Appendix. Notitia. Epistolarum non exstantium, quae ad Innocentium attinent.

APPENDIX TO THE LETTERS OF SAINT INNOCENT I, POPE. NOTICE OF NON-EXTANT LETTERS WHICH PERTAIN TO INNOCENT. (D. Coust. Epist. Rom. Pontif. tom. I.) In the year 404, in the month of April, the letter of Theophilus against John Chrysostom.—Theophilus, bishop of Alexandria, in a letter written to Innocent and delivered by a lector from Alexandria, reported that he had deposed John. When this letter was read, says Palladius, Dialogue, chapter 1, page 9, "the blessed Pope Innocent came very close to condemning the temerity and pride of Theophilus, because he had written alone and had sent no clear knowledge of the matter, nor had he indicated why or with whom he had deposed John." This letter was the first of those which Innocent received concerning the case of John, after the latter had been cast down from the episcopate. Therefore it is rightly judged to have been written immediately after John's deposition, after the tumult stirred up on Great Sabbath in the Church of Constantinople, that is, in the month of April of the year 404. To this letter, or to another of which we are about to speak, seems to refer what Palladius writes on page [x] about Theophilus: "He, in his letter to Pope Innocent, while reviling the blessed John, names Epiphanius as most holy, whom, he says, John had assailed with reproaches as a heretic or schismatic.

At the same time. Three letters in favor of John. Three days after the previous letter of Theophilus was delivered to Innocent, says Palladius, page and 10, "four bishops from the party of John, a religious man, Pansophius of Pisidia, Pappus of Syria, Demetrius of Galatia Secunda, Eugenius of Phrygia, delivered three letters (to Innocent), one of John the bishop, another of the bishops in communion with John, a third of the clergy of John, all agreeing among themselves, and indicating the tumult of certain undisciplined persons." Of those three letters, only that of John, that is the fourth above, has come down to us. But if the three agreed among themselves, from what we still read in the letter of John, it is not entirely hidden what was set forth in the other two. In the year 404, around June. Innocent's communicatory letters to each side.—Then Innocent, thinking that peace should be provided for, until the time for strengthening it should dawn, wrote two letters, one to Theophilus and those adhering to him, and another to John and his associates, in which letters he indeed imparted his communion to each side. Concerning these, Palladius, chapter 3, page.

and 23, only this much he committed to memory: "To this, the blessed Innocent sent equal letters of communion to both parties, disapproving the judgment that seemed to have been made by Theophilus, saying that another blameless synod of Westerners and Easterners ought to be convened; first, with the friends withdrawing from that assembly, then also the enemies; for from neither side, for the most part, does a right judgment proceed." But the letter that had been written to the parties of John was carried by Demetrius, metropolitan bishop of Pisinuntis in Galatia Secunda, who had most recently come to Rome with Pansophius, Pappus, and Eugenius. Palladius, page 27, relates that Eugenius, on this occasion, traversed the East, and by showing these letters of Pope Innocent, proved the Romans' communion with Bishop John. These letters were sent by Innocent a short interval after he received the previous ones, whether from Theophilus or from John and his parties.

Around the same time, the letters of Theophilus against John. Thereafter, repeated letters of Theophilus, bishop of Alexandria, were delivered to Innocent, concerning which Palladius has this: A few days after Innocent had written the aforementioned letters, "a certain presbyter of Theophilus, Peter, arrived with Martyrius, a deacon of the church of Constantinople, who delivered letters of Theophilus together with certain acts, in which John appeared to be condemned by thirty-six bishops, of whom twenty-nine were Egyptians and seven from other regions." But after these acts were read through, with the same Palladius as witness, Innocent found that "there were no serious accusations, nor was John present, nor was he rebuked in person." What the pope replied to those letters can be read in his epistle. In the year 404, in the month of June. Letters on behalf of John.— Innocent had scarcely dismissed Peter and Martyrius, who had brought the most recent letter of Theophilus, when he received letters from twenty-five bishops or a little more, who were from John's synod. For, says Palladius, page 24, "after a short time, a presbyter of the church of Constantinople named Theotecnus arrived, delivering letters from the synod of John of twenty-five bishops or a little more, by which they taught that John had been expelled by military force, and had been sent into exile to Cucusus, and that the church had been set on fire." Moreover, this fire is recorded to have occurred in the year 404, on a day in June.

From which it follows that those letters were written at the end of the same month. In the Theodosian Code, book 16, title 3, law 2, there is a law dated in the month of August, by which, when many of John's clergy had been handed over to custody on account of this fire, and after an investigation no one was found guilty, Arcadius ordered them to be released. At the same time, John's adversaries write. — Shortly after, the letters of Acacius, Paulus, Antiochus, Severianus, and a few others (Palladius, p. 23), "in which they slandered John, as if he had set fire to the church," were carried to Innocent by a contemptible little man named Paternus, worthy of every insult; nor did Innocent deign to reply to them. At the same time, the Africans commend their legates to Innocent. — To the same period belong the letters of the Council of Carthage, held in the year 404, on the sixth day before the Kalends of July, to Pope Innocent, mentioned at the end of the chapter in the Code of Canons of the African Church. For when this council decreed that a legation be sent to the Emperors to request laws for repressing the insolence of the Donatists, it immediately adds: "Letters are also to be sent to the bishop of the Roman Church for the commendation of the legates." Then the legates designated were Theasius and Evodius, and four letters were given to them, which Possidius, in his catalogue of Augustine's letters, lists in this continuous series: "To Bishop Innocent, to the Emperors, to Stilicho, to the Prefects of Italy." From this it is inferred that those letters were written by Augustine.

Around the month of August, Innocent replies to the bishops of John’s synod. — Innocent gave letters to Theotecnus, who had brought him the letters of the bishops of John’s synod, for John and the other members of his communion, in which “he urged them with tears to be of good courage, since he could not give them aid because the powerful opposed evil.” Thus Innocent spoke, because the manifest discord between Honorius and Arcadius was an obstacle to the convocation of a council in which a remedy for the evils of the Church was to be sought. But Theotecnus, who was to bring the letters of the bishops of John’s synod to Innocent, had set out from Constantinople for Rome after the day of the month of June; and therefore what Innocent wrote back to them could not have been delivered to him before the following month of August. In the year 404, around November, Porphyry’s letter to Innocent. — While John Chrysostom was in exile in Armenia, it happened that Flavianus, bishop of Antioch, died (Palladius, p. 144). Then Porphyry, ordained in his place by Acacius, Severian, and Antiochus, immediately informed Innocent of his ordination. But, according to Palladius, p. 141, he was not deemed worthy of a reply from Innocent. How perverse his character was, the same Palladius explains at length, p. and following. Moreover, from a constitution of Arcadius, which is inserted in the Theodosian Code, book 16, title 4, law 6, it is established that Porphyry was ordained before the day of the month of November in the year 404.

In the year 405, Innocent writes back to the Africans, and his letter is read in a council.—In the Council of Carthage, which was celebrated on the kalends of September in the year 405, the letter of Innocent was read, in which it was provided that bishops should not easily travel overseas (Cod. can. eccl. Afr., c. 94). These letters are believed to have been brought back to Africa by Theasius and Evodius, who in the month of June of that year had been sent as legates to the emperor with letters to Innocent. But when the aforesaid letter of Innocent was read, "this very thing," which was prescribed in it, "was confirmed by the sentences of the bishops." Already before, in the Council of Sardica, canon 8, especially on account of the Africans, it had been decreed "that bishops should not go to the court, unless perhaps those who have been invited or summoned by letters of the most religious emperor," when evidently Gratus, bishop of Carthage, had complained that his own counsels on this matter were being spurned. Lest, however, the common interests of the churches should be neglected on this account, the same synod added, canon 9, that if bishops had petitions to be offered for widows or orphans or others oppressed by unjust force, they should not themselves carry them in person, but "should dispatch them through their deacons." Therefore the aforesaid council, in which the letter of Innocent was read, decreed "that for the sake of thanksgiving and the exclusion of the Donatists, two clerics of the Church of Carthage (not two bishops) should be sent to the court.

Around the beginning of the year 405, the letter of Exsuperius.—The letter of Exsuperius, bishop of Toulouse, which embraces various questions, seems to belong to the beginning of the year; Innocent satisfies these questions by means of a letter. The letter of fifteen bishops to Innocent.—About the same time, Innocent received a letter from fifteen bishops from the synod of John, which Palladius, page 26, mentions in these words: “After Cyriacus, Eulysius, bishop of Apamea in Bithynia, arrived, delivering a letter from fifteen bishops from the synod of John, in which they described both the former and the present plundering of all Constantinople.” To which words Palladius immediately adds that Eulysius, bishop of Synnada, bearing no letters indeed, but suitable for narrating what was happening, had fled to Rome, moved evidently by the injustice of an imperial decree, which ordered: “If anyone does not communicate with Theophilus, Arsacius, and Porphyry, let him be removed from the episcopate, and at the same time lose whatever substance of money he is seen to have.” From this it is possible to ascertain the time at which that letter was delivered to Innocent. For either the decree of Arcadius is indicated there, “concerning those who dissent from the communion of Arsacius, Theophilus, and Porphyry, the most reverend priests of the sacred law, who are without doubt to be repelled from the Church” (Codex Theodosianus, book 16, title 4, law 6), or some later decree, in which a monetary penalty was added to the earlier punishment.

But the constitution of Arcadius, addressed to the governors of the provinces, is read as having been given on the fourteenth day before the Kalends of December at Constantinople, in the consulship of Honorius and Aristaenetus, that is, in the year 404, on the day of the month of November. From this it is concluded that the aforementioned letter of the fifteen bishops could not have been delivered to Innocent before the beginning of the year, although it may be supposed to have been written around the end of the year. The letter of Anysius, bishop of Thessalonica, to Innocent.—The same Eulysius also brought to Innocent a letter from "Anysius, an excellent old man," as Palladius says, page 27, "who wrote that he stood by the judgment of the Roman Church (in the case of John)." Edict against clerics who communicated with John.—After the passage of a month from the arrival of Cyriacus, bishop of Synnada, Palladius, bishop of Helenopolis, the writer of the Lausiac History, also came to Rome, bearing a copy of an edict, which another Palladius, in the Life of Chrysostom, page 27, expresses thus: "Whoever has concealed any bishop or cleric who communicates with John, his house shall be confiscated." By these words we judge that he notes and briefly touches upon that which Arcadius decreed in the year 404, on the day of August, in this manner: "Nor shall houses be free from the danger of proscription which are proved to have received foreign bishops or clerics after the publication of the edicts and the addresses of our serenity: the same form is to be observed if any houses have received citizen clerics celebrating new and tumultuous conventicles outside the church" (Codex Theodosianus, Book 16, Title 2, Law).

The clergy of Constantinople to Innocent, a letter. After Palladius’ entry into the City, there came “Germanus, a presbyter, and Cassianus, religious men, delivering letters of the whole clergy of John to Innocent” (Palladius, p. 27), in which they write that their own Church had suffered force and tyranny, its bishop having been cast out by military hand and driven into exile through the faction of Acacius of Beroea, Theophilus of Alexandria, Antiochus of Ptolemais, and Severian of Gabala. At the beginning of those letters, those pious clerics adduced many testimonies of Scripture, in which they testified that they had consolation. Then, after they had set forth the violence of the bishops who opposed John, and also the canons by which they attempted to defend their crimes, they inquired what was to be thought concerning those canons. Innocent wrote back to them, and his letter, namely the seventh, has come down to us.

Some time later, letters were brought, both from the bishops of Caria and from the presbyters of Antioch. — Demetrius, bishop of Pessinus, having traveled through the East, is reported by Palladius to have returned to Rome after the arrival of Germanus and Cassianus, bearing letters both from the bishops of Caria, “by which they embrace the communion of John,” and from the presbyters of Antioch, “by which they follow the discipline of the Romans,” namely in retaining the communion of the same John, and they deplore the ordination of Porphyry as done contrary to law and right (Palladius, p. 28). For, as Palladius narrates (pp. and 146), Porphyry, by sending money to the Court and to the more powerful bishops, had brought it about that Constantius, who stood out among the other presbyters, was banished as a disturber of the people. He also had other presbyters and clerics thrown into prison. Then, on the first day of the celebration of the Olympic games, when the whole city had gone out to the suburbs to watch the athletes, he burst into the church; and there, with Acacius, Severian, and Antiochus, bishops whom he had hidden with him, and a few clerics, “he was ordained secretly with closed doors, and with such hasty preparation that they did not even bring the prayer to an end, fearing they would be caught.

The year was already drawing to a close when Innocentius wrote to Honorius concerning the wretched state of the churches. Shortly thereafter, Domitianus, presbyter and oeconomus of the church of Constantinople, as well as Vallagas, presbyter of Nisibis, who also related the affliction of the monasteries of Mesopotamia, delivered to Innocentius the acts of the prefect Optatus, by which honorable women, deaconesses of the church of Constantinople, of consular lineage, were compelled either to go to him, to communicate with Arsacius substituted in the place of John, or to pay two hundred pounds of gold to the treasury (Pallad. p. 28). Then Innocentius, no longer able to endure so many and such great evils, wrote a letter to the emperor Honorius, in which he set forth in detail what the letters he had received from various sources concerning the church of Constantinople and the miserable state of others contained. Shortly afterward, a synod of the bishops of Italy was convened. Honorius, as soon as he received this letter of Innocentius, to use the words of Palladius (Pal. p. 29), "orders that a synod of the Westerners be convened, and that they, having brought forth a single opinion together, should refer it to his piety." And soon "the bishops of Italy, assembled, beseech the Emperor that he write to his brother and partner in empire, Arcadius, to order that a synod be held at Thessalonica, so that both parts, of the East and of the West, may more easily come together, and that the synod, perfected not so much by the number of bishops as by the weight of its opinion, may bring forth a certain and undoubted judgment." Then a synod was indeed celebrated, but where it was held, Palladius does not indicate.

We know only that his definition is entirely in agreement with those things which Innocentius had consistently judged from the beginning of this disturbance and thereafter, as above, n. 3, and as can be seen in the letters. Hence it is inferred either that he presided over this synod, or that nothing was done in it except by his judgment. Around the end of the year 405, Honorius writes to Innocentius.—Following the decree of the recent synod, Honorius writes once and twice to Arcadius: but when he accomplished nothing, and was thinking of sending a third letter to him, he also writes to Innocentius, that he "send five bishops, and two presbyters of the Roman Church with one deacon, who may carry it (Pallad. p. 29)." How Innocentius complied with his request, we have set forth in the first annotation on his letter. In the year 406, Innocentius writes to Arcadius.—Innocentius not only gave to Honorius the legates he had requested, namely Aemilius, bishop of Beneventum, Cythegius and Gaudentius, likewise bishops, together with Valentinianus and Bonifacius, presbyters, and also one deacon of the Roman Church whose name is passed over in silence; but he also gave them a letter to be delivered to the emperor Arcadius. At the same time, these same legates received both the letter of Honorius, which we still have, and the letters of Chromatius of Aquileia, Venerius of Milan, and other bishops of Italy to the same emperor.

At what time that embassy was undertaken can be inferred from the words of the legates, who, after relating that they had arrived at the imperial city, were immediately detained in a suburb, and after three days were dismissed and confined in a maritime fortress of Thrace, immediately subjoin: "On the next day they sent to us—whether the emperor's courtiers or Atticus, we do not know (for he himself was said to have invaded the throne of the Church)—who offered us three thousand pieces of money, begging that we communicate with Atticus." Now, therefore, Arsacius was dead, and Atticus had been substituted in his place; and the legates, by the cited words, indicate that they first began to hear this when they approached the imperial city. But that Arsacius died on the third day before the Ides of November, in the consulship of Stilicho for the second time and Anthemius, that is, on November 11, in the year 405, Socrates, book VI, chapter 20, relates. And that Atticus was substituted for Arsacius in the consulship of Arcadius for the sixth time and Probus, and indeed, as Sozomenus, book VIII, chapter 27, records, after the see of Constantinople had been vacant for four months, and thus in the month of March of the year, the same author testifies. From which it follows that the letter of Innocentius with which we are dealing was written around the beginning of the year.

At the same time, a memorandum was given to the legates. — A memorandum of the synod of the whole West was given to the same legates (Pallad. p. 31), "which contained that John ought not to enter into judgment unless first both church and communion had been restored to him; so that, with the cause for declining judgment removed, he might enter the assembly of his own accord." The Lampsacene synod held under Damasus, as recorded by Sozomen, book VI, chapter 7, established something similar, namely "that bishops who had been deposed by those who asserted the Son to be unlike the Father should recover their sees by right of return, since they had been unjustly despoiled; and that if anyone should wish to accuse them (thereafter), he should do so under the peril of a like condemnation." Where bishops unjustly despoiled and ejected have their sees restored first, and only then is a place for accusing them permitted. In imitation of decrees of this kind, Isidore Mercator, both in the fictitious fifth Roman synod under the same Pope Symmachus and under the name of older pontiffs, fabricated many similar things, which he did not scruple to repeat over and over.

In the year 407, in the month of June, the Africans attempt to reconcile Innocentius with Theophilus.—The Council of Carthage, held in the year 407 on a day in June, issued this decree concerning letters to be written to Pope Innocentius (Cod. can. eccl. Afr., c. 101): "It was also decided that a letter be written to the holy Pope Innocentius about the dissension between the Roman and Alexandrian Churches, so that each Church may maintain within itself the peace which the Lord commands." This dissension, however, was none other than that which had been stirred up by the cause of John Chrysostom, since Innocentius had been unable to approve the violence of Theophilus against him. In the year 412, on a day in June. Innocentius writes to the bishops of Illyricum.—Letters of Innocentius to the bishops established throughout Macedonia, Achaia, Thessaly, Old Epirus, New Epirus, Crete, Dacia Mediterranea, Dacia Ripensis, Moesia, Dardania, and Praevalis are mentioned by Innocentius himself in letter 13, n. 3, as having been given together with the same (namely, on a day in June of that year), by which he informed them that he had entrusted the care of these provinces to Rufus, bishop of Thessalonica, in his stead.

In the year 415, he writes to Augustine.—Augustine in his letter once numbered 259, now 151, to Caecilianus, a former prefect of Italy, no. 2, mentions that "a letter was sent to me by the brothers of the holy and venerable Pope Innocentius, distinguished by his exceptional merits, which, he says, is declared to have been given to me through your excellency by certain indications." Of this letter we know nothing else from any other source. However, from the fact that the aforementioned letter of Augustine to Caecilianus is proven to have been written after the month of September of the year 413, but not long after, we infer that this writing of Innocentius pertains to that same year. In the year 414, the Macedonians seek from Innocentius that five things be granted to them.—In the following year, Innocentius received a letter from Rufus and other Macedonian bishops, consisting of five chapters: of which the first sought that it be permitted to them to promote to the clergy, and even to the highest priesthood itself, according to the custom of their province, those who had married widows.

Others asserted that "a man who had a wife as a catechumen and lost her should not be called a bigamist if he obtained another after baptism, because that marriage was washed away by the sacrament of baptism along with other crimes"; and thus he should not be barred from the clergy. Their third question concerned those who had been ordained by heretics, specifically by Bonosus after his condemnation, namely whether they were to be received in their orders. They persuaded themselves that this was permissible based on the indulgence shown both by the Nicene Fathers toward the Novatians and by Anysius, bishop of Thessalonica, toward the Bonosians themselves. Fourth, they asked Innocentius to change for the better the judgment against Photinus, which had been obtained from the apostolic see by false rumor and elicited from his predecessor by deceit, and to permit them to appoint this man as bishop. Finally, they requested that he confirm their own sentence against Eustathius the deacon, depriving him of the grace of the diaconate and consigning him to the devil forever. To each of these points Innocentius responded at the end of the year in his 15th letter.

Around the year 414, letters of the Macedonians to Innocentius. To these Innocentius replies. A forged letter of Innocentius. Second letters of the Macedonians.—Around the same year 414, Bubalius, Taurianus or Tarianus and others condemned by the Macedonians appealed to the apostolic see. For this reason Rufus and his associates sent Maximianus and Eumenius or Eugenius to Rome with letters in which the crimes of Bubalius and Taurianus were set forth. Then Innocentius, after examining the case, returned the letters to the legates of the Macedonians, in which, after a full exposition of his views, he confirmed the condemnation of Bubalius, Taurianus and their associates. But while the legates were delaying their return, Bubalius forged a letter in the name of Innocentius, which he also presented to the Macedonians. They, however, having often experienced his deceptions, plainly gave no credence to this new trick, and by a second letter they thought to renew their earlier complaint. Nor do they conceal that this license of appeals is grievous and very burdensome to them. To those second letters Innocentius replies, letter 18, the loss of which we would bear more lightly than that of another, in which this whole matter and his judgment concerning it were fully and openly explained.

Letters of Innocentius to the synod of the East.—Here may be referred the very full letters of Innocentius to the synod of the East concerning everything that should be required from the Easterners seeking peace; concerning which letters Innocentius speaks as having been sent long before the peace of the Antiochene church was restored (Epist. 22). Moreover, by the name "synod of the East," the churches that were subject to the bishop of Antioch are usually understood. In the year 414, the legation and letter concerning the ordination of Alexander and the peace of the Antiochene church. Writings of Acacius.—Alexander, bishop of Antioch, substituted in the place of Flavianus, sent a legation to Innocentius with letters, by which he announced that he had been lawfully ordained, and that with the schism by which the Antiochene church had so miserably labored for so many years extinguished, peace had been happily restored to that same church; that those who had once been counted under the name of Paulinus and Evagrius had been received by him with the greatest charity; that Elpidius and Pappus, who had been expelled on account of John Chrysostom, had recovered their churches without any controversy; and finally, that the name of John himself had been inscribed in the sacred diptychs. For this reason, he requested that the Roman church grant him its communion (Innoc. ep. 19).

To those letters were added the writings of Acacius, bishop of Beroea, by which he also begged Innocentius to restore the communion which he had so far denied him on account of John. Around the year 415, Innocentius holds a synod at Rome on the same matter.—On the occasion of the Antiochene legation, a council was gathered at Rome, in which twenty bishops took part. In it, after the letter of Alexander was read and the legates heard—of whom Cassianus the presbyter seems to have been the chief—it was carefully considered whether all the conditions previously required for peace had been satisfied at Antioch. Thereupon Innocentius sent to Alexander both private letters and common letters subscribed by twenty bishops, together with the acts of the synod itself and writings to Acacius, by Paul the presbyter, Nicholas the deacon, and Peter the subdeacon (Innocentius, epistle 19). Those three letters we still have, but the subscriptions of the twenty bishops of Italy and the acts appended to them have been lost. Only from the epistle do we learn that Maximianus, bishop of Macedonia, was present at this synod. From this it is conjectured that other bishops of other provinces, who happened to be in the City at the time, were likewise summoned to it, as was customary.

Somewhat later Maximianus writes in favor of Atticus.—Maximianus, bishop of Macedonia, having been a witness to the peace granted by Innocentius to Alexander, bishop of the Antiochene church, returned to the imperial city and appears to have been the instigator for Atticus to seek peace without delay. Whether Atticus indicated that he was not at all averse to this matter and asked Maximianus to obtain this favor for him, or whether Maximianus undertook this on his own initiative and with a somewhat premature zeal for unity, he, having sent a letter with a libellus to Innocentius, requested from this pope communicatory letters to Atticus of Constantinople. To this letter of Maximianus, Innocentius responds with letter 22. Around the year 413, Alexander proposes some questions to Innocentius.—Alexander, having sent a memorandum, inquires of Innocentius, first, what is the power of the Antiochene bishop in the ordinations of bishops of the diocese of the East; then, "whether, when provinces are divided by imperial decree so that two metropolises come into being, two metropolitan bishops ought to be named." Third, having complained that the Cypriots, who belonged to the diocese of the East, "long harassed by the power of Arian impiety, did not observe the Nicene canons in ordaining bishops," but ordained their own bishops without consulting anyone, he asked how he ought to conduct himself toward them.

Finally, he inquired whether Arian clerics returning to the Church "should be received with the dignity of some priesthood or ministry." Innocentius's response to each point is found in letter 24. Around the beginning of the year 416, Decentius and Coelestinus consult Innocentius about various rites.—Likewise, Decentius, bishop of Eugubium, consults about various customs in which some churches differed from the Roman: 1° concerning the peace, which in some churches is either imposed on the people before the completion of the mysteries, or exchanged among the priests; 2° concerning the names recited before the canon; 3° concerning infants, whether it is permitted for presbyters to sign them on the forehead; 4° concerning the Saturday fast; 5° concerning the fermentum, whether it should be sent to each parish on the Lord's day, as it is sent through the tituli at Rome; 6° concerning the energumens, whether it is permitted for presbyters or deacons to lay hands on them; 7° concerning penitents, when they are to be absolved.

At the same time, Decentius had also sent another letter to Coelestinus, then a deacon, in which he asked him three further things: first, whether only priests, or also other sick Christians, may be anointed with the holy oil of chrism; next, whether only presbyters, or also bishops, are permitted to anoint the sick with chrism; and finally, whether that oil should be poured out for penitents. Innocentius, in letter 26, satisfies all those questions. In the year 416, several writings pertaining to the case of Pelagius were sent from Africa to Innocentius.—In the letters which the Africans composed to Innocentius in the year 416, several documents sent to him are mentioned, which pertain to the case of Pelagius and Coelestius (Epist. 26, n. 1). And first, the synod of Carthage indicates that it had subjoined to its own letter the letter of the bishops Heros and Lazarus against Pelagius and Coelestius. Next, the same synod teaches that the acts of another synod of Carthage, held nearly five years earlier, by which Coelestius had been cut off by episcopal judgment, were appended to that same letter.

To these he had also added, as is gathered from the last words of his letter, the acts of the synod of Diospolis, by which Pelagius boasted himself acquitted—that is, such as they had been adulterated by this heretic. For no other had then reached Africa. Shortly afterward, Augustine, writing with four companions to Innocentius (Innocentius, epistle 28, no. 6), indicates that he had appended to his letter the book of Pelagius sent to him by Timasius and Jacobus, disciples of this heretic, as well as the work he had composed to refute it, On Nature and Grace, to which Jacobus and Timasius themselves, giving thanks for the aforementioned book On Nature and Grace, had written a letter, just as also the one which Augustine thought to write to Pelagius, who had sent to him the adulterated acts of the synod of Palestine, "as if they were documents of his own purgation." Of these records, only Augustine's book On Nature and Grace, as well as the letter of Jacobus and Timasius to Augustine, have come down to us. But what Innocentius thought concerning Pelagius's book, epistle 31, no. 5, reveals.

Letters of Eustochium and Paula to Innocentius.—Not long afterward, Eustochium and Paula sent letters to Innocentius, in which they deplored with such modesty the very grievous persecution inflicted upon them that they suppressed the name of its author. Letter of Jerome to the same.—At the same time Jerome wrote another letter, in which he did not conceal into what peril of life he had fallen, had he not saved himself from the attack of the impious by the protection of a more fortified tower. And on that occasion he made known to Innocentius the desire, which Bishop Aurelius had conceived in his mind, to visit him. At an uncertain time Felix of Nuceria consults Innocentius.—Felix, bishop of Nuceria, in a letter written to Innocentius, testified that, following the institutions of his predecessors, he referred everything that admitted any doubt to him as to the head and summit of the episcopate, so that he might learn from him what he ought to do. He indeed signified that he had either built new churches of God or repaired fallen ones; but that he lacked clerics to place in them, while some were either mutilated or digamous. Finally, he begged to be instructed as to which of the laity the canons forbade to be ordained. Innocentius satisfies his consultation, letter 57.

A pamphlet against incontinent presbyters.—Maximilianus, an agent in the region of the Bruttii, sent a pamphlet to Innocentius against certain presbyters of that province, whom he complained had fathered children while in the presbyterate. Whence the occasion for Innocentius’s letters was given. A pamphlet against Modestus, who from a penitent became a cleric.—Innocentius records (Epist. 39) that another pamphlet was handed to him, but he is silent as to from whom he received it, by which a certain Modestus, entangled in many crimes for which he had performed penance, was denounced as having not only become a cleric in Apulia but also as aiming for the summit of the episcopate. A pamphlet against a bishop who had celebrated the divine mysteries in another’s parish.—Another pamphlet was given to the same pope (Epist. 40), by which Ursus, a bishop, complained that in the parish of Nomentum, which pertained to his own diocese, Florentinus, the bishop of Tibur, had celebrated the divine mysteries without his knowledge.

Finally, the letters of Laurentius of Siena to Innocentius are missing, in which he reported that followers of Photinus were active in his territory and were openly preparing conventicles for themselves on certain estates. Moreover, if the pontifical book is to be believed, Innocentius "made a constitution concerning the whole Church, and concerning the rules of monasteries, and concerning Jews and Pagans." Spurious letters. Among so many genuine writings of the holy pontiff, Isidorus Mercator was by no means afraid to mix in a counterfeit offspring of his own genius and to attribute it to so great a name. But that spurious letter, which was inscribed to Aurelius in the edition of the councils, we will return to its parent in the following volume. The appendix of this volume, if the volume allows, will present four other false letters, distinguished by the names of two of Innocentius writing to Arcadius, and two others of Arcadius replying to Innocentius.