Appendix II. Epistolae

APPENDIX THE SECOND, TO SAINT MARCELLUS THE POPE. FIRST LETTER, OF POPE MARCELLUS TO THE BISHOPS OF THE PROVINCE OF ANTIOCH. Concerning the primacy and authority of the Roman Church, etc. To the most beloved brothers, all the bishops established throughout the province of Antioch, Marcellus. Carrying the concern for all churches according to the apostle (II Cor. xi), we ought to be mindful of the divine grace toward us, who, through the mercy of His condescension, raised us to the summit of the priesthood for this reason (Acacius, ep. CP. to Pope Simplicius), so that, adhering to His commands, placed as we are on a certain watchtower of His priesthood, we may forbid what is harmful and teach what is to be followed (Pope Hilary, ep. to Ascanius). Hence, by letters sent through our deacon Boniface, we admonish that what sprouts forth evilly be cut off, and evil deeds be corrected, and that good things be pursued, and the examples and statutes of our fathers be imitated. Therefore, we ask you, brothers, that you neither teach nor think anything other than what you have received from the blessed apostle Peter and from the other apostles and fathers. For you were first instructed by him; therefore, you ought not to abandon your own father and follow others. For he himself is the head of the whole Church, to whom the Lord said: "You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church" (Matt. XVI): and the rest.

For its see was first among you, which afterwards, by the Lord's command, was transferred to Rome, where, with the help of divine grace, we preside today. Nor ought you to deviate from its arrangement, to which all greater ecclesiastical matters (by divine grace disposing) are commanded to be referred, so that they may be regularly settled by that see from which they took their beginning. If your Antiochene see, which was once first, yielded to the Roman see, there is none that is not subject to its authority, to which, as to a head (Innocent, epistle 4), according to the sanctions of the apostles and their successors, all bishops who wish or who have need must flee and appeal, so that they may receive protection and deliverance from the same source from which they received instruction and consecration. This it is by no means fitting to deny to any bishops, but they are to be allowed to go freely, without any custody, or excommunication, or condemnation, or despoliation. And at the same time (the Lord inspiring) they established that no synod should be held without the authority of that same see, nor should any bishop, unless in a legitimate synod convoked in due time by apostolic authority, be heard or judged when accused of any crimes whatsoever: because (as was briefly mentioned above) the judgments of bishops and the affairs of major causes, or all doubtful matters (Socrates, book II, chapter 8), ought to be conducted and concluded by the authority of the apostolic see.

And all matters of the provinces are to be reconsidered by the judgment of this holy universal and apostolic Church, if the pontiff of this Church so orders. Nor is it permitted to anyone, without prejudice to the Roman Church (to which reverence must be preserved in all causes), to abandon those priests who, by divine will, govern the churches in that same province and to flock to other provinces, or to seek or undergo the judgment of bishops of other provinces; but, with all the bishops of the same province assembled, the judgment is to be concluded by the authority of this see: which, however (as was said above), is to be handled through its vicars, if it so pleases; and whatever has been unjustly done is to be reformed. Therefore, the pastoral care of our office admonishes us both to succor the destitute and to reform everything neglected or wrongly done (S. Leo, ep. 97), so that that fire which the Lord, coming, sent into the earth, stirred by frequent movement of correction or frequent meditation, may grow so hot as to burn, and may be so inflamed as to shine.

For indeed we must often speak and act, because the evils that spring up must be cut back by fraternal charity, so that good things may find the broadest place to grow and increase. Therefore, do not (as the apostle James says, chapter 3) become many masters, my brothers, knowing that you take upon yourselves a greater judgment. For we all offend in many things. If someone does not offend in word, that man is perfect; he can even lead the whole body with a bridle. But if we put bridles into the mouths of horses to make them consent to us, we also lead their whole body around. Behold also ships: when they are large and threatened by strong winds, they are turned about by a small rudder, wherever the impulse of the helmsman directs. So too the tongue: it is a small member, yet it exalts greatly. Behold how great a fire burns so great a forest. And the tongue is fire; the whole of iniquity is constituted by the tongue among our members, which stains the whole body and inflames the wheel of our birth, inflamed by Gehenna. For all natures of beasts and birds and serpents, and of the rest, are tamed and have been tamed by human nature. But no man can tame the tongue. A restless evil, full of deadly poison. In it we bless God the Father, and in it we curse men, who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. This ought not to be so, my brothers. Does a spring ever emit sweet and bitter water from the same opening?

Can a fig tree, my brothers, produce olives, or a vine produce figs? So also, brackish water cannot produce sweet water. Who among you is wise and disciplined? Let him show by his good conduct his works (his operation) in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter zeal, and there are contentions in your hearts, do not boast and be liars against the truth. For that wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, animal, and diabolical. For where there is zeal and contention, there is inconstancy and every perverse work. But wisdom which is from above is first of all chaste, then peaceful, modest, persuasive, consenting to good things, full of mercy and good fruits, judging without dissimulation. But the fruits of justice are sown in peace for those who make peace. Therefore, girding the loins of your mind, sober, perfect, hope in that grace which is offered to you in the revelation of Jesus Christ, as sons of obedience, not conformed to the former desires of your ignorance, but according to him who called you, the holy one, so that you yourselves may be holy in all your conduct, since it is written (Lev. xix; 1 Pet. 1): "You will be holy, for I am holy.

And if you invoke him as father, who judges without regard to persons, according to each one’s work, during the time of your sojourn conduct yourselves in fear, knowing that you have not been redeemed from your vain way of life of paternal tradition by corruptible gold or silver, but by the precious blood of the Lamb, as it were uncontaminated and immaculate, of Jesus Christ, foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world, but manifested in the last times, for your sake, who through him are faithful in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that our faith and hope might be in God: purifying your souls in obedience of charity, in love of brotherhood, love one another more intently with a simple heart, reborn not from corruptible seed, but from incorruptible through the word of the living and everlasting God: because all flesh is like hay, and all its glory like the flower of hay. The hay has withered, and its flower has fallen, but the word of the Lord abides forever. This, however, is the word that has been proclaimed among you.

Laying aside all malice and all deceit, and pretenses, and envies, and all detractions, like newborn infants, desire the reasonable milk without guile, that you may grow in it unto salvation: if indeed you taste, how sweet the Lord is: approaching him, the living stone, rejected by men, but chosen and honored by God, and yourselves as living stones, be built up into spiritual houses (for a spiritual house), a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For this reason Scripture contains: Behold, I place in Sion a chief stone, corner and chosen, precious: and whoever believes in it shall not be confounded. Therefore honor to you who believe, but to those not believing, the stone which the builders rejected, this one is thrust into the head of the corner, and a stone of offense, and a rock of scandal, to those who offend at the word, nor believe in that in which they are placed. But you, a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy people, a people of acquisition, that you may proclaim the powers of him who called you from darkness into his admirable light. Therefore be, dearest ones, prudent, and watch in prayers. Above all, however, having continuous mutual charity among yourselves, because charity covers a multitude of sins.

Be hospitable to one another without grumbling, each one administering to the other the grace he has received, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. If one speaks, let it be as the words of God; if one ministers, let it be as from the virtue which God administers, so that in all things God may be honored through Jesus Christ, to whom is glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. Given on the kalends of April in the consulship of Maxentius and Maximus, most illustrious men. LETTER II, OF POPE MARCELLUS I TO THE TYRANT MAXENTIUS. He admonishes the tyrant to cease raging against Christians. Marcellus, bishop of the holy apostolic and catholic city of Rome, to Maxentius. Charity, the teacher of all good things, which seizes nothing foreign, does nothing harsh, nothing confused, nothing factious, nothing that opposes divine honor, harms one's own soul, or detracts from the good of one's neighbor, forgetful of itself, seeking not its own things but those of God or of one's neighbor, envying no one, consulting for all, not raging but sympathizing, not seizing but bestowing, not murmuring but bearing all things with equanimity—if it dwelt perfectly in you, you would temper your mind from evils, you would cease to rage, you would stop persecuting the Church of God and his saints, you would set a limit to tyranny, you would restrain your fury, you would watch over humanity, you would embrace modesty, and you would strive to enjoy better goods. For charity

Gregory, in the same place) exercises the heart, strengthens the senses, so that nothing is burdensome, nothing difficult, but everything that is done becomes sweet, since it is its own property to nourish peaceful things, to preserve harmonious things, to join what is separated, to straighten what is crooked, and to strengthen the remaining virtues with the protection of its perfection. Therefore, concerning it, the Apostle, admonishing all, speaks thus (1 Cor. 13), saying: If I speak the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have charity, I have become like sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And if I have all prophecy, and know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and have all faith, so that I move mountains, but do not have charity, I am nothing. And if I distribute all my possessions as food for the poor, and if I give up my body, so that I burn, but do not have charity, it profits me nothing. Charity is patient, is kind. Charity does not envy, does not act wrongly, is not puffed up, is not ambitious, does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not think evil, does not rejoice over iniquity, but rejoices with the truth. It endures all things, believes all things, hopes all things, sustains all things. Charity never fails. Therefore, whoever grafts himself onto its root (the same Gregory, in the same epistle) neither fails in greenness nor becomes empty of fruits, because by love of fruitfulness he does not lose effective work.

Although charity has now dried up in the persecutors of the Church and of God's servants, it nevertheless flourishes in her lovers and in those who suffer for the sake of justice. Concerning these, Truth itself testifies through herself, saying: "Blessed are those who suffer persecution for the sake of justice" (Matthew 5). And elsewhere: "If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you" (John 15). For we, and all the Lord's priests who are truly his priests, prefer rather to be persecuted for the sake of justice and true faith, and to suffer for the name of Christ, than to be enriched with many riches and to abound in the most abundant honors, and to lack the heavenly kingdom. For these things are temporal; those are eternal: these are fleeting and pass away in an hour, while those are perpetual and will remain without end. You, therefore, who urge us to abandon divine worship and to withdraw from the true faith and to sacrifice to the gods, it would be better for you if you first showed yourself changeable, and exhorted everyone to hold the documents and ministries of divine worship just as our holy fathers, the apostles, preached and taught them as handed down to them. For it is the mark of a good prince and a religious king to restore churches that are broken and shattered or rent asunder, to build new ones, and to honor and protect the priests of God.

Hence we read that the holy apostles and their successors established under divine testimony that persecutions ought not to be made, nor disturbances inflicted, nor envy shown toward those laboring in the Lord's field, nor the stewards of the eternal king expelled; but if any have been expelled or despoiled of their goods, first everything taken from them by enemies or persecutors is to be lawfully restored, and their own sees, with all pertaining to them, are to be regularly restored, and afterward at a suitable time they are to be summoned to a synod regularly convened. Nor is it permitted for him, before these things are done, to answer concerning himself according to the statutes of the aforesaid, or to render an account of the charges against him, if he sees himself oppressed. But when these things have been duly performed and all his affairs freely arranged, if it then seems just, let him answer his accusers, and let him receive, if necessary, not short delays, so that he may be able to examine what is objected against him, lest deceived by some fraud he fall innocently; since no one ought to be judged or condemned before he has legitimate accusers present and receives a place of defense for purging the crimes. Hence the prophet says: Before you know, do not judge anyone. In this, therefore, that bishops and the rest of God's servants suffer persecution, it is not so much they themselves who suffer persecution as the one whose office they fulfill, as it is written: He who touches you touches the apple of my eye (Zech. 2).

And elsewhere: "He who has grieved you has grieved me" (2 Cor. 2). And "He who does injury will receive that which he has unjustly done" (Col. 3). Therefore, although you may be able to kill our bodies, you cannot kill our souls, nor can you remove the grades divinely conferred upon us. Therefore, without the authority of this holy see, you cannot regularly hold a synod of bishops (even if you are able to gather certain bishops), nor can you condemn any bishop who has appealed to this apostolic see, before a definitive sentence proceeds from here. For if secular persons in public courts use appellate petitions, how much more is it permitted to priests, who are above them, to do the same? Concerning whom it is said: "I said, 'You are gods,' and all sons of the Most High." And therefore no bishop, accused of any crimes, is to be heard or judged unless in a legitimate synod, convened in his own time by apostolic or regular authority, lest an innocent man be condemned or lose communion. That laymen or suspect persons ought not to accuse bishops, nor should accusers emerging from the house of an enemy be believed, we read was defined by the blessed Clement, with the apostles themselves instructing him, and we confirm the same: since in the same way, hostile persons often strive to disturb those living and believing rightly.

Therefore, the person, faith, life and conduct, and the suspicion of the accusers must first be examined in detail; then, the things that are objected must be faithfully dealt with, because nothing ought to be done before the life and suspicion and hatred of the accusers are investigated. And if they are not of good conduct, or are laymen, or manifest enemies, or are stained with hatred, they are by no means to be received in the accusation of bishops. We command these things, by which we are very hostilely persecuted, to be known to you, so that you may beware of them, and cease to persecute those who minister to God, by whose prayers earthly wars are calmed and God is reconciled to sinners, and if you choose to persecute us more than to please God, we choose to endure persecution rather than to confuse the ecclesiastical rule, with the voice of truth itself exhorting us and testifying thus: "Do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul" (Matt. 10). And again: "If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For he who wishes to save his soul will lose it. But he who loses his soul for my sake will find it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, but suffers detriment to his own soul? Or what exchange will a man give for his soul? For the Son of Man will come in the glory of his Father with his angels" (Matt. 16), "and then he will render to each according to his work" (his works).

These things are greatly to be feared and avoided by you, by which the Church of God and its ministers are harassed and suffer persecution, to whom the Lord speaks threateningly through the prophet, saying (Ps. 48, from the version of St. Jerome): "A man will not abide in honor: he is likened to beasts, he is made equal. This is their way, their folly, and after them they will run according to their mouth. They are placed as sheep in hell, death will feed them. And the righteous will subject them in the morning, and their form will be crushed in hell after their dwelling. Yet God will redeem my soul from the hand of hell, when he has taken me up. Do not fear, when a man has grown rich, when the glory of his house has multiplied. For neither will the dying man take all things, nor will his glory descend after him. Because he will bless his own soul in his life. They will praise you, when things are well with you. He will enter up to the generation of his fathers, to the end he will not see light. A man when he was in honor, will not be moved (he understood he is compared to beasts, and it will be silenced): he is likened to beasts, he is made equal." And elsewhere (Ps. 51, from the same version): "Why do you boast, who are powerful by the mercy of God all day long? Your tongue has plotted snares, like a sharp razor making deceit. You have loved evil more than good, falsehood more than speaking justice. You have loved all words for devouring, a deceitful tongue.

But God will destroy you forever, will terrify you, and will pluck you from your dwelling, and will uproot you from the land of the living. And the just will see and will fear, and will laugh at him. Behold a man, who did not place God as his strength, but trusted in the multitude of his riches, and was strengthened in his snares. I, however, like a living olive tree in the house of God, have hoped in the mercy of God forever and ever. I will confess to you forever, because you have acted, and I will await your name, because it is good in the sight of your saints. All these things have been said for your intent, but for our comfort, lest we perish. Therefore we write these things to you because we are debtors to you, as the Lord says: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you (Matt. 5; Rom. 12). And elsewhere Scripture speaks, saying: If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he thirsts, give him drink. For in doing this, you heap coals of fire upon his head. Supported by these authorities, we wish to bear peacefully the war which you stir up against us (St. Leo, ep. 54), so that, with the right hand of the Lord protecting us and fighting for us, and with Christ triumphing, there may be one victory of all true priests: and with the light of truth shining, only the darkness of error with its authors may be driven away, because the counsel of God is not within human power.

The Lord is just, and all His judgments are just, and all His ways are mercy, truth, and judgment. In the hand of God is the power of the earth, to whom all iniquity is abominable. In the hand of God is the power of man, and upon the face of the scribe they will place their honor. God has destroyed the memory of the proud and those who act unjustly, and He has not abandoned the memory of the humble and good men. But everyone who truly worships God holds this for certain: if his life is in trial, it will be strengthened (crowned); and if in tribulation, it will be freed; if indeed in correction, it will attain mercy. Therefore, do not delight in our destructions, because after the storm God makes tranquility, and after weeping and lamentation, He pours forth exultation (Job III). Blessed is the Lord God of our fathers, who, when He is angry, will show mercy, and in time of tribulation forgives sins. Great is the Lord forever, and He Himself will rule us through the ages (Ps. XLVII), for His kingdom endures for ages of ages. Amen. Given on the sixteenth (I) day before the Kalends of February, in the consulship of Maxentius and Maximus, most illustrious men.

DECREE OF POPE MARCELLINUS I, TAKEN FROM GRATIAN. Those thrust into monasteries against their own will are not to be held bound. Moreover, we deem it to be established that if children of a minor age have been offered to a monastery, or have received sacred tonsure or veils, we have considered it fitting that for a year, after being admonished by their superiors, they be questioned by word as to whether they wish to remain in that habit or not. If indeed they have professed to remain, they can in no way later embrace an opportunity for repentance. If, however, they wish to return to a secular habit, permission to return is in no way to be denied: because it is sufficiently useless that forced services be rendered to the Lord.