CLXV. Letter of the Same to the Same.
To the very pious bishops now in Ephesus: Johannes, Himerius, Paulus, Apringius, Theodoretus, greeting. For the fifth time an audience has been granted us. We entered largely into the question of the heretical Chapters, and swore again and again to the very pious emperor that it was, impossible for us to hold communion with our opponents unless they rejected the Chapters. We pointed out moreover that even if Cyril did abjure his Chapters he could not be received by us, because he had become the heresiarch of so impious a heresy. Nevertheless we gained no ground, because our adversaries were urgent, and their hearers could neither restrain them in their insolent endeavour, nor compel them to come to enquiry and argument. They thus evade the investigation of the Chapters, and allow no discussion concerning them. We, however, as you entreat, are ready to insist to the death. We refuse to receive Cyril and his Chapters; we will not admit these men to Communion till the improper additions to the Faith be rejected. We therefore implore your holiness to continue to show at once our mind and our efforts. The battle is for true religion; for the only hope we have,-on account of which we look forward to enjoying, in the world to come, the loving-kindness of our Saviour. As to the very pious and holy bishop Nestorius, be it known to your piety that we have tried to introduce a word about him, but have hitherto failed, because all are ill-affected toward him. We will notwithstanding do our best, though this is so, to take advantage of any opportunity that may offer, and of the goodwill of the audience, to carry out this purpose, God helping us. But that your holiness may not be ignorant of this too, know that we, seeing that the partisans of Cyril have deceived everyone by domineering, cheating, flattering, and bribing, have more than once besought the very pious emperor and most noble princes both to send us back to the East, and let your holiness go home. For we are beginning to learn that we are wasting time in vain, without nearing our end, because Cyril everywhere shirks discussion, in his conviction that the blasphemies published in his Twelve Chapters can be openly refuted. The very pious emperor has determined, after many exhortations, that we all go every one to his own home, and that, further, both the Egyptian and Memnon of Ephesus are to remain in their own places. So the Egyptian will be able to go on blindfolding by bribery. The one, after crimes too many to tell, is to return to his diocese. The other, an innocent man, is barely permitted to go home. We and all here salute you and all the brotherhood with you.
CLXVI. First Petition of the Commissioners, Addressed from Chalcedon, to the Emperor.
It had been much to be desired that the word of true religion should not be adulterated by ridiculous explanations, and least of all by men who have obtained the priesthood and high office in the churches, and who have been induced, we know not how, by ambition, by lust of authority, and by certain poor promises, to despise all the commandments of Christ. Their only motive has been the desire to pay court to a man who has the presumption to hope that he and his abettors will be able to manage the whole business with success; I mean Cyril of Alexandria. Of his own frivolity he has intruded into the holy churches of God heretical doctrines which he believes himself able to support by argument. He expects to escape the chastisement of sinners by the sole help of Memnon and the bishops of the aforesaid conspiracy.
We are lovers of silence; in general we advise a philosophic course of action. Now, however, sensible that to be silent and to cultivate philosophy would be to throw away the Faith, we turn in supplication to you who, next to the Goodness on high, are the sole preserver of the world. We know that it specially belongs to you to be anxious for true religion, as having, up to this present day, continually protected it, and being in turn protected by it.
We beg you therefore to receive this treatise, as though our defence were to be pleaded in the presence of the most holy God; not because we are less active in the sacred cause, but because we are devoted to true religion, and are speaking in its behalf. For in Christian times the clergy have no more bounden duty than to bear testimony before so faithful a prince, however ready we might have been to yield our bodies and to lay down our lives a thousand times in the battle for the faith. We therefore beseech you by God who seeth all things, by our Lord Jesus Christ who will judge all men in righteousness, by the Holy Ghost by whose grace you hold your empire, and by the elect angels who are your guardians and whom one day you shall see standing by the awful throne, and ceaselessly offering unto God that dread doxology which it is now sought to corrupt; we beseech your piety, besieged as you now are by the craftiness of certain men who are forbidding access to you, and are supporting the introduction into the faith of heretical Chapters, utterly at variance with sound doctrine, and tainted with heresy, to order all who subscribe them, or assent to them, and wish, after your promised pardon, to dispute further, to come forth and submit to the discipline of the Church. Nothing, sir, is more worthy of an emperor than to fight for the truth, for which you hurried to join battle with Persians and other barbarians, when Christ granted you to win fair victories in acknowledgment of your zeal towards Him. We beseech you that the questions at issue may be put before your piety in writing, for thus their purport will be more easily perceived, and the transgressors will be convicted for all future time. If however anyone, heedless of the utterances for which he shall be at fault, shall wish by his teaching to prevail over the right faith, it will be the part of your justice and judgment to consider whether the very name of teachers has not been thrown away by men who are reluctant to run any risks concerning the doctrines which they introduce, refusing to be obedient to your orders, that they may escape conviction for having done wrong; nor reckoning them worth refutation, that their mutual conspiracy be not proved fruitless. For now it is clear, from those that have been ordained by them that some of them, in return for this impiety, have bethought them of obliging certain persons by the concession of dignities and have devised certain other means. This will become still more clear; and your piety will soon see that they will distribute the rewards of their treachery, as though they were the spoils of the faith of Christ.
But we, of whom some were long ago ordained by the very pious Juvenal, bishop of Jerusalem, have kept silence, although it was our duty to contend for the canon, that we might not seem to be troubled for our own reputation's sake. We are now perfectly well aware of his active trickery through Phoenicia Secunda and Arabia. We really have not time to attend to such things. We are men who have preferred rather to be deprived of the very places of which the ministry has been entrusted to us, and so of our life, than of our ready zeal for the faith. To the attempts of those men we will oppose the sentence of God and of your piety.
Now also we beg that true religion may be your one and primary care, and that the brightness of orthodoxy, which at length with difficulty blazed forth in the days of Constantine of holy name, was maintained by your blessed grandfather and father, and was extended by your majesty among the Persians and other barbarians, be not allowed to grow dim in the very innermost courts of your imperial palace, or, in your serenity's days, to be dispersed.
You will not send, sir, a divided Christianity into Persia; nor here at home will there be anything great, while we are distressed by disputes, and while there is no one existing on their side to settle them; no one will take part in a divided Word and Sacraments; no one without loss of faith will cut himself off from such famous fathers and saints who have never been condemned. No imperial successes will be permitted to a people at variance among themselves; a burst of derision will be roused from the enemies of true religion; and all the other noxious consequences of their malignant controversy are too numerous to reckon.
If there is anyone who thinks little of the science of theology, let that one be any one in the world rather than he to whom the Lord has given the supreme government of the world. Our petition is that your piety will give judgment, for God will guide your intelligence into exact comprehension. Finally, should this be impracticable (and all the engagements of your piety we cannot know) we beseech your serenity to give us leave to travel safely home. We are aware that to the dioceses entrusted to us cause of offence is given by so protracted a delay, on account of those men who even in sacred matters look out for opportunities of dissension whence no advantage can be derived.
CLXVII. Second Petition of the Same, Sent from Chalcedon to Theodosius Augustus.
Your piety has been informed on several occasions, both by ourselves in person and by our emissaries, that the doctrine of the true faith seems to stand in danger of being corrupted, and that the body of the Church is apparently being rent asunder by men who are turning everything upside down, trampling upon all church order, and all imperial law, and throwing everything into confusion that they may confirm the heresy propounded by Cyril of Alexandria. For when we were first summoned by your piety to Ephesus, to enquire into the question which had arisen and to confirm the evangelic and apostolic faith laid down by the holy Fathers, before the arrival of all the bishops who had been convened, the holders of their own private Council confirmed in writing the heretical Chapters, which are at one with the impiety of Arius, Eunomius and Apollinarius. Some they deceived; some they terrified; others already charged with heresy, they received into communion; and others who had not communicated with them were bribed into so doing; others again were fired with the hope of dignities for which they were unfit; so these men gathered round them a great crowd of adherents, as though they had no idea that true religion is shewn not by numbers, but by truth.
The dispatch of your piety was read a second time by the most honourable Count Candidianus, ordering that the questions recently raised be examined in a quiet and brotherly manner. When however all the pious bishops were assembling, the reading had no effect.
Then came the noble Palladius Magistrianus, bringing another dispatch from your majesty, to the effect that all enactments passed privately and apart must be rescinded that the Council must be assembled afresh and the true doctrine ratified; but, as usual this your pious mandate was treated with contempt by these unscrupulous persons.
Then again arrived the right honourable Master John, at that time "Comes Largitionum," bringing another pious letter to the effect that the depositions of the three had been decreed, that the offences which had sprung up were to be removed, and the faith laid down at Nicaea by the holy and blessed Fathers was to be ratified by all. As usual these universal mockers transgressed this law too.
For after hearing the letter they did not change their mode of action; they held communion with the deposed; spoke of them as bishops, and refused to allow the Chapters, which had been propounded to the loss and corruption of the pious faith to be rejected; notwithstanding their having been frequently summoned by us to discussion. For we had ready to hand a plain refutation of the heretical Chapters.
In evidence of these statements we have the right honourable Master, who when both sides had been summoned a third and a fourth time, not venturing to make this conduct an excuse on account of their disobedience, thought it worth while to summon us hither.
We came at once; on our arrival we allowed ourselves no rest making our petition, both before your piety and before the illustrious assembly, that they would take up the quarrel for the Chapters and enter into discussion concerning them, or on the other hand reject them as contrary to the right faith, abiding by the faith as laid clown by the blessed fathers in council at Nicaea.
They refused to do anything of the kind; they persisted in their heretical procedure; yet they were allowed to attend the churches, and to perform their priestly functions. We, however, alike at Ephesus and here, have been for a long time deprived of communion; alike there and here we have undergone innumerable perils; and while we were being stoned and all but slain by slaves dressed up as monks, we took it all for the best, as willingly enduring such treatment in the cause of the truth.
Afterwards it seemed good to your majesty that we and the opposite party should assemble once again, that the recalcitrant might be compelled to examine the doctrines. While we were waiting for this to come to pass your piety set out for the city, and ordered the very men who were being accused of heresy and had been therefore some of them deposed by us, and others excommunicated and thereafter to be subjected to the discipline of the Church, to come to the city and perform priestly functions, and ordain. We however who in the cause of true religion have undertaken a struggle so tremendous; we who have shrunk from no peril in our battle for right doctrine, have neither been bidden to enter the city to serve the cause of the imperilled Faith and strive for orthodoxy; nor have we been permitted to return home; but here we are in Chalcedon distressed and groaning for the Church oppressed by schism.
Wherefore since we are in receipt of no reply we have thought it necessary to inform your piety by this present letter, before God and Christ and the Holy Ghost, that if any one shall have been ordained (before the settlement of right doctrines) by these men of heretical opinions, he must necessarily be cut off from the whole church, as well from the clergy as the dissentient laity. For none of the pious will endure that communion be granted to heretics, and their own salvation be nullified.
And when this shall have come to pass, then your piety shall be compelled to act against your will. For the schism will grow beyond all expectation, and thereby the champions of true religion will be saddened, unable to endure the loss of their own souls, and the establishment of those impious doctrines of Cyril which the contentious are desirous of defending.
Many indeed of the supporters of true religion will never allow the acceptance of Cyril's doctrines; we shall never allow it, who all are of the diocese of the East of your province, of the diocese of Pontus, of Asia, of Thrace, of Illyricum and of the Italies, and who also sent to your piety the treatise of the most blessed Ambrose, written against this nascent superstition.
To avoid all this, and the further troubling of your piety, we beg, beseech, and implore you to issue an edict that no ordination take place before the settlement of the orthodox faith, on account of which we have been convened by your Christ-loving highness.
CLXVIII. Third Demand of the Same, Addressed from Chalcedon to the Sovereigns.