Epistola Per Universas Provincias

Appendix to the Letters of Hormisdas. Admonition of the Collector. Since, with praiseworthy intention, the distinguished scholar Labbe in his collection judged that spurious letters falsely attributed to the pontiffs should also be added alongside the genuine ones, I likewise, following his example, have proposed to publish any spurious letters of the pontiffs that I might happen upon. Therefore, readers will act equitably and kindly if they read in this place the letter of Pope Hormisdas, which is manifestly seen to bear the clear marks of its spuriousness, since it praises 'Pope John,' who was certainly a pontiff later than Hormisdas. It is taken from the Penitential of Halitgar, Bishop of Cambrai, collected years ago and published by Canisius in *Veterum Lectionum* vol. II, part 2, page of the Basnage edition. HERE BEGINS THE LETTER OF POPE HORMISDAS THROUGH ALL THE PROVINCES. Behold, it is most clearly established that, according to the titles of the ancient Fathers transmitted by the holy Pope John, and the sentences of the three hundred and eighteen bishops, as well as the canons of the Gallic council, they appear to contain.

Clerics caught in adultery, and either themselves confessed or convicted by others, cannot return to their office. And because perhaps there are not lacking those who, out of excessive piety, are displeased by the aforementioned severity of the holy Fathers, let them know that they are condemning or damning the judgments of the three hundred and eighteen bishops and of those who established the remaining canons. But perhaps there is greater piety in them than in the aforementioned bishops, greater mercy in them than in the holy apostolic Pope John, greater charity than in the other priests who, through examples or remedies of the Churches, deliberated these matters in their definitions. And therefore, either they should consent willingly to the precepts of those Fathers, or if they do not, let them know that they are wholly opposed to them and are their enemies. What is this hostile kindness, to caress the guilty and to leave their wounds uncared for until the day of judgment? For even if they see them performing the harshest penance for many years, we must both consult their salvation and preserve the statutes of the canons. But when in some there appears neither the compunction of humility nor the earnestness of prayer or weeping, and they do not imitate blessed David, who said: "I will wash my bed each night, I will water my couch with tears" (Psalm 6); and that: "I ate ashes like bread, and I will mix my drink with weeping" (Psalm...).

nor do we see them devoting themselves to fasts or reading, they could recognize if they were to return to their former honor, since with how much negligence, and with how much tepidity, and with a security hostile to the soul they remain, believing that God has forgiven them without worthy penance, just as the priests seem to have indulged them. I speak truly, because those very ones to whom we seem to show dangerous and false mercy, when they come before the tribunal of Christ to be condemned for such great sins, will bring charges against us ourselves, saying: that while we either feared the harshness of their tongue, or willingly accepted their false flatteries and dangerous adulations, we allowed them to remain in sin by granting them uselessness, or even permitted those sins to increase: not remembering what is written in the Old Testament: That through one sinner the wrath of God rages against all. Piety! Mercy! To spare one, and to bring all into danger through a bad example! Not so does the blessed and most holy martyr Cyprian advise, saying: He who nourishes a sinner with flattering words supplies the fuel for sinning. He does not destroy the offenses for him, but fosters them again, an unskilled physician, who treats swollen wounds with a sparing hand; and while preserving the poison hidden in deep recesses, he aggravates it.

Hence also the blessed John, bishop of Constantinople, argues, saying: "An unskilled physician is one who covers a festering wound with a scar." And therefore consider carefully whether it can or ought to be done, or whether we presume to observe or act otherwise than what those whom we have mentioned above—so many and such great priests—established, while despising the canons, especially since we have neglected the holy decrees of those three hundred and eighteen bishops, who ordered councils to be held throughout all churches. We do not despise only them, but also, as was said above, the African bishops and all the rest who, by their authority, established something throughout the whole world through ecclesiastical discipline, and in doing so we condemn our own souls with sin. I dare not expose myself to this danger, because my merits are not such that I may presume to take upon myself the sins of others. Nor do I have such eloquence that I could plead my case before the tribunal of Christ against so many and such holy priests who established the canons. Let each one see how he intends to think or observe, how he will be able to render an account on the day of judgment. As far as God deigns to grant me strength, I wish to study their precepts and obey them, because with such men I desire not quarrels, but peace, from whatever side it may come. And this must be diligently considered.

But if, according to what is written, those clerics who return to their own wives are suspended from office entirely. And if I also speak of husbands of those who have never married; who indeed do a licit thing, yet clerics can never be ordained: or if they have been ordained, they are to be deposed. Concerning these matters, Saint Faustus the bishop said in his letter: He loses the grace of consecration who wishes to exercise the office of a husband. Since these things are so, with what conscience can anyone say that he who has committed adultery can come again to honor? At this point, if there should be someone who says: Therefore do you deny the mercy of God, who said: I do not desire the death of the sinner, but that he be converted and live; and that: Does not he who falls strive to rise again; and that: The sinner, on whatever day he is converted, all his iniquities shall be consigned to oblivion? But to these things we can and must reply with a free voice. Far be it from us to seem even lightly to doubt these sayings. For we believe most definitively that whoever does penance at the end of his life will not only receive indulgence but will also attain to eternal rewards. Nevertheless, on account of the ecclesiastical rule and on account of the institutions of the ancient Fathers, let us not dare either to reproach or to discuss them.

And we believe that, after blessed penance, they come to eternal life; yet we know that, according to the precepts of so many Fathers, they ought not to return to the honor of the clerical state, to such an extent that it is written in the canons that no penitent cleric is ever to be ordained. And if one who voluntarily seeks penance, even if he has performed it perfectly, cannot be ordained bishop or presbyter—so that even if he has been ordained through ignorance, and afterwards it is proven that he received penance, he is deposed—then he who is sent unwillingly to a monastery to perform penance, and who is certainly to be called a penitent, by what conscience is he permitted to attain to the priesthood? Let no one object to me any other authority against the authority of the apostolic see, or against the precepts of the three hundred and eighteen bishops, or the statutes of the remaining canons: because I do not doubt that whatever is said against their definition, in which we believe the Holy Spirit spoke, is not only rash but also dangerous to accept. For I greatly fear and tremble at that condemnation which that priest deserved to receive because of foolish leniency: because he neither chastised his sons with due severity nor was willing to excommunicate them, his sons were killed in one day, and thirty thousand of the people were slain, and the ark of the covenant was captured, and he himself, falling backward with a broken neck, died, and his name was erased from the book of life, etc.

Against Phinehas, who, because he was moved by the zeal of God and killed two adulterers together, freed the entire people from the wrath of God. Nor do I say this so that, as he did, the priests of the Lord should now also avenge through the death of bodies; but because it is better for each one, for the short time he lives in this world, to bear shame or confusion, than afterwards to come to eternal punishments. And it is much more useful for him, for the sake of the example of others, as long as he lives, to do penance removed from honor, and to acquire a remedy for himself in the day of need. Whoever wishes to be burdensome to my smallness in this matter, I do not intend to give any other answer except what the aforementioned canons seem to contain.