Epistola Synodi Sardiniacensis ad SS Julium I Papam

The Letter of the Synod of Sardica to Julius, Bishop of the City of Rome. (Coust. p. 395.) I. What we have always believed, we now also perceive: for experience proves and confirms what each person has heard by hearing. For it is true what the most blessed teacher of the Gentiles, the Apostle Paul, said concerning himself, although, of course, because the Lord Christ dwelt in him, it cannot be doubted that the Spirit spoke through his mind and resounded through the organ of his body. And so you, most beloved brother, though separated in body, were present in concordant mind and will: and the excuse for your absence was honorable and necessary, lest either schismatic wolves should commit theft and plunder through ambushes, or heretical dogs, roused by rabid fury, should madly bark, or certainly the serpent-devil should pour forth the venom of blasphemies. For this will seem best and most fitting, if, concerning each and every province, the Lord’s priests refer to the head, that is, to the see of the Apostle Peter.

II. Since, therefore, all that was done, transacted, and decreed is contained both in the records and can be most truly and faithfully set forth by the living voices of our most beloved brothers and fellow presbyters Archidamus and Philoxenus, and of our most beloved son Leo the deacon, it seems almost superfluous to insert the same matters in this letter. It was evident to all who assembled that those from the Eastern parts who call themselves bishops (although among them there are certain authors whose sacrilegious minds the pestilential poison of the Arian heresy has infected) long prevaricated and, due to distrust, refused to come to judgment, and that they censured your communion and ours, which had no fault: because we not only believed, on the testimony of eighty bishops, in the innocence of Athanasius; but also, having been summoned through your presbyters and by letter to the synod that was to be held in the city of Rome, they had refused to come. And it was sufficiently unjust that, with those men contemning, so many priests bearing witness, they should deny fellowship to Marcellus and Athanasius.

III. There were three matters to be dealt with. For the most religious emperors themselves permitted that everything be discussed and debated anew from the beginning, and first of all concerning the holy faith and the integrity of the truth, which they had violated. The second concerned the persons whom they claimed had been deposed—concerning the unjust judgment, or, if they could prove it, a confirmation would be made justly. The third question, which is truly to be called a question, was that they had inflicted grave and bitter injuries, intolerable and even unspeakable outrages upon the churches, when they seized bishops, presbyters, deacons, and sent all clerics into exile, transported them to deserted places, killed them with hunger, thirst, nakedness, and destitution; others they confined in prison and destroyed with filth and stench, some with iron chains, so that their necks were strangled by the tightest bonds. Finally, some of them, bound, perished in that same unjust punishment: whose death cannot be doubted to have been a glorious martyrdom. Moreover, they still dare to detain some; and there was no cause for the crime except that they resisted and cried out, that they execrated the Arian and Eusebian heresy, and refused to have communion with such men.

But those who preferred to serve the world (rather than to be useful in the Church), and who had previously been deposed, were not only received but even promoted to clerical dignity, and they received the reward of falsehood. IV. Now learn, most blessed brother, what was decreed concerning the impious and inexperienced youths Ursacius and Valens. Because it was evident that they did not cease to scatter the deadly seeds of adulterated doctrine, and that Valens, having abandoned his own church, wished to invade another church, and at the time when he stirred up a riot, one of our brothers, who could not flee, Viator, was overwhelmed and trampled in the same city of Aquileia, and died on the third day: the cause of death was certainly Valens, who disturbed and incited. But when you read what we have communicated to the most blessed Augusti, you will easily perceive that we have omitted nothing, as far as reason allowed, and so that it might not be troublesome, it is done below in no. 5, just as in the synodical letter to all the churches, in Hilary, fragment II, no. 8, Athanasius of Alexandria, Marcellus of Ancyra, and Asclepas of Gaza are named. Before the appended words, concerning the unjust judgment, "ut" is to be supplied. It would have been a long narrative to tell who had done what and what they had committed; we have indicated it.

V. Your excellent prudence, however, ought to arrange that through your letters our brothers who are in Sicily, in Sardinia, and in Italy may learn what has been done and what has been decided; and that they, being unaware, may not accept communicatory letters, that is, epistolia, from those whom a just sentence has degraded. But let Marcellus, Athanasius, and Asclepius persevere in our communion: because an unjust judgment, and the flight and tergiversation of those who refused to come to the judgment of all the bishops who assembled, will not be able to harm them. The rest, as we have mentioned above, the full report of the brothers whom your sincere charity sent will fully instruct your unanimity. Moreover, we have taken care to subjoin the names of those who have been deposed for their crimes: so that your eminent gravity may know who have been deprived of communion. As we have stated before, may you deign to warn all our brothers and fellow bishops by your letters, that they not accept epistolia, that is, communicatory letters, from them.

NAMES OF THE HERETICS. Acacius of Caesarea. Ursacius of Singidunum. Menophantus of Ephesus. Valens of Mursa. Georgius of Laodicea. Narcissus of Hieropolis. Stephanus of Antioch.