found the sacred communion of Catholics. When he saw holy Ephesius, after many examinations proving him a Catholic, he gave himself to him in sacred communion, judging himself blessed that divine mercy had unexpectedly visited his house, being led into such admiration by the coming of the holy priest, not only by the purity of his life but also by certain heavenly proofs. For blessed Ephesius is of such faith and holiness that wherever he goes, divine grace accompanies him. The holy people at Oxyrhynchus too, communicating with blessed Heraclidas, proved this; bound by devout love for him on account of the merit of divine grace, they escorted him as he set out with great weeping, as once the people of Asia did the apostle Paul.

We do not say these things out of a desire to praise, but so that you may know what holy and faithful souls are afflicted with most grievous persecutions under the authority of your name by those who, it is plain, without your knowledge, are still even now either heretics or prevaricators or associates of such men. Those to whom the sacred truth is burdensome attempted something small against holy Ephesius in Palestine, but afterward desisted, fearing in him both the freedom of faith and the constancy of mind, and considering this very thing, that their heresy and impiety could rather be betrayed if, under you Catholic emperors, they harassed too sharply a bishop of whole and constant faith. But when the same blessed Ephesius, invited by letters of the faithful, sailed to Africa, giving us, in the apostolic manner, the command to devote ourselves to divine and ecclesiastical offices for the holy brotherhood, as the holy brotherhood there requested, the distinguished Turbo, bishop of the city of Eleutheropolis, despising our lowliness, began to wish to accomplish against us what he did not dare to accomplish against holy Ephesius, not knowing that the grace of Christ God protects even his least servants, especially those laboring for the cause of the right faith. For this Turbo, after he heard that some were joining themselves to the whole faith and that by God's grace the cause of truth was growing, threatens us with ruin and disturbs us. And he has threatened burning to the house of Severus, for the truth's sake, who upholds the faith of God all the more as he has served the Roman empire faithfully. He tries also to pursue the sacred virgin Hermione: whoever has come to know this woman has admired her as one of the women of the gospel. And he lays snares for each of those who are joined with us in the fellowship of sacred communion, objecting as a crime, by that law of Babylon, that within our own dwellings, without the stain of heresy and without communion of faithlessness, according to the gospel and apostolic traditions, we celebrate the divine sacraments for the faithful who desire them. For with like fury the Babylonians once pursued holy Daniel with hostile hatreds, because in his own house he worshiped God in observance of the divine law. This is the Turbo who was deacon of the heretic Eutychius, under whom blessed Lucifer suffered exile at the city of Eleutheropolis; and he too afflicted Lucifer, freely upholding the faith, severely with many atrocities.

There are still today in Palestine those who at that time paid most grievous penalties to those pursuers because they met with Lucifer, the bishop of the Catholic faith. Let them deny, if they can, that among their other atrocities they broke down a closed door with axes; that, rushing on Lucifer, a most faithful priest, they violated the divine sacraments too, punishing with impious blows each of those brothers who had gathered there. Let them deny that they still possess today the holy mystic vessels which they then impiously plundered from Lucifer, together with the sacred books. At that time, surely, Turbo was with Eutychius the heretic. From then on, calling himself a Catholic, he persecutes Catholics under the authority of your name, which upholds the Catholic faith in contemplation of devout hope. Do you allow, most pious emperors, that under the authority of your name impiety should long dominate everywhere against the faithful? Is it expedient to the Roman empire (which, however, we say from the affection and faith of the observance you show to Christ God) that those who preach Christ devoutly should suffer persecutions and deaths, so that nowhere is it permitted to set up devout altars to God, or, if they are set up, they are destroyed? Under Ahab, the impious king of Israel, when the prophets had been killed and the altars destroyed, Elijah appeals to God against Israel, saying in the book of Kingdoms: "Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have destroyed your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life." Do you allow this indignant appeal to be made to God, even in your times, by each of the faithful priests? For even if they are silent, is God ignorant that these very things are done? Do we think that these things are committed without offense to God against true Catholics and against his true church, which, when once committed against God's servants, were most grievously avenged by divine punishments? And whence are so many plagues by which the Roman world is shaken and pressed? There is no need now for us to go through each of the plagues, which your tranquility recognizes with the heat and anxiety of its empire. Let us at least soften this common grief by silence, lest we seem not so much to share in suffering as to open wounds. This we ask, most pious emperors: deign to consider from what causes these things come. Whether because the faithful servants of Christ, fearing the divine laws, will not meet with the faithless, or because true Catholics are crushed by false priests. For how are they not false priests who are to be avoided not only for the cause of prevarication set out above, but also because very many of them even now uphold their own heresies under a false profession before you of the Catholic name? For who now fears to preach impious things among the bishops, when impiety so often committed has been honored, when it is by no means removed from the priesthood? In short, some of them are Origenists, others Anthropomorphites, others defending the sect of the impious Apollinaris, and others, in a threefold wedge, blaspheming against the Holy Spirit with various zeal. And even those among them who are thought to believe devoutly, upholding or rejecting three substances of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, all of these nevertheless boast of your edicts and claim churches for themselves, though our fathers always condemned these impious sects by apostolic and gospel authority. To discuss these is not the task of the present little work; we say only what may move to horror your mind, intent on the true faith.

One heresy, as we think, was accepted at Ariminum under a heretical king, and now under you, pious Catholic emperors, so many heresies are upheld, no less impious than the impiety of Arius. And though each writes books or letters against the others, yet they all communicate with one another, either directly or by an indirect chain, quarreling only in disputations with the empty zeal of philosophers, not avoiding one another as impious out of devotion to the sacrament; so that now there seems to be a contest of wit among them, as in the schools, not a sacred defense of true religion, since they do not separate the sacraments among themselves, though they are separated from one another by impious opinions. And they do this because some of them pursue human glory, and some avarice; and that is why they play into one another's hands under an impious pretense, so as to lose neither the possessions of the church nor their honors. And meanwhile, to veil so many impieties of theirs, to mock each one, putting forward as it were signs of a most kindly mind, they say that they are joined in the fellowship of church communion even with those who think the contrary, so that the good of peace in the church should not perish. As if a peace of this kind, which receives so many impieties into his church, pleased Christ God! But let those who think so hear what is written: "And the way of peace they have not known; there is no fear of God before their eyes." And more openly still we read in Jeremiah about impious and wicked peace, as the testimony set out below continues: "From the least of them to the greatest, all have committed iniquities; from the priest to the false prophet, all have done falsehood; and they planned the crushing of my people, making nothing of it and saying, Peace, peace; and where is peace?" And we must attend to the atrocious things he goes on to say of those who boast of this most vain peace. For it follows: "They were confounded, because they failed; and not even so, bearing their confusion, did they come together, and they did not know their shame. Therefore they will fall in their ruin, and in the time of visitation they will be weakened."

What evil do we commit, what impious thing do we do, if, keeping faith with Christ, we reject a peace of this kind, whose great confusion and shame and most grievous end are described? But these distinguished lovers of peace stir up war against faithful priests. For what does the devil want but that the impious and prevaricators should boast of the peace of the world? For what does the devil want but that those who are devout and faithful should be harassed by the persecution of those who attack them? We have set this out so that, through your ignorance, the blood of Christians defending the ancient faith may not long be shed. For what does it profit if you are champions of the Catholic faith and allow the followers of the Catholic faith to be tortured everywhere, put to flight everywhere, and the devout faith freely preached nowhere? Let them have basilicas gleaming with gold, clothed with the display of precious marbles, or raised up by the magnificence of columns; let them have also possessions stretched out at length, for the sake of which the whole faith too has been endangered: why do they also claim, for their impieties, the cities common to all Romans, so as to allow no one to live devoutly in them, in which even vain superstition is practiced by very many without danger and upheld without odium from them? Let it be permitted to truth at least, even among the most worthless and lowly mangers, to worship Christ God devoutly and adore him faithfully, where once the same Christ, born according to the flesh, deigned to lie as an infant. What we ask, we do not ask as though we were terrified of being killed for the truth. God is witness, who is the true watcher of the heart, that by God's grace it is for us both the highest refreshment and the sure hope of future blessedness if we are slain for this faithful assertion. So it is not as men who fear to suffer that we have set these things out, but so that the blood of Christians shed by the impieties and cruelties of others may not long weigh on the most pious empire of your rule. Especially under you, most religious Theodosius Augustus, who with wonderful devotion conspire against all heretics in the devout confession of the Christian religion, we believed that there would be a great punishment for us before God if, before you, so religious, so most pious an emperor, consecrated to Christ God with divine and fullest fear, whom God Christ truly chose for the empire, we kept silent about the things of the true faith and the true church. After this we do not doubt how anxiously you will act, as the father of the empire, so that the sincerity of the faith and communion professed may not be afflicted in the Roman world. Whatever you do more holily in the cause of the sacred faith and the professed truth, so much more gloriously will you reign both here and for ever by the favor of Christ. I, Marcellinus, presbyter, wishing your most happy empire secure quiet, and perpetual blessedness in the kingdom of Christ and God, most pious emperors. I, Faustinus, who cannot be worthily called a presbyter of God, wishing that here too you may reign happily for many years by the help of the most clement Godhead, and in the future kingdom of Christ the Son of God attain perpetual blessedness with the saints, most glorious emperors. [The emperors' rescript:] Greeting, Cynegius, most dear to us. Although no reverence in human hearts should be greater than that for the divine law, nor can anything be added to it, whose aspiring excellence, the ruler of the world and the earth, keeps all that he willed to be under us, made propitious by the favor of almighty God: yet our clemency, petitioned through Faustinus and Marcellinus, priests most full of faith, feared that if no answer were given by us to the petitioners, we might seem to assent to those who, contrary to our purpose, had added anything to the divine law which we serve. And so we so moderate both things as to honor the petition that has been offered, and yet to wish or command nothing to be added to the faith by our own choice. No one was ever of so profane a mind that, when he ought to follow the Catholic teachers, he should himself lay down for the teachers what is to be followed. And indeed the praise of the petition is commendable and just, which has embraced almost the whole series and order of heretical superstition, which is contrary to the Catholic faith. For it has revealed both whence it arose and by what author it was advanced. For indeed, by the persuasion of certain men, the antiquity of the whole age being changed, innocent men, driven into exile for the faith, laid down their lives with the highest praise. But vengeance was not delayed concerning those who, plotting against good morals and heavenly institutions, for a little while, out of contention, not out of faith but out of faction, perverted the minds of many by detestable insinuation. For the patience of almighty God was moved so far that the punishment due to the criminal after their deeds was felt by example beforehand. But not even by this deed could they be converted and bent to the precept of God: they press, pursue and attack the Catholics with secret schemes. So great is the persistence of error that they prefer to sin daily with the followers of different observances rather than to think rightly with the Catholics. In this the plea of the petitioners is to be praised, who, communicating with Gregory of Spain and Heraclidas of the East, holy and indeed praiseworthy bishops, wish to live in the Catholic faith without attack or annoyance from anyone, and not to be struck by any snares and circumventions of those who assail them, since it pleases them to keep the faith once received with all devotion. Let whatever has deserved to be eternal, then, be inviolate. Let no gathering, no assault, no fraud of others attempt anything. Let them follow their purpose in whatever place they wish; let them follow it for the Catholic faith with divine love. Cynegius, most dear and most loving kinsman, let your sublimity order the precept of our serenity, by which we venerate with all favor the Catholic faith, without which we cannot be saved, to be so kept that it protects and defends Gregory and Heraclidas, bishops of the sacred law, and the other priests like them who have given themselves to an equal observance, from the injuries of wicked men and heretics; and let all know that this is settled in our minds, that we believe the worshipers of almighty God to be none other than Catholics.