Petition to the Emperors

In the times of the emperor Constantius, son of Constantine, a harsher persecution of Christians arose from the impious Arian heretics, with Constantius consenting, who also persecuted bishop Athanasius, who resisted the heretics, and ordered that he be condemned by all the bishops. This too all the bishops everywhere, out of fear of the prince, attempted to do, condemning an innocent man unheard. But Liberius, bishop of Rome, and Eusebius of Vercelli, Lucifer of Cagliari and Hilary of Poitiers refused to give the sentence. These, then, were sent into exile for keeping the faith. Damasus, his deacon, pretended to set out with Liberius; fleeing from the journey, he went back to Rome, corrupted by ambition. But on the day when Liberius was setting out into exile, all the clergy, that is, the presbyters and the archdeacon Felix, and Damasus himself, the deacon, and all the officers of the church, all alike, in the presence of the Roman people, confirmed under oath that while Liberius lived they would by no means have another bishop. But the clergy, against right, most unfittingly, with the supreme crime of perjury, accepted the archdeacon Felix, ordained in Liberius's place. This deed displeased the whole people, and they held aloof from his processions. After two years Constantius came to Rome; the people petitioned him for Liberius; he, soon assenting, said: "You have Liberius, who will return better than he was when he left you." By this he indicated Liberius's consent, by which he had given his hands to faithlessness. In the third year Liberius returned, and the Roman people went out with joy to meet him. Felix, censured by the senate and people, was driven from the City; and after a little time, at the urging of the clergy who had perjured themselves, he burst into the City and presumed to hold a service in the basilica of Julius across the Tiber; and the whole multitude of the faithful and the nobles threw him out of the City again with great disgrace.

Eight years later, in the consulship of Valentinian and Valens, on the tenth day before the Kalends of December, Felix died. Liberius showed mercy to the clergy who had perjured themselves and received them in their own places. Likewise, on the eighth day before the Kalends of October, in the consulship of Gratian and Dagalaifus, Liberius departed from human affairs. Then the presbyters and deacons Ursinus, Amantius and Lupus, with the holy people who had kept faith with Liberius when he was placed in exile, began to assemble in the basilica of Julius, and demanded that the deacon Ursinus be ordained bishop for them in Liberius's place. But the perjurers, in the Lucinae, demanded Damasus as their bishop in Felix's place. Paul, bishop of Tibur, blessed Ursinus. When Damasus, who had always coveted the episcopate, learned this, he stirred up with money all the charioteers and the ignorant multitude, and, armed with clubs, burst into the basilica of Julius and raged with great slaughter of the faithful for three days. After seven days, with all the perjurers and the arena-fighters whom he bribed with a huge price, he took the Lateran basilica, and there he was ordained bishop; and by buying the judge of the City, Viventius, and the prefect of the grain supply, Julianus, he brought it about that Ursinus, a venerable man who had been ordained bishop first, was sent into exile with the deacons Amantius and Lupus. When this was done, Damasus began to press the Roman people who would not join his processions with clubs and various slaughter. He also tried, through the officials, to drive from the City seven presbyters who had been arrested. But the faithful people ran up, rescued those presbyters, and without delay brought them to the basilica of Liberius.

Then Damasus, with the faithless, called up arena-fighters, charioteers and grave-diggers, and all the clergy, with axes, swords and clubs, and besieged the basilica at the second hour of the day, on the seventh day before the Kalends of November, in the consulship of Gratian and Dagalaifus, and stirred up a heavy battle. For, having broken the doors and set fire beneath them, he sought an entrance by which to burst in. Some of his household too, tearing down the roof of the basilica, killed the faithful people with tiles. Then all the Damasians, bursting into the basilica, killed a hundred and sixty of the people, men as well as women, and wounded very many as well, of whom many died; but of Damasus's party no one died. After three days the holy people, gathering together, began to recite against him the commands of the Lord, saying: "Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul." They also sang psalms in praise and said: "They have given the dead bodies of your servants as food to the birds of heaven, the flesh of your saints to the beasts of the earth. They have poured out their blood like water around Jerusalem, and there was no one to bury them." So often this same people, assembled in the basilica of Liberius, cried out, saying: "Christian emperor, nothing escapes you. Let all the bishops come to Rome; let the case be heard. Damasus has now made his fifth war: murderers out of the see of Peter!" And the people of God begged the bishops with many entreaties to come together, so that by a just sentence they might drive out the man named, stained with such impiety, whom the matrons loved so much that he was called "the matrons' ear-tickler."

The voices of the people were therefore brought to the emperor Valentinian, who, moved by kindness, granted the exiles their return. Then Ursinus, with the deacons Amantius and Lupus, returned to the City on the seventeenth day before the Kalends of October, in the consulship of Lupicinus and Jovinus; and the holy people gladly went to meet him. But Damasus, conscious of so many crimes, shaken by no small fear, bought the whole palace, so that his deeds should not be laid open to the prince. The emperor, not knowing what Damasus had done, issued an edict that, Ursinus being banished into exile, no further unspeakable contention should set the peoples at odds. Then bishop Ursinus, a holy man and without crime, taking thought for the people, gave himself into the hands of the wicked, and on the sixteenth day before the Kalends of December, at the emperor's order, hastened of his own accord into exile. But the people, fearing God and worn out by no persecutions, feared neither the emperor nor the judge nor Damasus himself, the author of the crimes and a murderer, but held services in the cemeteries of the martyrs without clergy. Hence, when many of the faithful had gathered at Saint Agnes, Damasus burst in armed with his attendants and struck down very many in the slaughter of his devastation. This most cruel deed greatly displeased the bishops of Italy. When he had solemnly invited them to his anniversary and some of them had come, he worked on them with entreaties and money to pronounce a sentence against holy Ursinus. They answered: "We have come together for the anniversary, not to condemn a man unheard." So his wicked intention lacked the effect it strove for. From then on the presbyters, afflicted in various ways, were scattered through exiles and foreign places. Among them the presbyters Marcellinus and Faustinus offered to the princes Valentinian, Theodosius and Arcadius petitions concerning the confession of the true faith, the display of holy communion, and the persecution by the opponents of the truth, as follows.

We entreat your gentleness, most pious emperors, Valentinian, Theodosius and Arcadius, that you deign to read these things tirelessly, in contemplation of Christ the Son of God, who aids your empire. Your lofty reign rises to still loftier heights by the help of God the almighty Father and of Christ his only-begotten Son, when you neither despise truth in lowly men nor strengthen falsehood in many or powerful ones. For this is most just and most salutary in a reign of justice, that persons be approved by the merit of truth, not truth presumed from the power of persons. Indeed the law of the world was written for this reason, that power or multitude should not prevail against what is true and just, even if it is upheld by the lowly. But if such great care must be kept by the provision of your tranquility even in matters of state, that the right of truth should hold even in the least, against every force or power, so that the state entrusted to your empire by God's will may flourish, how is the truth of the holy faith, in divine affairs, obscured and crushed by a band of the impious and their most fraudulent circumventions? Especially since you, princes of the Roman empire, uphold the devout faith and purity of the Christian religion by so many of your constitutions. All of it indeed, because, as worshipers of Christ the Son of God, you decree for the Catholic faith and with every effort write by the authority of your empire against heretics and the faithless, not as if attempting anything new of your own opinion, as some earlier princes tried to their own and others' ruin, but to show that your judgments and your faith agree with the sacred judgments of the divine Scriptures and with devout confessions.

But this, which after the most atrocious persecutions of an earlier time ought rather to have helped the holy church, afflicts it more, since those same distinguished bishops who formerly persecuted it while asserting or assenting to heresy now persecute it under the authority of the Catholic name; and the more fraudulently they now do this under a false profession of the devout faith, the more destructively they rage, and the more painfully truth seethes, that even under you, emperors who defend the devout faith, it is not yet allowed to breathe. But lest we seem to bring this up to stir up odium without proof of the matter, we set out the case as best we can. We ask as suppliants that you lend your royal ears to us, the least of men, while we show that we are not heretics and yet are severely afflicted as if heretics; though neither those who severely afflict us nor their associates can now say or prove that we are heretics. Nor indeed can they deny of themselves that in an earlier time they either most fiercely upheld heresy, with intolerable punishment of the faithful, or certainly gave their hands to it, condemning the Catholic faith they had asserted before, because they feared to suffer exile for Christ the Son of God, for whom even a faithful lay person must undergo any most atrocious death; because, as the Apostle says, it has been granted to us for Christ's sake not only to believe in him but also to suffer for him. For such a death or suffering is an occasion of immortality.

It is not hidden from your gentleness and your religion devoted to God how impious and how pestilential the Arian heresy is, against which a declaration was written with special vigor by our fathers at Nicaea, so that the devout confession of the apostolic faith might be preserved and confirmed by the perpetual condemnation of that heresy, so that no one in after times could be deceived. But Arius, like Pharaoh's heart, not believing that the divine sentence had then been given against him, crept in, somehow or other, with Constantine, hoping that, the sentence of the special priests rescinded by his support, he could be received into the church. In short, Constantine himself had ordered that the holy bishop Alexander, of blessed memory, should communicate with him: not that Alexander who was bishop of the divine faith at Alexandria, who, full of wisdom and fervent in the Holy Spirit, first both uncovered Arius and expelled him and condemned him for ever; but this Alexander who was in the city of Constantinople, himself an admirable bishop. When he saw that Arius was relying on the king of this world, he cried out from the deepest grief of his heart, standing in the place of the sanctuary, to Christ, the true and eternal King and Lord of all kings, that he should not allow that stain to enter the church. How constant, how faithful his prayer was is proved by this, that Arius, before he entered the church, paid new and very grievous penalties, even to a shameful death. For on the day before the impious man thought he would enter the holy church with the emperor's help, though he suffered no illness, no pain in his body, but, what is graver, was insatiably sick with a disease of the mind alone, he went, as human custom is, to the privy; and as he sat there, suddenly tormented by a very grievous pain, he poured out all his bowels, and the very heart that was the treasury of his impiety, into the excrement; and so, wonderful to say, with all his inward parts emptied out, he was reduced, and in a moment was so dissolved, as if by the decay of a livid body, that he slipped wholly through the narrow opening of the seat. This is a punishment worthy of the impious, this a shameful death worthy of a pestilential heretic, and this a burial worthy of the most fetid members of the devil's spirit. For he had to be tormented and to perish by a new example, who had devised new impieties against the only-begotten Son of God, saying that he was not truly born of the Father, and that there was a time when he was not, and that he was put in place out of nothing, so that he should not be believed to be of the same substance and divinity and eternity and omnipotence as the Father.

We have related this to your august gentleness so that your prudence, attentive to the truth, may observe how venerable is the faith written at Nicaea against Arius, to which God bore witness not only through the authority of the divine Scriptures but also through the most sacred prayer of holy Alexander; and how execrable is the impious doctrine of Arius, which the divine sentence condemned in Arius himself by a new kind of punishment, not waiting for the day of judgment in his case, so that the rest, terrified by the example of his punishment, might be on their guard. By this example there should be no doubt that those too are condemned before God who believed that the impious doctrine of Arius should be renewed or received. For how will perpetual punishment separate those whom impious doctrine does not separate? Under your laws too, one prison shuts in those equally guilty, and one sentence strikes them. And this too cannot be doubted, that those are truly Catholics who, through exiles, through kinds of punishment, through the atrocity of death, uphold without deceit that faith which was written at Nicaea on the gospel and apostolic principle, which God most plainly approved by the punishment of Arius who attacked it. But if these things are true with you which are confirmed as true by the divine Scriptures, consider, most pious and most religious emperors, in what they are guilty who, under these divine rules and professions, have consecrated their faith and devotion to Christ God, setting no fear before the fear of God. But although Arius was buried in excrement, he left some heirs of his impiety. In short, there were not lacking worms to be born from his putrid corpse. What the devil, the craftsman of error, did through them would take long to set out, even if we could set it out; for they are infinite and incredible, yet not false.

We now set out what bears on the present case: that those who made the emperor Constantius a partaker of the Arian impiety by fraudulent disputation would have paid the penalty at once, if it were not necessary, according to the Apostle's saying, that there be heresies too, so that those who are approved may be made manifest. These, then, whom we have called the worms of Arius, having the royal power assenting to them, first contend one by one, for the Arian impiety, for the overthrow of the Catholic faith and the destruction of sacred religion, so that those who resisted they either attacked with slanders or tormented and killed with punishments or exile. When they had raged so much the more through their madness and made themselves feared everywhere, no longer content to go after individuals, they finally compel the bishops from everywhere to come together into one, and a place is given for a synod: for the Easterners, Seleucia in Isauria; for the Westerners, the city of Ariminum. And there at first the bishops, coming for the holy faith, confirm the exposition written at Nicaea, so that nothing should be taken from it which set out the gospel faith in impregnable words and condemned the impious doctrine of Arius by divine authority. Then at last the written formula of faith offered by Ursacius, Valens, Germinius and Gaius, of a kind that both rejected the Catholic faith and absolved Arius, indeed brought in his pestilential doctrine, they curse, and they condemn so impious a faith of theirs. They also condemned the men themselves, judging it an inexpiable crime if they should violate the venerable faith of the fathers, if the church should tolerate men so impious and their impious formula. They also send ten envoys to the emperor Constantius, writing what had been done and at the same time urging that he too should keep inviolate the decrees of the fathers for the venerable faith against the heretics. The heretics too send envoys, whom Constantius then received most intimately, as his own. The true envoys, who had come for the Catholic faith against the heretics, he rejects; and through his people he now invites them with favor, now terrifies them with threats, and meanwhile torments them by delay alone, so that in the end, since they fear the king's anger, since they do not deign to suffer exile for Christ the Son of God, since they take delight in their own sees and the most pernicious possessions of the churches, they rescind what they had devoutly upheld and accept what they had condemned as impious.

Let it be permitted, before you religious emperors, in the cause of God, to groan more grievously at this: the bishops feared the anger of an earthly king more than Christ, the true God and eternal King. They believed temporal exile more grievous than the perpetual punishment, according to Isaiah, of the sleepless worm and the unquenchable fire. They held their own homes and possessions sweeter than a blessed and perpetual dwelling in the kingdom of Christ. But Constantius, not content with the ruin and fall of the ten envoys, sends to Ariminum so that all the bishops there might likewise be turned. They too, by that bad example of their envoys, reject the devout faith of the fathers which they had upheld, subscribing to that faith of the Arians which they had condemned with whole and free judgment. Your wisdom notes that the synod of Ariminum, most devoutly begun, was most impiously ended. The same impiety was committed by the bishops at Seleucia in Isauria too. Judge, most pious and most religious emperors, in what they are guilty and for what they deserve to be afflicted who will not join with such bishops: who, though at first they upheld the whole faith and rejected the impious faith, afterward, when they fear exile, when they take delight in their goods and sees, turn their opinions, condemning at the nod of a heretical emperor that apostolic faith which they had upheld, or accepting that impiety of Arius which they had rejected.

Ought they not to have held it welcome, if indeed they believed that God's judgment was coming, to suffer every evil rather than be traitors of the venerable faith, whose truth had been approved both by the prayers of holy Alexander and by the punishment of Arius? Especially since there had gone before also the example of a glorious passion, though of very few bishops, who, so as not to violate the gospel and apostolic faith, so as not to acquiesce to the impious, refused neither exile nor punishment nor any atrocity of death. In short, before the synod of Ariminum, Paulinus of Trier, a most constant bishop, was sent into exile, upholding the devout faith and cursing the fellowship of the Arians. And the apostolic man Lucifer of Sardinia, bishop of the city of Cagliari, because he was well known for contempt of the world, for zeal for the sacred writings, for purity of life, for constancy of faith, for divine grace, was sent by the Roman church as envoy to Constantius; and because he upheld the venerable faith, because he uncovered and refuted the heretics, he was led into exile with every atrocity of injuries. Likewise Eusebius of Vercelli, and also Dionysius of Milan, at first an intimate of King Constantius while he did not yet know that he was a patron of the heretics, after it became known and proved to him that he upheld the heretics, rejected the king's impious intimacy, preferring exile, so as not to lose the friendship of Christ God, so as not to be without the fellowship of the saints. And Rhodanius too was sent into exile, and also Hilary, who also published writings against the heretics and the prevaricators, although afterward indeed he broke off, favoring the prevaricators, not to say meanwhile that ... [he favored] even the heretics, against whom he had pleaded with the strength of his eloquence. Maximus too of Naples in Campania, because he had a weak stomach and was rather delicate in body, was at first long afflicted with injuries so that he might fall; then, when through constancy of mind and strength of faith he was not overcome by the weakness of the flesh, he was led into exile, and there, a martyr, he rested in the peace of the Lord. And Rufinianus too, of wonderful simplicity but more admirable in defending the faith, by the shedding of his blood forestalled exile. In short, when he persisted for the integrity of the faith, Epictetus, that savage and dreadful bishop of Centumcellae, compelled him to run before his carriage; and when he had run a long time, his vitals burst, and pouring out blood on the road, he died. The people of Naples in Campania know this, where the relics of his blood torment the demons in possessed bodies, surely by the grace of that faith for which he shed his blood. There were also other bishops of Egypt, though very few, of whom some were put to flight, and others sent into exile, because they would not join with the impious and cruel bishops.

How salutary it would have been, how fine and how glorious, if all those bishops, with equal virtue and like agreement, had kept to the end the faith they had always rightly upheld, fearing neither exiles nor punishments, so as to gain the perpetual blessedness to come in the kingdom of Christ God! And we pass over that perhaps they would also have made it understood that this faith is of great price, for which none of the bishops would refuse exile, proscriptions, torments and death. But, slightly terrified, so great a number of bishops gave their hands in throngs to impiety, and impiety inclined to still greater madness through so easy a slaughter of the multitude. This is no less a sacrilege, no less an impiety, than if sacrifice had been made to an idol under a pagan persecutor; since to subscribe to a heresy out of terror is also to sacrifice to demons. For, as the divine Scriptures teach, heresy, like idolatry, is the teaching of demons. Meanwhile, since with some the multitude is preferred to the truth, because it has few followers, and we are afflicted for this, that in few we follow the inviolable faith and avoid the many because of impious heresies and the sacrilegious subscriptions of the prevaricators: what do you judge in this case, O most just emperors and champions of the Catholic faith? To which of these two parties do you give your vote? One is the party in which there are many bishops. But where there are many, there the sacred faith of Christ, always defended before, has been violated by prevarication; there, through fear of the king, the impiety of Arius, always condemned before, has been accepted. But where there are very few, there the faith of Christ is upheld through exiles, through tortures, through the shedding of blood, through death itself, and the impiety of Arius and every heresy are execrated as the supreme evil. But though there is no doubt that the few bishops are precious by the merit of confession and inviolable faith, and the many are made of no account by the merit of heresy or prevarication, since in the cause of truth, above all in the cause of the religion of the sacred faith, number is not to be compared with number, but that pure apostolic faith, proved by exiles, proved by tortures, even of one, is to be preferred to the infidelities of many; still it is necessary to bring forward also a present divine proof of the condemnation of prevarication. And just as, in Arius, his impious sect, punished by the divine punishment, prejudges also concerning his followers that the same punishment awaits them by which Arius too is tormented, so concerning the prevaricators it has been determined by divine judgment through present punishments.

Potamius, bishop of the city of Olisipo, at first upheld the Catholic faith, but afterward, for the reward of an estate of the treasury which he had coveted, betrayed the faith. Ossius of Corduba both uncovered him and rejected him as an impious heretic among the churches of the Spains. But Ossius himself, summoned to King Constantius on Potamius's complaint, and terrified by threats, and fearing that, an old man and rich, he might suffer exile or proscription, gives his hands to impiety, and after so many years betrays the faith, and returns to the Spains with greater authority, having the king's terrible order that if any bishop refused to communicate with him, now that he had become a prevaricator, he should be sent into exile. But a faithful messenger brought the news of Ossius's impious prevarication to holy Gregory, the most constant bishop of the city of Elvira. So, mindful of the sacred faith and of the divine judgment, he did not consent to his wicked communion. But Ossius, who was tormented the more by this, if anyone, when he himself had fallen, stood upholding the whole faith with the firmness of an unfallen footstep, has Gregory, a man of most vigorous mind, brought before him by the public power, hoping that by the same terror by which he himself had yielded, Gregory too could yield. Clementinus was then vicar, who, by agreement with Ossius and by the general order of the king, ordered holy Gregory to be brought to Corduba by his officials.

Meanwhile rumor stirs everyone up to learn of the matter, and it is the frequent talk of the peoples: "Who is that Gregory who dares to resist Ossius?" For very many were still unaware of Ossius's prevarication, and did not yet know well who holy Gregory was. Among those who perhaps knew him he was still a new bishop, though with Christ not a new champion of the faith, by the merit of his holiness. But behold, they came to the vicar, and many of the officials were present, and Ossius sits as judge, indeed even above the judge, relying on the royal command; and holy Gregory, by the example of his Lord, stands by as a defendant, not from a bad conscience but by the condition of the present trial; for the rest, in faith he was free. Great was the expectation of each, to which side the victory would incline. And Ossius relies on the authority of his age, but Gregory relies on the authority of truth; the one on trust in an earthly king, the other on trust in the eternal King. And Ossius relies on the emperor's writing, but Gregory holds the writings of the divine voice. And when Ossius is refuted at every point, so that he was convicted by his own words, which he had written before for faith and truth, he was moved and said to the vicar Clementinus: "It is not the inquiry that has been entrusted to you, but the execution. You see how he resists the royal precepts; carry out, then, what has been commanded; send him into exile." But Clementinus, though he was not a Christian, yet showing reverence for the name of the episcopate, especially in a man whom he saw holding his ground reasonably and faithfully, answered Ossius: "I do not dare," he said, "to send a bishop into exile so long as he remains in the name of bishop. But you first give a sentence, deposing him from the honor of the episcopate, and then at last I will carry out against him, as against a private man, what you wish done by the emperor's precept." When holy Gregory saw that Ossius wished to give a sentence, so that he would seem deposed, he appeals to the true and powerful judge, Christ, crying out with all the strength of his faith: "Christ God, who will come to judge the living and the dead, do not allow a human sentence to be pronounced today against me, your least servant, who, standing as a defendant for the faith of your name, offer a spectacle. But you yourself, I pray, judge today in your own cause; you yourself will deign to pronounce sentence by vengeance. I do not wish this to happen as if fearing exile, since for your name no punishment is not sweet to me; but that many may be set free from the error of prevarication, when they see a present and immediate vengeance." And while he appeals to God with faithful words, with much more indignation and holiness, behold, suddenly Ossius, as he tries to set out his sentence, twists his mouth, distorting his neck too, is thrown from his seat to the ground, and there dies, or, as some will have it, was struck dumb. From there, at any rate, he is carried out as if dead. Then, while all marveled, even that pagan Clementinus was terrified; and though he was the judge, fearing that he too might be judged by a like punishment, he threw himself at the holy man's feet, begging him to spare him, who had sinned against him through ignorance of the divine law, and not so much by his own choice as by the command of the one who ordered it. There was then astonishment in all, and wonder at the divine power: in him was seen the whole spectacle that we know. For he who wished to pronounce a human sentence soon suffered a heavier, divine one; and the judge who had come to judge, now pale and guilty, feared to be judged; and he who had stood as a defendant to be sent into exile was begged by the prostrate judge, as if he were the judge, to spare him. That is why Gregory alone, of the number of those who upheld the whole faith, was neither put to flight nor suffered exile, since everyone feared to take further action against him.

Do you see the wonderful proofs of prevarication condemned by God? All Spain knows better that we are not inventing these things. And the prevarication of the sacred faith did not go unpunished in Potamius either. In short, as he was hurrying to the estate which he had deserved to obtain from the emperor for his impious subscription of faith, paying new penalties in his tongue, through which he had blasphemed, he dies on the road, receiving no fruit of the estate even by seeing it. This was no light torment for a greedy man. He dies who for desire of an estate of the treasury had violated the sacred faith; and as he hurries to the estate, he is forestalled by a penal death, so that he should not enjoy even the consolation of seeing it. In the holy gospel we read the words of the one reproaching the rich man who boasted most vainly of what he had stored up: "Fool," he says, "this night your soul will be taken from you; whose will be the things you have prepared?" If anyone considers that this writing fits Potamius too, he will understand that he was judged not lightly, especially since he suffered punishment of the tongue, in which that rich man too is tormented more fiercely in the lower world. And Florentius too, who knowingly communicated in a certain place with Ossius and Potamius, already prevaricators, himself paid new punishments. For when he sits on the throne in the assembly of the people, he is suddenly thrown down and convulses, and when carried outside he recovered his strength. And again, another time, when he had entered and sat down, he suffered likewise, still not understanding the penalties of his stained communion. Nevertheless, when afterward he persisted in entering, he was thrown from the throne a third time, so that he seemed to be driven off as unworthy of the throne; and thrown to the ground, he was so tormented with convulsions that his spirit was wrung from him with a certain hardness and great tortures. And from there he is now carried, not to be revived as before, but to be buried. The great city of Emerita knows what we relate, whose people saw this very thing with their own eyes in its church. And this too must be considered, that Florentius suffered these things who had not yet subscribed to impiety, but only communicated with prevaricators of the faith, not ignorant of their prevarication. We have related this so that those may see what they should do who, though they did not subscribe as prevaricators, have only joined themselves by communion to prevaricators known to them. And I think they will understand what they ought to fear from the example of Florentius.

But it would take long to relate the other proofs too of prevarication condemned by present punishments, which the divine judgment has carried out in various places; for this purpose, namely, that whoever for some reason does not regard the divine Scriptures may understand, at least by present vengeance through divine punishment, what he should follow and what avoid. God wished, without doubt, to take vengeance at least on a few, and for this reason, lest what he threatens through the divine Scripture about the future punishments of prevaricators should be thought a fable, if now in this world he took vengeance on no one. Let all the bishops who are prevaricators of the faith now understand for what most grievous punishments they are reserved, since vengeance has been taken on their associates even in this world, to the astonishment of all. For we have set out the present punishments of prevarication for this purpose, that what was avenged on a few may be believed to be avenged on all who are like them, especially since the divine Scripture too asserts this very thing which has also been shown by present proofs. And let this be considered, most pious emperors: in what are they guilty who do not join the divine sacraments with such men, whose perpetual punishments are read in the sacred books, and examples of whose punishments are seen in the world? But we ask your wonderful benevolence still to lend us, in contemplation of Christ God, untiring patience in hearing, while we set out, though briefly, how far impiety has grown.

For the execrable Arians in the regions of the East, and especially in Egypt, were not content with this alone, that the bishops, having condemned the whole faith, should decline to their impious opinion; but these very men who had first been ordained by Catholic bishops, when they had subscribed according to their wishes, they reduced to the number of lay people, and afterward the same heretics ordained them bishops again; so that they would be seen to condemn not only the Catholic faith but also ordination performed by Catholic bishops. Consider in this a kind of triumph of the heretics over the Catholics, and a wretched and as it were final and most foul captivity; in these bishops the devout faith was condemned, and the Catholic bishops too; they gave themselves up to their dominion and mockery for fear of exile, and so that they might seem to keep the episcopal name among men, which surely they no longer had with God after their impious subscriptions. But the authority of that name was sought even with every disgrace, so that the possessions of the church should not be taken from them, which would that the church had never possessed, so that, living in the apostolic manner, it might possess the whole faith inviolably! And now not to communicate with such men is called the supreme impiety; and this under you emperors, who, as your constitutions declare, judge the divine holiness of the venerable church: but it is no wonder if, occupied with the provisions of the state, you are unaware of such atrocious deeds of theirs. The bishops who suffered the penalties of exile for the faith, or who had taken to flight, cursing these impieties of theirs, though separated in body by the distances of regions, yet united in spirit, decree by mutual letters, with apostolic vigor, that in no way can communion be held with such bishops who betrayed the faith in the manner we related above, unless they ask for lay communion, grieving for their impieties.

But when Constantius, the patron of the heretics, died, Julian alone held the empire, by whose precept all the Catholic bishops were released from their exiles. The Godhead is accustomed to do this, to take thought for its own even through the adversaries of the Christian religion, so that those who are worshipers of Christ may labor all the more for the faithful. But not long after Julian was slain, Jovian becomes emperor, who, upholding the Catholic faith, gave his vote to the Catholic bishops. But those distinguished bishops, who had condemned by a heretical subscription the whole faith they had upheld under Constantius, seeing that by the emperor's will bishops now become heretics from Catholics, return also, these same bishops, from heretics to the Catholic faith. But even if some confessors, worn out, believed at last that they should be joined to the communion of such men, overturning perhaps those statutes which they had earlier decreed against them by prophetic and apostolic authority, can this overwhelm the divine truth? Can this prejudge the gospel teachings? Can it shake the apostolic judgments, and especially that voice of God which says, "He who endures to the end will be saved"? And of the apostle Paul too, whom Christ the Lord pronounced a vessel of election, whose words, writing to the Galatians, are these: "But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel other than we preached to you, let him be anathema." Hence the same apostle continues further on in the same letter, saying: "For if I build again what I destroyed, I make myself a prevaricator." Surely he was made a confessor by the gospels, by the voices of the prophets, by the teachings of the apostles; and the faithful do not doubt that he then has no merit of confession if, overturning the laws of the divine Scriptures, he begins to build what the gospels destroy.

Are not the divine Scriptures attacked when the peace of the church is joined with bishops who deny the Son of God? For who is there who, considering the force of divine religion, would trust that the peace of the faithless pleases God, unless, as was decreed by the fathers, they hand themselves over to the number of lay people, grieving for their faithlessness? But suppose they have peace with the unfaithful: in what, nevertheless, do they offend, in what do they injure the emperors, in what do they trouble the state, who, in contemplation of the divine judgment, reject a peace of this kind, which receives the sacrilegious, honors the prevaricators of the faith, favors hypocrites, despises truth, sets up the deniers of Christ, the true Son of God, as lords of the church, contaminates the people with the stain of faithlessness, and overturns the gospel? For this we are guilty; for this, under the authority of your name, we suffer persecutions from these bishops who, upholding heresy at the nod of the former emperor, sinned against the Catholic faith. Alas, the groaning! These same bishops put forward the laws of Catholic emperors against the faithful and the defenders of the Catholic faith. We say this weeping, with grief in all our inward parts: not because it is not glorious for the faithful to suffer under any child, but because there is such stupor in the world that this impiety of theirs, wrapped in such great faithlessness, is not recognized, so that no one understands how they always deceive even the royal ears in harassing Christians and faithful priests. But impiety is covered under the word peace, and the specious name of truth is set up as a patronage for the faithless. But it is well that the Savior himself set out the power of his peace, so that no one should be taken in by the simple word peace and join it to whatever impieties of the world, saying: "My peace I leave you, my peace I give you; not as this world gives do I give you." He distinguished his peace from the peace of the world. For if this peace is pleasing to God which receives unfaithful bishops into the church, what need is there, then, in persecutions to suffer heat, to endure prison, to go to meet swords, and to bear all kinds of punishments and death, since after denial, after the sacrileges of faithlessness, on account of this peace which they trust pleases God, each of the unfaithful is safely received as if unblemished, with his episcopal honor intact? According to this assertion, the martyrs too must now be judged vain. For to what fruit did they prefer to bear punishments and death? For if those who denied the Son of God through fear of persecution have no punishment, but are rather honored, the martyrs ought not to have hoped for the crown of passion either, but should rather pay the punishments of their rashness. For this must follow; for it cannot be that contrary things are not judged there. Is it not plain to what saying they are pressed by the word of this peace, or what they are forced to pronounce: that, if the deniers of the Son of God are rightly confirmed in honor, the martyrs must be believed to be punished as for their rashness? But far be it, far be it that Christian conscience should admit this. For we believe the Son of God when he pronounces: "Whoever denies me before men, I too will deny him before my Father; and whoever confesses me before men, I will confess him before my Father."

Nevertheless, recognize in this case too the divine judgment proved by present proofs, lest anyone think that the peace of such bishops is to be accepted, even if they returned to the confession of the true faith after impious subscriptions or wicked communions with heretics, to which they knowingly yielded so as not to lose either the possessions of the church or their honors. The holy man Maximus, a bishop, whom we mentioned above, upholding the right faith and rejecting the fellowship of the heretics, was led into exile. In his place the prevaricators ordain one named Zosimus, who himself too at first upheld the Catholic faith. This happened in the city of Naples in Campania. Holy Maximus learns of this and, writing from exile, gives sentence against him, not only by episcopal authority but also enjoying the emulation and virtue of martyrdom, to the divine glory. But after some years blessed Lucifer, going from his fourth exile to Rome, entered Naples in Campania. Zosimus tried to come to him, perhaps with that confidence by which, namely, he seemed already to have corrected himself from impiety. But Lucifer the confessor would not receive him, not ignorant of what he had done; rather, with the fervor of the Holy Spirit, he carried out more firmly the sentence of the bishop and martyr, saying that the episcopate itself, which he claims for himself like an adulterer, he will not have by the special judgment of God, and so too he will feel the punishment of his impiety. And not long afterward this same Zosimus, when in the assembly of the people he wished to perform the offices of a priest, among the very priestly words his tongue was stretched out, and he could not draw it back within the passage of his mouth, because, contrary to the measure of nature, it hung outside his mouth like that of a panting ox. But when he saw that he had lost the use of his tongue, he went out of the basilica; and, a wonderful thing, outside his tongue was again recalled to its function. And at first it was not understood that the sentence of the martyr and confessor was being fulfilled in him; but when he suffered this same thing as many times again as he tried, on different days, to enter the basilica, he himself at last recognized that his tongue was denied him among the solemn words of the pontificate for this reason, so that he might prove the sentence of the holy bishops rightly pronounced against him. In short, he gave up the episcopate, so that the tongue that had given up might be restored. We are not relating ancient things, which for some reason usually come into doubt. For Zosimus is still in the body today, no longer losing the use of his tongue, since he preferred to live with the loss of his episcopate, grieving for his impieties.

Has it not also been judged beforehand about similar men that it profits them nothing that they continue, as it were, under the correction of a bishop? For this is not correction but mockery, to change the faith according to the times of the emperors. This, this thing deceived the emperor Valens too, when he saw in the heretics constancy of defense, but in these distinguished Catholics inconstancy of faith. For it was certainly proved to him that those who asserted themselves Catholics had previously subscribed with the heretics, condemning the faith they had first defended; and the heretics said: "If our faith is bad, why was it subscribed for under Constantius by those who now call themselves Catholics, upholding this faith which, when they first defended it, they condemned under Constantius, convinced by reasons?" Moved by these things, Valens, not knowing the power of the true faith, and comparing constancy with inconstancy, upheld the impiety of the heretics with a certain justice. And we pass over that even under Valens some again gave themselves up to the heretics, whom nevertheless we now see named among the Catholics. That is why the peoples of the heretics too were strengthened in their impious faith, while the heretics persevere in evil, and those who are thought Catholics withdraw from the good, sometimes yielding to the heretics. For with what authority do such bishops preach against a heresy to which they cannot deny that they subscribed? And with what confidence do they strive to persuade the people of the Catholic faith, when it is plain that they rejected it by impious subscriptions?

Do you see that even in your times (but, as we believe, without your knowledge), the devout faith is indeed upheld (and would that it were truly so; but even if truly), yet with a certain injustice, since it is upheld by unworthy bishops, to the affliction of the priests who defend the devout faith and to the ruin of faithful lay people? But it is thought wrong to depose so many prevaricators, to reject a crowd consenting to injustice. And where is the justice of true religion, if it is to be handed over to an impious multitude, and this under most pious and most religious emperors? It was not judged so in the flood, that the crowd of the unfaithful should win. But that most just Noah pleased God the more because in that destruction of the world he alone was found just. Likewise in Sodom and Gomorrah the impious multitude paid heavy penalties, from which the hospitable Lot alone was set free for his justice, with only two daughters. Nor was Elijah, the zealot for God, who was alone, overcome when four hundred and fifty false priests were sent against him. But that whole impious crowd of priests paid the penalty under the hand of one faithful man, and this with King Ahab looking on, who impiously upheld the false priests. Nor did Jehu, king of Israel, defer to the impious multitude of priests. In short, when he had called together, by a religious trick, into the house of the impious religion all the false priests who had been at the height of power under King Ahab, as if to reward them after the rites of the religion, he ordered them to be killed, so that none of them survived. And we read that for this deed he so pleased the Lord that the sons of that same king sat on the throne of Israel to the fourth generation.

There are many other very similar examples too. We do not say these things as though we wished anyone's blood to be shed. Far be this from our prayers; for whoever wishes this to happen strays from the Christian laws. It was indeed done then, because at that time it was permitted by divine law to do this very thing, when everything was still done bodily, until spiritual instruction should grow. But it does not follow, because it is now not permitted to the good and faithful to desire the blood of false priests, that the faithful are therefore to be handed over to false priests, so as to be afflicted with their most grievous persecutions. Let what we say seem false if the churches of faithful priests have not in various places been invaded in some and destroyed in others; if, at their petitions, all the holy ones have not been arrested and long shut up for injuries and finally sent into exile; if also some others have not given up their souls, some in prison, others dragged off and punished with blows, for no other cause than that, for fear of the divine judgment, they would not communicate with the faithless or the associates of the faithless.

In Spain the presbyter Vincentius, a leader of the true faith, what atrocities of the prevaricators did he not suffer, because he would not be an associate of their impious prevarication, because he communicated with blessed Gregory? With that Gregory, I say, whose faith and virtue we related above as best we could. Against him they first petitioned the consular governor of the province of Baetica; then at last, under the appearance of a requested intervention, a plebeian multitude is gathered from other places, and they burst into the church on the Lord's day. They did not find Vincentius, because, warned beforehand, he had also told the people not to go out on that day, when they were coming with slaughter. For he thought it better done if he gave place to anger. But those who had come ready for slaughter, lest their fury should seem to have come without cause, so beat with clubs certain ministers devoted to Christ God who were found there that not long afterward they died. But since the holy people of the presbyter Vincentius entreated them the more after those slaughters of theirs that were done in the Lord's house, the bishops went out and, so that the whole people might be terrified, begin with the leading men themselves. In short, they demand that the decurions of that city be brought forth, so as to be shut in prison; of whom one, a leading man of his native town, because he held firmly to the faith in God as a faithful man, cursing the stain of prevarication, was himself, among them, killed in chains by hunger and cold, with the groaning and weeping of that province, which knew his honorable life very well. The distinguished Catholic bishops Luciosus and Hyginus were the authors of this cruelty; and meanwhile they invaded the basilica indeed, but they could not invade the faith of the people. In short, the same people built themselves a basilica elsewhere, on a small farm, where they gathered with holy Vincentius. But Satan, who nowhere allows Christ to be devoutly worshiped, inflames them, and again, a petition being lodged, a crowd of decurions and plebeians is gathered from various cities. At the same time his presbyters too come to the place. They break the doors of that church, plundering from it whatever belonged to the sacred ministries. And finally, what is horrible to say, to crown the sacrilege committed, they placed the very altar of God, taken from the Lord's house, in a temple under the feet of an idol.

These things, surely, are done by those who, through penance for their impious subscription, have been received to Catholic discipline for the good of peace and unity. What more grievous thing would a pagan worshiper of idols do, if he had license to persecute the church? But at Trier the presbyter Bonosus was shut up and long paid penalties, an old man, for his observance of that undefiled faith for which also the renowned Paulinus, bishop of the same city, gave up his soul as a martyr in exile. In the city of Rome itself, too, how grievous were the persecutions brought on the faithful, where blessed Aurelius, a bishop who communicated with the most blessed Gregory, was afflicted! But this holy man, though he was often afflicted, yet rested by his own summons. But many things were committed by the impious against the presbyter Macarius. He was a presbyter in the same city of Rome of wonderful continence, not relieving his stomach with wine, not caring for his body with the eating of meat, but softening his rougher food with oil alone, given to fasts and prayers. Indeed, for the merit of his faith and abstinence, he had the grace of the Holy Spirit in this, that he cast out demons from possessed bodies. We have recalled his life and merit so that those may be judged the more impious who do not allow such men to live in the Roman empire. At the same time a grievous persecution had arisen against our people, with Damasus, the distinguished archbishop, attacking, so that faithful priests were not freely permitted on the sacred days to call together assemblies of the people to serve Christ God. But since, according to the condition of things, the sacraments of our salvation must be performed at any time, even secretly, this same holy presbyter Macarius arranges to call the brotherhood together in a certain house for vigils, so that at least by night the holy people might strengthen their faith with the divine readings. But the devil, who favors the impious, since the impious too favor the devil, does not allow the divine sacraments to be celebrated even in secret. In short, the clergy of Damasus lay an ambush, and when they learned that the presbyter Macarius was celebrating the holy vigils with the people, they burst into that house with officials and scatter the people, who did not resist; and the presbyter himself, arrested, they no longer deign to lead but drag over the stones, so that a dangerous wound was made in his hip; and the next day they set him before the judge as guilty of a great crime. The judge indeed tries, as if under an imperial rescript, and with threats, to force him to come to terms with Damasus. But the presbyter, mindful of the divine judgment, not fearing the present judge, rejected the communion of faithlessness; and so he is sent into exile; and while he was at Ostia, he died from the atrocity of that wound. His holiness was so great that even the bishop of that place, named Florentius, who communicated with Damasus, looked up to him with a certain veneration. For when the brothers had buried him in an old tomb, the same Florentius would not allow him to lie there, where it seemed an unworthy burial; but transferring him from there, he buried him in the basilica of the martyr Asterius, in the place of the presbyters who have [their burial] next to it; by this devout service of his, as far as he could, he strove to make the crime of Damasus foreign to himself.

Let your tranquility consider whether you wish this to be done in the Roman empire against the holy and faithful by those who are prevaricators: is there not fear that the blood of the faithful may weigh down the Roman empire? For the same Damasus, having received royal authority, also pursued other Catholic presbyters, and lay people too, and sent them into exile, pleading this very thing through pagan advocates, with the judges favoring him; though your constitutions were decreed against heretics, not against Catholics, and such Catholics as did not abandon the whole faith even under heretical emperors, and indeed suffered many grievous things. And recently he tried to persecute severely the most blessed bishop Ephesius, fervent with zeal for the holy faith, ordained for the undefiled Roman people by the most constant bishop Taorgius, himself a recruit of unblemished faith, petitioning the judge Bassus through his advocates under the odium of a false nickname imposed on him, as if against Luciferians. But Bassus, long revering the Catholic faith, knew that in Lucifer there had been no depravity of heresy, since he knew well too that he had suffered exile for ten years for the Catholic faith; and for the integrity of his constancy he rejected the accusations of Damasus, refusing to pursue Catholic men and men of the whole faith, saying especially that the very constitutions of the emperors were plainly promulgated against heretics only, not against those who keep the most holy faith without worldly ambition.

And then for the first time Damasus blushed, because a judge was found who alone, interpreting the imperial writings most devoutly, protected them. For this very thing too is necessary, that we dispel the odium of the false nickname by which they cry out that we are Luciferians. Who does not know that a nickname is given to the followers of the man from whom some new doctrine has been passed on to the disciples by the authority of his teaching? But Christ is our master: we follow his doctrine, and therefore we are reckoned by the sacred name of his name, so that we ought rightly to be called nothing else than Christians, who follow nothing else than what Christ taught through the apostles. Heresies, however, have been marked by the names of men because they have handed on the inventions of men. For he loses in himself the name of Christian who does not follow the discipline of Christ. Let them say now what new thing Lucifer taught that was not handed down from the teaching of Christ, that was not passed on to posterity by the apostles, the disciples of the Savior. And it is well that he wrote books to Constantius, not, as most do, seeking glory for his talent, but gathering divine testimonies most aptly against the heretics and against the patron of the heretics himself, inflamed to divine zeal for the love of the Son of God. Let them point out what in them is contrary to the Scriptures, what new thing he wrote as a heretic. These books, since he dealt with everything in its integrity, Athanasius too admired, as being a true champion, and translated into the Greek style, so that the Greek language should not lack so great a good. That is not all; the same Athanasius in his own letters proclaims these same books as woven of the teachings of the prophets, evangelists and apostles and of devout confession. And though he is raised up with very many praises of him, yet he does not equal the proclamation of his merit, though indeed he could not praise him more: so is every praising tongue overcome by the surpassing greatness of the matter.

But Lucifer, though ignorant of artful eloquence, yet, so as to write in the prophetic, evangelic and apostolic manner, which is above all human eloquence, had the grace of the Holy Spirit by the merit of right faith and a most sincere conscience, through whom he also worked divine miracles, not only in Sardinia but also in his four exiles themselves; so much so that his adversaries called him great, since they could not deny that apostolic miracles were done through him. Holy Gregory too came to him and admired in him so great a learning in the divine Scriptures, and his very life, truly as if established in heaven. How great a man Lucifer was, when even Gregory admires him, who is admirable to all, not only from that clash with Ossius but also from the divine miracles which, having in himself the grace of the Holy Spirit, he performs! In what, then, are they impious in this too? Though Lucifer both believed and taught and lived according to the divine Scriptures, and worked miracles in the name of Christ, they impose Lucifer's name to crush the champions of the true faith, not knowing, wretched men, that they commit the supreme sacrilege when they mark the doctrine of Christ with a man's name; just as they are impious in this too, when they defend sacrilegious institutions issued at men's will under the authority of the Christian name. Is it not the supreme impiety to uphold one's iniquities and sacrileges under the name of Christ? Is it not impiety to mark with human names a devout doctrine consecrated under the name of Christ? But this fraud, this atrocity, is carried on against the faithful in Spain, and at Trier, and at Rome, and in various regions of Italy.

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.