Epistolae Et Decreta

Pope Zosimus's Letters and Decrees.

(From the edition of P. Constantius, Roman Pontifical Letters, vol. I.)

NOTICE ON THE FOLLOWING LETTER.

This letter was first published by Baronius in his Annals, and then by Jacobus Sirmondus among the Councils of Gaul, from an old codex of the Church of Arles, which is now preserved in the Colbertine Library. It also exists in another, no less ancient, exemplar of the same library. To distinguish between the two, we call the first the Arlesian, the second the Colbertine. A third exemplar, however, was supplied to us by the Royal Library, a codex older than the two aforementioned, in which is prefixed a *factum* (or edict) to the illustrious man Agricola, prefect of the Gauls under the Augusti Honorius and Theodosius, to be published in its proper place below, and then follow several letters of Zosimus and other Roman pontiffs up to Pelagius, especially written for the benefit of the Church of Arles. Moreover, in an exemplar of the Monastery of Murbach, containing a compilation of canons written about that time, we found the last two chapters of this letter ascribed to our Zosimus. Yet in the same manuscript we came upon a chapter of his inscribed with the name of Pope Sylvester, granting a privilege to Reticius, Bishop of Augustodunum, for the Gauls and the seven provinces, and signifying this to the prelates of this region.

The commonly circulated library of Fleury also exhibits the same chapter, likewise marked with the name of Pope Silvester, in which the same privilege is granted to Paschasius of Vienne. But I shall prove in its proper place the falsity of this document, which we have deemed should be relegated to the Appendix. Therefore neither this document, nor the false citation of the Morbac manuscript, harms the truth of the following letter. From this only this much is gathered: that churches which wished to arrogate to themselves some right over others strove to secure it by a privilege concocted in imitation of this letter.

The truth of the following letter is proved not only by the authority of ancient manuscripts, but historical truth also confirms it. Certainly no one can read the petitions of the bishops of the province of Arles to Pope Leo, in Leo himself, epist. [—], without immediately recognizing that this letter is plainly indicated by them, and that their petitions are expressed in its words. Similarly, all the letters of the Roman pontiffs, whether preceding or following, which pertain to the church of Arles, are so interconnected that whoever has admitted one can thereafter scarcely reject any. Wherefore Joan. Morinus, Eccl. exercit., rightly laughs at Scaliger for judging letter 348, and this letter, and others written for the sake of the see of Arles, to be unworthy of Zosimus and supposititious. But the objections raised against them Pasch. Quesnellus refutes at the end of the works of Leo, dissert. 5, part 1, chap. 6.

Finally, the council held at Frankfurt in the year, with Charles the Great present, mentions the canons of those letters not obscurely, where it has: "Concerning the dispute of Ursio, bishop of Vienne, there were read the letters of blessed Gregory, Zosimus, Leo, and Symmachus, which defined, etc."

Whether Zosimus in this letter granted nothing new to the bishop of Arles is rightly disputed. Paschasius Quesnel indeed holds, in the passage cited, that in this matter also, which is prescribed in chapter i concerning the formata, nothing was granted to him except what he had already possessed from the age of Cyprian. But that this is evident from letter 1 to Pope Stephen I, as he claims, we freely confess is entirely hidden from us: for in that letter no mention of the formata occurs. Indeed, if we consult the canons which Siricius sent to the bishops of Gaul, we shall not doubt that Zosimus, in decreeing that formatae be delivered by the bishop of Arles to any clerics whatsoever, derogated from the common law received in Gaul. For where Siricius observes (Epist. 10, n. 17) that any cleric "cannot minister in another's church without the letters of his own bishop or a formata," he indicates clearly enough that clerics traveling elsewhere were accustomed to receive letters or a formata from their own bishop, not from the bishop of Arles. I would not deny that this pertained to the right of the metropolitan, such that bishops subject to him, undertaking any journey far from their churches, would receive a formata from him.

For this reason the Council of Carthage, held in the year, decreed "that no bishop may travel without a formata from the primate" (Cod. can. Eccl. Afr., c. 56). Nor indeed is there any need for us to remind you that the primates of each province in Africa acted in place of the metropolitans. But that individual bishops handed those formatae to their own clerics is clear even from this, that a second Council of Carthage in the year decreed: "But the formatae which are given by the primates (to bishops) or by any bishops to their own clerics, let them have the date of Easter" (Ibid. c. 106). The Council of Laodicea also sanctioned, in canon 2 according to the interpretation commonly found in the Codex of Quesnel: "It is not permitted for a minister of the altar, or even a layman, to set out anywhere without canonical letters, that is, a formata"; and then in this canon it teaches that the formata is to be received from one's own bishop, in these words: "It is not permitted for a minister of the altar, or anyone, to travel to foreign parts without the command of the bishop." Indeed, when the Council of Antioch in canon 7, according to the interpreter just praised, ordains "that no traveling cleric ought to be received without a formata, nor ought presbyters to give formatae, that is, letters, to distant regions," it nevertheless adds in the canon: "But to the vicar of a bishop, who is called by the Greeks a chorepiscopus, it shall be permitted to make formatae.

Hence it is clear that before the times of Zosimus, both in the East and in the West, it was the received custom that the aforesaid formatae should be sought by clerics from their own bishops, and by bishops from their metropolitans; and to such a degree did Zosimus grant something new to the bishop of Arles, when he willed that bishops and clerics of any rank should receive formatae from him.

LETTER I.

TO THE BISHOPS OF GAUL. Concerning the privileges of the church of Arles.

I. That those who come to Rome or elsewhere from Gaul are to receive formatae from the metropolitan of Arles.—II. That the metropolitan of Arles is to ordain bishops throughout the province of Vienne and through both Narbonenses.—III. That the churches belonging to his own parish are to be restored to the church of Arles.

Zosimus to all the bishops established throughout the Gauls and the seven provinces.

Chapter I.—1. It has pleased the apostolic see that if anyone from any part of the Gauls, under whatever ecclesiastical rank, strives to come to us at Rome, or disposes to go to other lands, he shall not set out otherwise than by receiving formatae from the metropolitan bishop of Arles, by which he may demonstrate his priesthood, or the ecclesiastical position which he holds, by the attestation of his writings. We have decreed this for the reason that very many, pretending to be bishops, presbyters, or ecclesiastics, since no document of formatae exists by which they can be refuted, creep in under the name of veneration and obtain undue reverence.

Whoever, therefore, dearest brothers, having disregarded the above-mentioned formata, whether bishop, presbyter, deacon, or of any lower grade hereafter, comes to us, let him know that he can in no way be received. It is manifest that we have sent this authority everywhere, so that it may be known in all regions that what we have decreed must be observed in every way. But if anyone shall have attempted to violate these salutary decrees, let him know that by his own act he is separated from our communion. Moreover, we have granted this privilege of the formata to our brother and fellow bishop Patroclus, in special consideration of his merits.

Chapter II.—2. We have ordered, moreover, that the metropolitan bishop of the city of Arelate hold the principal authority, as he always has, in ordaining priests. Let him recall the provinces of Vienne, Narbonensis Prima, and Narbonensis Secunda to his pontificate. But whoever hereafter, contrary to the statutes of the apostolic see and the precepts of our forebears, having passed over the metropolitan bishop, shall presume to ordain anyone in the aforesaid provinces, or he who shall have permitted himself to be unlawfully ordained there, let each know that he is deprived of the priesthood. For how can he obtain the authority of the supreme pontiff, who has despised to observe what belonged to the pontiff?

Chapter III.—We admonish all, certainly, that each be content with his own boundaries and territories; for this barbarous and impious confusion is to presume upon what belongs to others. Concerning this matter, we admonish that no complaint come back to us any further. For the church of Arles has given an example, which rightly desires that the parishes of Citharista and Gargarius, situated within its territory, be incorporated into itself; so that hereafter no priest may presume to the injury of another priest. Of course, since the ancient privilege of the metropolitan city of the Arlesians is in no way to be derogated from—to which city Trophimus, the highest bishop, was first sent from this see, from whose fountain all the Gauls received the streams of faith—for that reason, whatever parishes lie in whatever territories, even outside their own provinces, it shall possess, as it had from antiquity, with inviolate authority. We decree that, if any business arises there, it be referred to his notice, unless the magnitude of the case requires even our examination. Given on the eleventh day before the Kalends of April, in the consulship of the august Honorius for the eleventh time and Constantius for the second.

MONITUM.

ON THE TWO FOLLOWING LETTERS.

Baronius first published both letters, according to the text of an old Vatican manuscript, together with their faults. John Garnerius endeavored to purge those faults, but with a freedom that we do not consider permissible for us. Yet his labor was sometimes successful, where he departs less from the rules of criticism. The censure of Capellus, by which he thinks them adulterated, is rightly rejected by the judgment of all scholars. The first of these is clearly indicated by the opening words of the second, just as this second is by those words of Marius Mercator in his Commonitorium: "Coelestius hastened with all speed to the city of Rome under Zosimus, bishop of holy memory. There, when the acts of which we have copies were examined, and when he was to some extent tested by him as examiner, by his frequent responses and pleadings he sowed beforehand a hope that he would condemn those chapters of which he had been accused at Carthage, promising to do so. For this was commanded him more insistently, and it was expected of him by him more vehemently that he do it; and for this very reason he was deemed worthy of some of that holy priest's kindness. And thus he obtained a certain letter full of benignity to the African bishops, which he abused, and still abuses, for the deception of many who are ignorant." But concerning both, Augustine speaks no less clearly in his books Against the Two Letters of the Pelagians, to Boniface, and On Original Sin, as we shall soon see. These things are also manifest in Facundus, book vii, chapter 3.

277, on both matters the words: “Finally they will find blessed Zosimus, bishop of the apostolic see, acting against the judgment of his predecessor St. Innocent, who first condemned the Pelagian heresy, praising the faith of Pelagius himself and of his accomplice Coelestius as true and catholic—Coelestius, who, after being convicted in the church of Carthage and appealing to the apostolic see, Innocent himself had examined in the proceedings—and furthermore blaming the African bishops because the heretics were believed by them, although Zosimus, while the African bishops had not yet more plainly exposed their deceits, thought the aforementioned Pelagius and Coelestius orthodox.” And this indeed, for the truth of those letters, which will shine forth more and more from what is to be said, is for the meantime sufficient. But whether Zosimus reviewed anew a case already settled by his predecessor, concerning which Augustine had said in Sermon 131, n. 10: “The case is finished; would that the error were finished!”—or whether also in this whole business, as Facundus would have it, he acted “against the judgment of his predecessor St. Innocent”—must now be weighed.

As for Augustine, he said that the case was closed insofar as the errors had been openly and by certain authority condemned; but he did not understand it as closed insofar as that phrase signifies a fixed and determined condemnation also of the persons of Pelagius and Coelestius. For concerning these, the Council of Carthage had written to Innocent in letter 26, n. 6, as if in doubt: “Even if Pelagius has been corrected, or they say that he never held those views.” Nor is anything more certain than what the five bishops asserted in letter 28, n. 11, to the same pope concerning Pelagius, since they had enough grounds to demand this of him: “Let Pelagius therefore anathematize his writings... Or if he denies that they are his, or says that what he denies to be his was inserted into his writings by his enemies, let him anathematize and condemn them.” Nor had Innocent condemned him and his associate except with the added condition that, namely, if they came to their senses or were able to clear themselves, they would be absolved and received back into the Church. “But if they do this,” he says in letter 29, n. 8, “it will be in the power of the pontiffs to come to their aid to some extent, and to provide some care for such wounds as the Church is accustomed not to deny to the fallen when they have repented: so that, recalled from their headlong falls, they may be brought back within the fold of the Lord.” He confirms this same point still more openly in letter 30, n. 6. And he writes back expressly concerning Pelagius in letter 31, n. 4: “Care will not be lacking, if he provides the material for healing.

For he can condemn the views he had held, and by a letter, as is fitting for a return to us, beg pardon for his error. And so, when Pelagius and Coelestius had been invited, the latter, without any delay, betook himself to Rome and professed that he would comply with the judgment of the apostolic see; but the former sent a letter together with a little book of his faith, in which he seemed to condemn in express words the errors ascribed to him. When, therefore, Zosimus did not neglect to apply to them the appropriate care of a remedy, he did nothing contrary to the judgment of his predecessor, nor is he to be said to have reviewed a case already settled by him, but rather to have wished to carry out, according to his own mind, what Innocentius had proscribed for its conclusion.

For Pelagius seemed to have satisfied the wishes of Innocentius. For when he observed, as Augustine notes in his book On the Grace of Christ, chapter 30, that there were two points on which he was being pressed, one that he denied to little children the sacrament of baptism, the other that he excluded the aid of God, he astutely confessed in his little book (On the Grace of Christ, ch. 52), "that infants receive baptism for the remission of sins," and to this confession he prefixed in his letter (Ibid. ch. 31) that free will "in all good works is always aided by divine help.

By this twofold profession, to which Coelestius, when present, had without doubt of his own accord subscribed, since he was judged sufficiently cleared—especially as there was added the letter of Praylius, bishop of Jerusalem, who intervened as a strenuous supporter of Pelagius' cause—Zosimus deemed that letters should not be delayed, by which he might inform the Africans of Pelagius' return to the Church, and disclose to them his joy on that account and declare it (Augustine, On the Origin of Sin, ch. 5). With the same disposition toward Pelagius as Zosimus had, Albina, Pinianus, and Melania were also affected, since they had received from his own mouth, when he was present, what that crafty heretic had professed in writing before Zosimus.

It is perceived with some difficulty how the faith of Coelestius could have been approved, who, as Augustine testifies (Ibid., ch. 33), "in his little book, which he cited at Rome in the ecclesiastical proceedings, confessed that little children are also baptized for the remission of sins, and denied that any of them has original sin." The same Doctor reports the very words of this heretic in his book On the Origin of Sin, ch. 6. Yet Zosimus is excused in various ways both by Marius Mercator, as we have already seen, and by Augustine himself, as must now be briefly set forth.

Indeed, although Augustine admits that the book of Coelestius was called catholic by Zosimus, he does not thereby teach that it was called catholic because the poisons of faith placed in it were approved by the apostolic see, but because it was written with a catholic mind, or under the appearance of a catholic mind. For Coelestius in his book, about to speak of his own particular opinion, had premised: "If perhaps, as to men, some error of ignorance has crept in, let your sentence correct it." But indeed, says Augustine, "this is characteristic of a catholic mind: if perhaps one thinks otherwise than the truth demands, not to define those things most certainly (which is the mark of heresy), but to reject them once they have been examined and demonstrated." Nor indeed was Zosimus content with this general profession of Coelestius, but by frequent interrogations and responses he drove him to the point that he responded that he consented to "the letters of Pope Innocentius of blessed memory, by which all doubt concerning this matter (namely, concerning the faith of original sin) was removed." When he had professed this, "who," says Augustine, "does not see how Coelestius has been bound and constrained by a most salutary bond, so that he would not dare further to defend that original sin is not forgiven in the baptism of little children?" For this reason the same Augustine praises in the book On Original Sin, chapter

...the pious diligence of Zosimus in dealing with Coelestius, by which he sought so to entangle him, as though he were raving and frenzied, with his questions and with the man's own answers, that he could scarcely escape at all; and so to favor him that, "with a period of two months interposed, until a reply should be written from Africa, a place for repenting" was granted him. Meanwhile, "this also (namely, that original sin was not denied by Coelestius) was awaited, that it might become more fully and manifestly clear in him, when the letters should come from Africa, in which province his cunning had become somewhat more evidently known" (Book ii to Boniface, ch. 3). Then therefore, to use the words of Augustine, "the will to amend was approved, not the falsity of the doctrine." Wherefore the same Augustine aptly concludes: To be sure, whatever was done more leniently with Coelestius in the meantime, with the firmness of the most ancient and most robust faith preserved, was a most clement persuasion to correction, not a most pernicious approval of depravity. And that Coelestius and Pelagius were afterward condemned by the same priest (Zosimus) with authority repeated, was the necessary bringing forth of severity that had been briefly intermitted, not a prevarication of what had been previously known, nor a new discovery of the truth.

Augustine suggests this as the reason for that same indulgence of his, by which "those two men of talent were treated somewhat more leniently than the stricter discipline of the Church demanded," namely because "although they were perverted by an abominable error, they were not yet to be despised." But why they were not to be despised he then discloses, where he speaks of Coelestius as "a man of the sharpest intellect, who surely, if he were corrected, would have profited very many." In hope also of this profit, Innocentius ordered that room for pardon be left to both of them, provided only that they pronounce anathema on the things they had wrongly held. For he hoped (Innocent. ep. 31, n. 5) "that those who had fallen through his (Pelagius's) words and precepts might at last come to know what the true faith holds. For they will more easily be recalled when they perceive that these things are condemned by their own author." Hence, therefore, the agreement of Zosimus with Innocentius is again clear from this: and so the deacon Paulinus is free from any suspicion of flattery, since below in epistle 8, n. 2, he affirmed that Zosimus followed the judgment of Innocentius concerning Pelagius and Coelestius even before he condemned them by a definitive sentence. But what he brings forward from the proceedings in public evidently proves the truth of this assertion itself. Nothing, therefore, prevents us from understanding that saying of Augustine to Julianus as applying to the praised pope even before his definitive judgment: "But what is it that B.

Do you accuse Zosimus, bishop of the apostolic see, of prevarication, so that you persist in your depravity? He did not depart from his predecessor Innocent, etc.” (Book VI Against Julian, ch. 12.)

Indeed, in this matter the same Roman clerics sat in council both with Innocent, when Pelagius and Coelestius were condemned on the condition that pardon would not be denied them if they repented, and with Zosimus, when a certain semblance of repentance was shown by the same men and they were dealt with more leniently, and again with the same pope when, the mask and fraud having been exposed, those heretics were openly condemned. And for this reason the Pelagians wished that mark of prevarication to be branded on those clerics, as if I had approved in Zosimus's earlier judgment the doctrine which I rejected in the later one. But Augustine repels their calumny by this reasoning: “If, which God forbid, it had then been judged in the Roman Church concerning Coelestius or Pelagius that those dogmas of theirs, which Pope Innocent had condemned in them and with them, were to be approved and held, it is on that account rather that the mark of prevarication would have to be branded on the Roman clerics” (Book II to Boniface, ch. 3). From this it follows that in those three judgments the sentence of the Roman clergy was constant, and that Zosimus's agreement with his predecessor, even in the earlier judgment, was manifest.

Augustine also proves this point from the fact that “although so many and such great writings were running back and forth between the apostolic see and the African bishops, and ecclesiastical records were also drawn up on this matter at that see with Caelestius present and responding, no letter of Zosimus, no interlocution of his is found in which he either said or wrote anything that supports the perverse doctrine of Caelestius.” Indeed, Facundus also, although Zosimus himself seems to have approved the faith of Pelagius and Caelestius “against the judgment of his predecessor St. Innocent” (Book VII, ch. 3, p. 278), nevertheless confesses that judgment must be made about him no differently than about Athanasius when he commended Timothy, a disciple of Apollinaris, to Damasus, and about Damasus himself when he received the commended man kindly, and about the Palestinian bishops when they judged Pelagius orthodox; “because,” he says, “it ought not to be counted as a crime of simple men, the cunning of the wicked not being understood.” And that cunning was indeed such that, from the letters of Pelagius then given to Zosimus, Augustine would have believed him a heretic plainly corrected, had he not learned of his various arts from elsewhere. The words of Augustine himself, cited in the notes on the letter of Pelagius to Innocent, p. 918, note g, make this clear to me.

The cause of Caelestius and Pelagius was helped at Zosimus’s court not a little by the unfavorable reputation of Heros and Lazarus, who had accused them, though it was undeserved. For although even after they had been removed from the episcopate they are called by Marius Mercator, a zealous bishop, by the Council of Carthage in letter 26 to Innocent, n. 1, holy brothers and fellow priests, and by Augustine in book 1 of On the Acts of Pelagius, holy brothers and our fellow bishops in Gaul, Zosimus nevertheless heard far different things reported to him about them. For in Pelagius’s letter he read, as Augustine testifies in book 33 of On the Grace of Christ, Pelagius’s own “invidious complaints about his enemies,” which fell most heavily upon them. And without doubt he did not spare them in the letter of Praylius, bishop of Jerusalem, “earnestly intervening in Pelagius’s cause.” Nor were the things that John, the predecessor of the latter, had said against them passed over in silence. Augustine indeed had wisely warned: “Whatever Bishop John said about our absent brothers or fellow bishops Heros and Lazarus, or about the presbyter Orosius… I believe that Pelagius understands that it has no weight to their prejudice.” But Pelagius was not the sort of man to yield to such a fair warning.

Moreover, Caelestius was present in the city, and he omitted nothing that could either stir up or increase ill will against them. Patroclus was present too, and Zosimus listened to him all the more readily and favorably because he was a friend and intimate of Constantius the consul and master of the soldiers, “whose influence,” says Prosper, “was being sought through him.” Now it was in Patroclus’s interest that Heros, whose place he had usurped, be condemned in reputation. Whatever, therefore, Zosimus wrote against Heros in his letters, he is believed, not without reason, to have said on the strength of Patroclus’s word. But Patroclus, as Prosper relates in his Chronicle, was of such a depraved conscience that he did not hesitate to sell priestly offices by “infamous traffic.” Since Zosimus was unaware of this, on the testimony of three witnesses who agreed with one another concerning Lazarus and Heros, he thought he was delivering a fair judgment about them. Nor did he notice that, at the very time he was more earnestly warning the Africans that statements made against absent persons should not be believed, he was himself condemning absent men on the suspect testimony of their adversaries, whether open or hidden. So true is it that what must be guarded against or done for others is more easily discerned than what concerns ourselves, and that men with keen eyesight sometimes fall into the very fault they do not notice in themselves, which they censure in others. But how little prone to error Zosimus was—though at first somewhat too credulous of the deceitful heretics—he afterward made plain once the truth had been exposed. Nor was it without divine will that it was done.

it is, that he whom the perverse fabrications were to be proscribed throughout the whole world by should first embrace their authors with singular benevolence. For from this it was persuaded to all that the pestilent heresy had yielded to the force of truth alone, and to no private hatred.

Letter II a.

On the case of Caelestius.

What was done when the judgment of Caelestius was renewed at Rome. That he will be absolved unless within two months those who can refute him in person come and prove that he thinks otherwise than he has professed. Zosimus to Aurelius and to all the bishops established throughout Africa, most beloved brothers in the Lord, greeting.

A great weight of examination demands great things, so that the balance of judgment not be inferior to the matters themselves which are being conducted. To these is added the authority of the apostolic see, to which, in honor of the most blessed Peter, the decrees of the fathers have sanctioned a certain peculiar reverence. Therefore it must be prayed, and ceaselessly prayed, that by the continual grace and everlasting aid of God, from this fountain peace of faith and of catholic fellowship, obscured by no clouds, may be sent into the whole world. For charity, which as it is written (1 John 4) is God, rejoices in the perfect abundance of fullness: since if it has any suspicion at all, a contention carried on at length, being solicitous with the intent of faith, is corrected either by amendment.

Coelestius the presbyter presented himself to our examination, seeking to be cleared of those things which had been urged against him to the apostolic see otherwise than was proper. And although many occupations, by the greater bonds of ecclesiastical affairs, were distracting our care and solicitude, nevertheless, lest the expectation of your fraternity concerning the arrival and discussion of the aforesaid man should hang in suspense any longer, setting all else aside, on the day of the hearing we took our seat in the basilica of Saint Clement, who, imbued with the teachings of the blessed apostle Peter, had corrected ancient errors by such a master, and had made such progress that the faith which he had learned and taught he consecrated even by martyrdom: namely, that for salutary correction the authority of so great a priest might stand as an example to the present hearing.

Therefore we discussed all things which had previously been done, as you will learn from the instruction of the proceedings attached to this letter; and Coelestius having been admitted, we caused the document which he had given to be read aloud: nor were we content with this, but we often tested whether he spoke these things which he had written from the heart or from the lips; since concerning the hidden things of souls the judgment can belong to our God alone, to whom not only things thought but even things to be thought are present. What his words contain, we have deemed it more compendious to be known by your holiness through reading.

One thing indeed moves us: since you have Coelestius there at present, nothing has been clearly judged. As to the letters of Heros and Lazarus sent in an earlier report, it is indeed most evident that, out of the fervor of faith, it was done with great haste. But when he was questioned about these matters, he asserted that he had never had any conversation with the aforesaid men about such disputes; and that they had not been seen or known by him before they wrote about him; that Lazarus indeed he had known in passing; but Heros only after a satisfaction had been interposed; and that whatever he had thought otherwise of an unknown and absent man, he had let go of with gratitude. From so fleeting and groundless a foundation of unknown accusation, it was undoubtedly to the point that the character of such men, which had proved so windy and light, should be examined—if at least the standing of their position and life were established, so that faith ought to be given to absent men concerning absent men, and such weight should attach to their letters that they deserved the authority of testimony. It was made clear that these men, with ordinations unobserved and with the people and clergy objecting, had usurped priesthoods within Gaul as unknown and foreign men, which they themselves renounced by their own sentence; and we, although also on other grounds, nevertheless following their repentance and confession concerning themselves, removed them from the priestly place and from all communion. It presses hard that the case proceeded from such men through letters to the accusation of one who defends himself in person, who sets out the faith, who challenges the accuser.

It has never been a source of regret to have reversed a judgment for the better. The young man, and executor of the Holy Spirit, found Susanna innocent, though she had been condemned by the falsehood of the elders (Dan. 13:46). The chaste woman is led back from punishment by a boy, she who was feigned to be shameless by aged men. Therefore not every spirit is to be believed, as it is written (1 John 4:1), but it must be weighed and examined more carefully, especially concerning a man's faith, where his standing and eternal life are at stake. Nor did the investigation of truth fail Solomon in the dispute over the childbirth (1 Kings 3:23). For he did not immediately bring forward the one child between the two women quarreling with each other, but there, as a hesitant arbiter, he discovered the truth where he understood the affection of true piety. It is exceedingly rare that a long and disciplined delay does not arrive at the bed of truth. It is a sign of the best mind to believe evil things with greater difficulty. For many, whose faith in a good confession about themselves is applied too sluggishly, are driven by necessity into the precipice of that error; and an irremediable wound is produced, because it is despaired of being healed.

Therefore in the present case we have judged nothing to be premature or unripe, but we have made known to your Holiness our examination concerning the absolved faith of Coelestius; and even the earlier libellus given by him within Africa ought to have been a testimony among you, lest he be too readily believed in matters unexplored and spread about by rumor. Wherefore, within the second month, let those come who would refute him as presently thinking otherwise than he has woven together in his libelli and profession; or else let your Holiness know that, after these things so open and manifest which he has brought forth, nothing of doubt has remained.

Indeed, I have admonished Coelestius himself, and whoever in time from diverse regions were producing priests, that these snares of questions and inept contests, which do not edify but rather destroy, flow from that contagion of curiosity; while each one abuses the above-written things by his own wit and intemperate eloquence: since in this matter even the writings of great men are sometimes endangered together with their own authors after a long span of times, by the judgment of the interpreter: so that it has been divinely foretold, that from much speaking sin is not avoided (Prov. 10:19); and holy David rightly asked for a guard around his lips, and a custody for his mouth (Ps. 141:3).

I admonish your Charity, both by the authority of the apostolic see and by our mutual affection of love, that your minds now submit themselves to the precepts and observances of all the holy Scriptures, which have been received according to the tradition of the fathers and the ancients. What is there that is not abundant? What is there that is not full of the Spirit of God and of utterances? Unless each one pleases to believe himself rather than others, and to rely on his own judgment concerning himself. Given.... (in the year of Christ 417), in the consulship of the august Honorius for the eleventh time and of Flavius Constantius.

EPISTLE III.

That Pelagius, by letters sent and a libellus of faith, and again Coelestius, had cleared themselves, and that their accusers, men of such slight faith, ought not easily to have been believed; and finally, that those men, when they condemned what was to be condemned and followed what was to be followed, never fell away from the catholic truth or the communion of the Church.

Zosimus, bishop, to Aurelius and to all the bishops established throughout Africa, his most beloved brethren in the Lord, greeting.

After Coelestius the presbyter had been heard by us and had clearly expressed what he believed concerning the faith, and had confirmed by repeated professions the same things that he had set down in his little book, we have written more fully to your Beloved concerning his name.

Behold, we have received the letter of Praylius, bishop of Jerusalem, who has been ordained bishop in the place of the once holy John, who intervened as a most earnest supporter of the cause of Pelagius. The same Pelagius also sent his letters containing a defense most abundantly, in which he heaped up the faith of his profession—what he followed, and what he condemned—without any dye, so that the snares of all interpretation might cease. Their public reading took place: they contained all things equal and formed in the same sense and sentences that Coelestius had brought forward before. Would that any of you, most beloved brothers, could have been present at the reading of the letters! What joy there was for the holy men who were present! What admiration of each one! Some could scarcely restrain themselves with weeping and tears, that such men of even absolved faith could have been defamed. Is there any place in which the grace or aid of God has been omitted? Whoever can conceive this even in mind apart from the same grace, he too is subject to that heavenly sentence which was brought forth concerning the Holy Spirit, that neither here nor in the future is forgiveness or remission granted.

I see also that this Pelagius is defamed by the letters of Herotes and Lazarus. Is it so, beloved brothers, that the report has not reached your ears as to who these storms and tempests of the Church are? Has the life and condemnation of these men truly escaped your notice? But although the special authority of the apostolic see has removed them from all communion, learn also from this letter, albeit briefly, the character of these men. It is an old habit of Lazarus to accuse the innocent. Through many councils, the diabolical accuser was found against our holy fellow bishop Britius of the city of Tours. At the synod of the town of Turin, he received the sentence of a slanderer from Proculus of Marseilles. By the same Proculus, after many years, he was made a priest—a defender of tyrannical judgment—of the city of Aix; when the appointed man resisted, he burst into the very inner sanctum and priestly throne, almost sprinkled with the blood of an innocent man. And the shadow of the priesthood remained in him only so long as the image of the Empire stood in the tyrant Constantine; in that place, after the destruction of his patron, he stripped himself of it of his own accord, and by his own withdrawal condemned it. Concerning Herotes, however, all things are similar: the same tyrant was his patron; there were slaughters, riots, the binding and imprisonment of presbyters who contradicted him, and the condemnation of the whole city, and a similar repentance upon the abdication of the priesthood.

It is a wonder if those men were unwilling to strike down with false letters a layman striving toward good fruit by long service toward God, men who have devised such great plots against brothers and fellow bishops, who have brought so many storms upon the Church. It does not befit episcopal authority, and especially your prudence, to hang upon the writings of frivolous whisperers. Behold, Pelagius and Coelestius are present before the apostolic see in their letters and in their confessions: where is Heros, where is Lazarus, names to be blushed at for their deeds and by so many condemnations? Where are those young men, that is, Timasius and Jacobus, who, as was asserted, [produced] certain writings? Judge for yourselves whether, if such men confess such things at the apostolic see, those things which have been bandied about concerning them by wicked and frivolous authors and by doubtful rumor ought to be believed.

Love peace, cherish charity, strive for concord. For it is written: You shall love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 19:19). Who are more neighbors to one another than all of us who ought to be one in Christ? Not every wind that enters your ears is a messenger of the truth; and therefore there is always need of a mind set as a leader and on guard, lest everything be permitted to rumor, everything to witnesses.

Review the sacred letters and the divine archives: false witnesses have occupied the greatest part—where we find either accusations against the saints or their perils. I say the greatest part, indeed the whole, since false witnesses rose up even against our Lord and Savior Himself, the sacrifice of the whole world and the saving high priest, who fabricated that they had heard His blasphemy. Consider what deception can now pass by, which has made an assault by perjuries against the God of faith—indeed against faith and truth itself.

We have written these things so that for the future, if any persons, absent and unknown, shall lie about such matters concerning anyone according to their own whim, your feet may be firmly set against the battering-ram of deceit. Therefore the holy man prays that a lamp be for his feet and a light for his paths (Ps. 118:105)—namely, that our footsteps not be blind and wandering amid deceitful darkness. And in the Gospel: Does our law judge a man unless it has first heard from him and known (John 7:51)? Also in the Old Testament: You shall not believe a vain report, and you shall not consent with the wicked to become an unjust witness (Exod. 23, according to the LXX). And lest perhaps credence be given to the multitude of detractors before the examination of judgment, it adds, saying: You shall not be with the many in malice, and you shall not receive sin through them (Ibid.). And again elsewhere: Before you inquire, do not reproach anyone; and when you have inquired, rebuke justly (Sir. 11:7). And again: Speak what your eyes have seen (Prov. 25:8; according to

And in the Acts of the Apostles, when the chief priests and elders of the Jews demanded the condemnation of the absent apostle Paul, the gentile tribune Festus delivered a most just sentence, which it is fitting that we too set before the eyes of the faithful to their shame, saying: It is not the custom of the Romans to condemn any man before he who is accused has his accusers present and receives an opportunity to defend himself and to clear away the charges (Acts 25:16). If, then, a man placed outside the enclosure of our faith maintained this moderation against the dignity of priests, how utterly unworthy is credulity that condemns the absent in their absence. For how few will be found immune from a wound, if the credulous heart lies open to every blow of the striker?

Let earthly moderation teach us what, in secular judgments and cases, is the rule for first choosing and rejecting the judges themselves, and how great the hesitation, how often the interposition of delays, how many times the examination is stayed, and even at the very end of the contest the judges may enlarge the proceedings in favor of an innocent defendant. Recourse is had to the sea and to evidence from across the sea, so that proof which in the present is for the most part strangled by tighter straits may at least come from afar. I speak falsely in all this, unless these things were devised for the protection of defending innocence. For it is more tolerable that any innocent man be found out late than that he be quickly condemned in place of the guilty.

It was a grave matter for Lazarus and Herotus to be the footmen of their own letters. Did they not know that your belovedness would report it to the apostolic see? Surely they would have sailed here with that compendious calumny. When the obtaining of a bishopric is at stake, they scour seas and lands and omit no canvassing. But when the reputation of the innocent is assailed, idle and soft, whether as accusers or as witnesses (for in both roles the name of those who deceive is infamous), they misuse their letters in their chambers and on their beds; and two plagues becloud all Africa and the whole calm of catholic serenity for their own lusts. We all come before the tribunal of Christ: no one will be able to be absent there, nor to evade the judgment of the Lord, whose immensity intervenes in all places and things.

If it was in the heart of our God, for the sake of the lost sheep, that the Word should become flesh and put on from the Lord the form of a servant, so as to restore the liberty long intercepted: let it be a joy to you to recognize that those whom false judges accused were never torn from our body and the catholic truth. Certainly this, which your expectation desired, has shone forth: that they should condemn what is to be condemned and follow what is to be followed.

If the father of a family rejoiced at the return of his son, who had been dead and came to life again, had been lost and was found (Luke 15:32), and ordered that a clean robe—that is, the emblem of a pure mind—be brought for his use, and a fatted calf, how much more abundant is this exultation of faith, that those are not dead nor lost about whom false reports have been spread? We have therefore sent to your belovedness copies of the writings which Pelagius sent; and we do not doubt that the reading of them will bring forth for you in the Lord joy over his faith, once it is settled. Given on the eleventh day before the Kalends of October (September 21).

Letter IV.

Concerning the bishops Ursus and Tuentius, unlawfully ordained, that they be received nowhere into the churches in communion.

Zosimus to Aurelius and to all the bishops established throughout Africa, to all the bishops established throughout the Gauls and the seven provinces, to all the bishops established throughout Spain, on equal terms.

When the statutes of the fathers are violated, injury is done not only to the prudence and judgment of those who ordained laws destined to live forever, but in a certain way to the faith and catholic discipline itself. For what is so holy and venerable as to never stray from the path of the ancestors, whose canonical statutes are, as it were, foundations laid for bearing the weight of the faith? But nothing less than this has been achieved by Ursus and Tuentius: the one, though healed by the constant medicine of this see, could not attain the health of a corrected error; the other, removed some years ago on a charge brought against him, as the writings of the citizens testify and the accusations have shown, even received the rank of high priest from the very man by whom he had previously been condemned. Blind error is in both, so that—what is most important in all things—Tuentius does not wish to hold the judgment of others concerning himself, nor his own concerning Ursus.

But suppose that the men's morals were honorable and their endorsements approved: what of this—that, passing over our brother Patroclus, metropolitan bishop of the city of Arelate, without whose authority, according to the canons of the ancestors, no ordination at all could be celebrated, priesthoods are thrust upon the unworthy in tumult and disorder?

Not even the fellow provincial bishops were summoned, so that the error might be covered by some veil; but Lazarus, long since condemned as a slanderer in the council of Turin by the sentences of the most weighty bishops, when he had assailed the life of the innocent bishop Britius with false accusations, afterward obtained an undue priesthood from that same Proculus, who had sat among the others at the synod of his condemnation—from which priesthood he himself, by the conscience of his own life, voluntarily withdrew, having given letters of abdication. In truth it was incongruous that a man stripped of the priesthood by his own confession, with the metropolitan omitted, should likewise ordain a priest. And lest anything at all should fail to be done out of season, not even the lawful day of ordination was observed: namely, that those who lacked everything should also lack the lawful time. What can be added to so many and such great abuses, set aside by shameless usurpation, except that last thing which surpasses the whole error—that they should be appointed from territories not due, belonging from ancient times to the city of the Arelatenses? If even one such fault had occurred in such cases, the authority of the apostolic see would have destroyed the rest. Here many things concur: the ordination of wicked and condemned men, the omission of the metropolitan, and also of the provincial priests, the most shameless usurpation of places belonging to others, the solemnity not even of the day preserved, and Lazarus admitted into the fellowship of an illicit ordination. All these things have been discussed among us by records and testimonies.

And would that in Turin only depraved customs had been exposed, and not also the Priscillian superstition! The humanity and mercy of this see long ago wished to consult for him in this, that he might remain more corrected thereafter. And if he had wished to observe more diligently this benefit bestowed on him almost beyond precedent, he ought to have repented of his former error, not to have hastened with such headlong impulse to the priesthood as neither to observe the old solemnity, which especially ought to have been kept, nor to believe that he must abstain from an undue place.

Wherefore we have directed writings to your holiness and throughout the whole world, wherever and in whatever land the sound of the catholic religion has gone forth, dearest brothers, that you should not deem Tuentius and Ursus to be received into the communion of the Church, in whatever ecclesiastical grade, from which they are wholly anathematized. For they are said to be traffickers, which we have learned from the sentences pronounced in their condemnation by priestly authority, which they received in various regions. The rotten flesh must be removed from the holy body, and the sour and execrable leaven from the mass of sanctification. Concerning whom it was a matter of shame to write more, since it is no shame to them to have done such things.

We have ordered that the metropolitan bishop of the Arelatensians should have the principal authority, as he always has had (and the rest as in letter 1, chapter 2).

We admonish all, indeed, that each should be content with his own boundaries, for this barbarous and impious confusion—to presume upon what belongs to others—must cease. Concerning this matter, let them not come to us; and the rest of the chapter of the letter just mentioned. Given on the day before the kalends of October (in the year 417, September 22), in the consulship of Honorius Augustus for the eleventh time and Constantius for the second.

Letter 5b.

That the metropolitan of Arelate should have authority in the province of Vienne and in both Narbonenses to ordain bishops. Zosimus to the bishops of the province of Vienne and of Narbonensis Secunda, on equal terms.

Proculus has been detected as having usurped much against the ancient form in unlawfully performing the ordinations of certain persons, which we have recently discussed in a numerous inquiry. Although he himself, long awaited, bearing with distaste the delays granted to him, dissembles to meet with us. Yet that presumption moved us greatly, because in the synod of Turin, when something far different was being treated, he thought to be smuggled in to the injury of the apostolic see, so that by the begged-for obreption of that council he might procure for himself the power of ordaining priests as if he were metropolitan in the province of Narbonensis Secunda (Council of Turin, chapter [1] and 2).

And lest he alone, by impudently demanding things not owed, should seem to have brought insult upon this see, he took as his ally Simplicius of the city of Vienne, who with no dissimilar impudence demanded that the right of appointing priests in the province of the Viennenses be permitted to him as well. An indecent audacity, and one to be cut off at the very threshold: to extort from bishops assembled in council for certain causes that which, against the statutes of the fathers and the reverence of Saint Trophimus—who was the first metropolitan of the city of Arelate sent from this see—not even the authority of this see can grant or change. For among us antiquity lives with unshaken roots, to which the decrees of the fathers have sanctioned reverence. And because we command that interrupted matters return to their order, let the metropolitan bishop of the city of Arelate, dearest brothers, possess from Trophimus onward the sequence of ordination strengthened by time, with inviolable authority in both the Narbonensian and the Viennensian provinces. Given on the third day before the kalends of October, in the consulship of Honorius Augustus the eleventh and Constantius the second.

LETTER VI f.

That Hilary has no right to rely on for ordaining bishops in the first province of Narbonensis, and that he should not usurp anything from there for himself.

Zosimus to Hilary, bishop of the first province of Narbonensis.

We were greatly astonished, when your report concerning the ordaining of priests in the first province of Narbonensis was read to us as we were making diligent inquiry, that while you desire to consult your own assertion and wishes, you have, with the truth set aside, colored your report under the appearance of honesty, asserting that priests ought not to be made by another in a foreign province: although you ought certainly to have suggested, not what seemed right to you, but what the ancient custom held. And therefore, having set aside that which you are proven to have obtained from the apostolic see by surreption, because it is sufficiently established that it was granted by ancient institution to the priest of the church of Arelate, that he should make bishops not only in the province of Viennensis, but also throughout the two provinces of Narbonensis. For Trophimus, a priest of holy memory, once sent by the apostolic see to the city of Arelate, was the first to show to those regions the reverence of so great a name, and not undeservedly passed on to others the authority he had received; and this custom of ordaining, and the pontificate of that place which he first and justly obtained, preserved down to the present time, is approved by the records kept among us and by the testimonies of many of our fellow priests.

Therefore, although the acts which have been held in the apostolic see alone could have sufficed, nevertheless we also bind you by this authority, so that you may know that a limit of just prescription has been set against your presumption, which you seemed to have exalted contrary to ancient custom, and so that you do not think that the pontificate of ordaining priests is any longer to be claimed by you: since you see this conferred on the bishop of the city of Arles both through the apostolic see, and through the reverence of Saint Trophimus, and through ancient custom, and by our recent most evident definition. If, dearest brother, you attempt anything against these things which have been established by us under the judgment of God: not only will those whom you believe should be made bishops be unable to obtain the episcopate, but you yourself also, separated from the catholic communion, will groan too late over unlawful presumptions. Given on the sixth day before the kalends of October, in the consulship of Honorius Augustus for the eleventh time and Constantius for the second.

EPISTLE VII.

The metropolitan dignity usurped by Proculus is asserted for Patroclus. It is his right to give letters of authorization to anyone from the clergy of Gaul. Hasty ordinations and those by leaps are forbidden.

Zosimus to Patroclus, bishop of Arelate.

What I have decreed concerning the condemnation of Proculus, your own conscience holds, since you were present at my examination; nor is the authority of our acts hidden from you, or of the writings which we have sent concerning his condemnation through the diverse regions of the earth. Therefore consider the dignity and person of the metropolitan in yourself, even by the authority of the apostolic see: into which place Proculus had stealthily crept, having usurped it through the undue action of a synod. Whoever, then, come from the regions of Gaul, from wherever they may be, under any ecclesiastical name or rank, let them know that, warned by you, they must send letters of authorization to us; otherwise they will have themselves to blame if, this solemnity being set aside, they have attempted to come to us ineffectively without consulting you: which it will be fitting to be observed by bishops all the way down to the lowest rank of the clergy, dearest brother.

And because certain persons, coming to the Church from whatever military service, immediately by a kind of leap aspire to the highest place of religion, which is customarily deferred, after careful examination, for those who come step by step through ecclesiastical stipends: therefore, since we cannot invalidate what has been done in certain cases, those who have already been ordained shall have to remain in that grade to which they suddenly leaped. For if the Apostle commands that a neophyte not be at once elevated to the priesthood, and the statutes of the canons have sanctioned this same thing, we add this by our judgment: that whoever hereafter shall believe he is to be elevated either to the highest priesthood, or to the grade of presbyter, or of the diaconate, shall know that he also undergoes the loss of his grade, and that the things he conferred shall not be valid for him: so that at least fear of a precipitate ordination may deter those whom careful examination ought to have restrained. Let our writings come to the knowledge of all; so that you may know that not even this very thing is permitted to you, which is forbidden to all. Given on the sixth day before the Kalends of October, in the consulship of Honorius the eleventh time and Constantius the second.

LETTER VIII.

OR THE LITTLE BOOK OF PAULINUS THE DEACON AGAINST COELESTIUS, GIVEN TO ZOSIMUS THE BISHOP.

That Zosimus condemned the heresy of Coelestius, rejected the same man's calumny against himself, and at last approved his own faith, he rejoices; and he explains why he does not come to Rome. (This letter is to be read among the works of Paulinus, where you may see it below.)

LETTER IX.

That monks or laymen ought not to attain to the highest priesthood except through the ecclesiastical grades.—II. That if anyone has aspired to what is forbidden, he will be subject to the danger of the higher grade.—III. What times are fixed beforehand for each grade of the clergy.

Zosimus to Hesychius, bishop of Salona. Chapter I. 1. Your belovedness demands the precept of the apostolic see, in which the decrees of the Fathers agree, and you signify that certain persons from the common crowd of monks, whose solitude is greater than any multitude, but also laymen, are hastening to the priesthood. But this has been forbidden, it is established, specifically both under our predecessors and recently by us, by letters sent to the Gauls and the Spains, in which regions this presumption is familiar, although neither is Africa held alien from this admonition of ours, lest anyone (Dist. 36, c. 2, and dist. 59, c.

1) ...one who had not been thoroughly imbued with the Church's disciplines in order, according to the precepts of the Fathers, and trained in the divine stipends by the approval of time, should by no means presume to aspire to the highest priesthood of the Church: and not only should his ambition be held ineffective in his own case, but also in the case of those who ordained him, so that they should lack that order which they had believed could be presumed without order, against the precepts of the Fathers. Hence we are amazed that the statutes of the apostolic see were not brought to your beloved self. We therefore praise the constancy of your purpose, dearest brother, nor should any other kind of authority have been expected from the old censure of your pontificate, than that, established in readiness of faith, you should meet such ambitions in accordance with the precepts of the Fathers.

Therefore, if you judge that anything was lacking to your authority, which we do not think, we supply it. Resist such ordinations, resist the pride and arrogance that comes. The precepts of the Fathers are with you, the authority of the apostolic see is with you. For if secular offices defer the chief place to one who has not entered the vestibule of action, but has been examined through very many degrees by time: who is found so arrogant, so shameless, that in the heavenly militia, which must be weighed more carefully and, like gold, tested by repeated fires, he should desire at once to be a leader, when he was not a recruit before, and wishes to teach before he learns? Let him grow accustomed in the Lord's camps, first at the grade of readers to the rudiments of divine...

from the rudiments of service: nor let it seem beneath him to become in order exorcist, acolyte, subdeacon, deacon: nor by this leap, but at the times established by the ordinance of the elders. But let such a one come to the height of the presbyterate that both his age may fulfill the name and the merits of his probity be attested by his past service. Then by right he ought to hope for the place of the chief pontiff.

The excessive laxity of our fellow priests does this, who seek the pomp of a crowd, and think that from this throng some dignity is acquired for themselves. Hence everywhere a numerous popularity even in those places where there is solitude is sought out for such men, while they desire parishes to be extended, and to those to whom they can offer nothing else, they bestow divine orders. This ought always to be a matter of strict judgment. For every thing that is great is rare.

Chapter II.—4. Accordingly, that we might derogate nothing from the merits of your belovedness, we have directed our writings chiefly to you, which you shall cause to come to the notice of all our brothers and fellow bishops, not only of those who are in that province, but also of those who are joined to the neighboring provinces of your belovedness. Whoever neglects this, setting aside the authority of the Fathers and of the apostolic see, shall know that it is to be more strictly avenged by us; so that he may not doubt that the account of his own place does not stand for him, if he thinks that this, after so many prohibitions, may be attempted with impunity. For whatever is usurped so many times after it has been forbidden is done through a zeal for insult.

Cap. III.—5. But these times are to be observed in each grade. If one has given his name to the ecclesiastical ministries from infancy, let him remain among the lectors by continuous observance up to the twentieth year of his age. If he comes already grown and advanced in years, yet so that after baptism immediately, if he desires to be given over to the divine warfare, whether among the lectors or among the exorcists, he is held for five years; thereafter as acolyte or subdeacon for four years; and so let him approach the blessing of the diaconate, if he merits it; in which order he must remain five years, if he has conducted himself blamelessly. Thereafter, with the suffrages of stipends, through all the grades having been given the documents of his own faith, he will be able to earn the priesthood of the presbyterate. From which position, if a more exact life has led him forth to good morals, he ought to hope for the supreme pontificate. This law nevertheless being observed, that neither a digamist nor a penitent can be admitted to these grades. Of course, so that even the defenders of the church, who are made from the laity, may be held by the observance of the aforesaid, if they have merited to be in the order of the clergy. Given the ninth day before the Kalends of March, in the consulship of our lords Honorius for the twelfth time and Theodosius for the eighth time, Augusti.

LETTER X e

Against the daring and unlawful ordinations of Proculus.

Zosimus to Patroclus, bishop of Arelate.

Since you have learned this in the present matter, and have yourself been warned by our frequent letters, that by the authority of the metropolitan—which we have confirmed to you by the pronouncement of the apostolic see—you should oppose the daring and attempts of Proculus, by which he still thinks he can disturb certain matters, and should meet this by suppressing it, resisting with the rigor and censure which you undertook for the confirmation of the rules—seeing that you knew our office was delegated to you, and knew that he was condemned—I am amazed what is permitted to Proculus after these things, or what leisure he has to commit those things which he was accustomed to, or worse. Why do you not consider, dearest brother, whence you have this power of yours, as we have decreed and do decree, that whoever of them comes to our regions is not to be received without your letter of credentials, nor is anyone to be approved whom you yourself, being placed in the province, have not approved? After this delegation, rumor has come to us that Proculus, as if playing with his usual customs and using his own habits, has joined to himself certain men fit for disturbances, and after those things which we forbade him, has ordained. But let those know, to whose notice we wish this letter to come, that they can in no way be received who have been ordained either suddenly against the rules, or after we forbade him. Given on the third day before the Nones of March, in the consulship of Honorius for the twelfth time and Theodosius for the eighth time, Augusti.

LETTER XI j.

That another bishop be received in place of Proculus is entrusted to Patroclus.

Zosimus to the clergy, the order, and the people residing at Massilia.

I do not wonder that Proculus persists still with his accustomed shamelessness, and, having utterly forgotten modesty, daily commits things worthy of condemnation, nor ever desists, so that, though so often warned and forbidden, he does not cease. Behold, he confounds the assembly of your belovedness with his own disturbance, by which alone he is known; nor does he suffer the Church to be of one mind, since he always acts thus by his own offices, so that, heaping the last things upon the former, he may amend some evil that he had committed before into something worse. Since he himself is now not a bishop, he makes bishops, and as a human dispenser he says that he can bestow upon others what, once given to him undeservedly, he could not keep. Adding to himself and joining to himself men of a restless mind, and those who alone can favor a condemned man, through whom whatever he, as a lover of disturbances, devises, relying on this his fellowship, he may accomplish.

But I have care for you, dearest brothers, and I am grieved that whatever he does by his daily audacities, you, the Christian people, and those who persist in our charity, are able to endure it, and do not oppose his deeds or resist his attempts. Therefore, although I entrusted the care of you even in previous letters to your metropolitan of the province, our brother and fellow bishop Patroclus, nevertheless I again entrust it: that, safe by his counsel and formed according to the rule of discipline, obeying his nod, you may be able to receive a worthy priest. Given on the third day before the Nones of March (in the year 418, February 5), in the consulship of the Augusti Honorius for the twelfth time and Theodosius for the eighth.

LETTER XII d.

Zosimus, having explained many things by the authority of his see, informs the Africans that he has not given all credit to the words of Coelestius, as seemed to them, nor has he changed those things which were decreed concerning him by his predecessor.

Zosimus to Aurelius and the others who were present at the council of Carthage, most beloved brothers in the Lord, greeting.

Although the tradition of the Fathers has granted such great authority to the apostolic see that no one would dare to dispute its judgment, and it has always preserved this by the canons and rules, and ecclesiastical discipline, still running by its own laws, pays to the name of Peter, from whom it itself also descends, the reverence it owes: for canonical antiquity, by the sentences of all, willed that this Apostle should have such great power, from the very promise of Christ our God, that he should both loose what was bound and bind what was loosed (Matt.

...a like condition of power has been granted to those who, with his own approval, have merited the inheritance of the see; for he himself has the care of all the Churches, and especially of this one in which he sat; nor does he allow anything of privilege or any breath of judgment to waver, since he himself has established for it firm foundations of his own name, weakened by no movements, and which no one may rashly assail without danger to himself. Since, therefore, Peter is the head of such great authority, and the subsequent zeal of all the greater men has confirmed it, so that the Roman Church is established by both human and divine laws and by all disciplines, whose place we rule and whose name's power we also obtain—this is not hidden from you, but you know it, dearest brothers, and, as priests, you ought to know it—nevertheless, although such great authority was ours that no one can retract our judgment, we have done nothing that we did not of our own accord refer to your knowledge by our letters, granting these things to your brotherhood as those consulting in common, not because we did not know what ought to be done, or because we would do something that, coming against the utility of the Church, would displease; but we wished to have a discussion together with you concerning that man (namely Caelestius) who, as you yourselves say by your letters, had been accused among you; and he, asserting himself innocent, did not refuse our judgment, and by his former appeal came to our see, voluntarily demanding his accusers and condemning the crimes which he said had been falsely brought against him by rumor.

We believed and knew that every petition of his was set out in the earlier letters which we sent to you; and we believed that enough response had been given in those writings which you had written back to those matters.

But after the letter sent by Marcellinus your subdeacon, we unrolled the whole volume; and when it had at some point been read through, you took in the entire text of the letter as though we had lent Coelestius our endorsement in all things, and, with his words not examined, had given assent, so to speak, to every syllable. Never are matters that must long be treated rashly let slip; nor without great deliberation is that to be decided which ought to be adjudicated by the highest judgment. Therefore let your brotherhood know that we have changed nothing after those letters of yours which we received above, but have left everything in the same state in which it had lately been (namely, under Innocentius), when we indicated this to your holiness by our letters, so that the appeal which had been sent from you to us might be preserved. I have subscribed. Farewell. Given on the twelfth day before the Kalends of April, with Honorius Augustus consul for the twelfth time. Received on the third day before the Kalends of May.

LETTER XIII.

OR THE CONSTITUTION OF HONORIUS TO AGRICOLA THE PREFECT.

That a council of the seven provinces be held each year at Arelate.

(Since this letter concerns Pelagian doctrine, it is better placed among the monuments pertaining to heresy, which we shall gather above all at the very end from the inner volumes of this age.)

LETTER XIV.

OR THE COMMONITORIUM OF POPE ZOSIMUS TO THE PRESBYTERS AND DEACONS ESTABLISHED AT RAVENNA. Concerning certain rebellious presbyters, and those who had joined themselves to their company.

From the report of our brother Archidamus the presbyter, we have learned how you received them or what you did, and how those were received who, against the canons, wished to go to the Comitatus against us, daring with some temerity I know not what. To them we had long ago made these writings which we now send, responding to the letters which they had sent insultingly (Council of Sardica, cc. 8, 9, 10). But since they could not, being such, remain in their own—that is, in our Roman church—with our fellow presbyters, we have dispatched these letters to you to be delivered to them, in which by our decree we have sanctioned that the aforementioned disturbers of all should be alien from the communion of our apostolic see, and have received the sentence pronounced by our subscription. It is for your charity to judge how those also are to be regarded who wished to lend assent to this unbridled deed and design.

You ought to reproach them for this: that according to the precepts of the canons they boldly rushed forward and, in a manner unbecoming to presbyters, showed themselves rebellious. But we warn you that you ought to be on watch, lest the audacity of any of those whom the holy and apostolic Church knows to be anathematized break forth. As for those who have joined themselves to their company, what we ought to do we shall consider with better counsel when you have returned. (And in another hand:) Given on the fifth day before the Nones of October (October 3, in the year 418), in the consulship of the august Honoriuss for the twelfth time and Theodosius for the eighth.

LETTER XV.

or the Commonitorium of Pope Zosimus to his legates.

I. Concerning the appeals of bishops to the priest of the Roman Church.—II. Concerning the handling of the cases of presbyters and deacons before neighboring bishops, if they have been excommunicated by their own.

Zosimus, bishop, to his brother Faustinus and to his sons Philippus and Asellus, presbyters.

The matters entrusted to you are not unknown to you. Carry out all things as if they were ours—indeed, because our presence is there in you—especially since you can also have this mandate of ours, and the words of the canons, which we have inserted into this Commonitorium for fuller confirmation.

For so they said, dearest brothers, in the Nicene council, when they were decreeing concerning the appeal of bishops: “But it was decided that if a bishop has been accused, and the assembled bishops of his own region have judged him and deposed him from his rank, and he appears to have appealed, and has fled to the most blessed bishop of the Roman church, and has wished to be heard, and he has judged it just that the examination be renewed, he should deign to write to those bishops who are in the neighboring and nearby province, that they themselves may diligently inquire into all matters and decide according to the truth of the faith. But if the one who asks that his case be heard again has moved the Roman bishop by his entreaty to send a presbyter from his side, it will be in the power of the Roman bishop to decide what he wishes and what he thinks. And even if he has decreed that those who are present should judge with the bishops, having the authority of him by whom they have been appointed, it will be in his discretion. But if he has believed that the bishops are sufficient to put an end to the matter, he will do what he has judged by his most wise counsel.

But as to the appeals of clerics—that is, of the lower rank—what you ought to do is the clear answer of that same synod. And on this matter, what you ought to do, we believed should be inserted, which was stated as follows. Hosius the bishop said: “What still moves me, I must not keep silent. If some bishop, being quick-tempered—which he ought not to be—is swiftly or harshly stirred against his presbyter or deacon, and wishes to expel him from the church, provision must be made lest an innocent man be condemned or lose communion. Let the one ejected have the power to appeal to the neighboring bishops, that his case may be heard and more diligently examined; for audience must not be denied to one who seeks it. And that bishop who rejected him, whether justly or unjustly, should patiently accept that the matter be discussed, so that his sentence may either be approved or corrected, etc.” (Council of Sardica, c. 47).

To these was added the fourth chapter, concerning the excommunication of Bishop Urban, or even summoning him to Rome, unless he corrected the things that seemed to need correction (Boniface I, epistle 1, n. 2).

LETTER XVI.

On the rules of judgments being despised, to such a degree that priests are judged with laymen present, and a burden is imposed on the accused of seeking out his adversary and bringing him to trial.

Zosimus, bishop, to the bishops established throughout Byzacium, most beloved brothers in the Lord, greeting.

I am astonished that you show no reverence to the dignity of our name, nor defer such honor to the episcopate as ought to be preserved by those whose honor this is. Laymen sit to judge bishops, and you say that this is your council, where not a priest judges a layman, but a layman, by your permission, takes part to judge a priest. For a layman, however honored he may be, cannot flatter himself with any honor to such an extent that he would seem rightly to have taken part in what was an ecclesiastical institution. Add to this that the name of tax collectors or ship-owners is also inserted, and a judgment against a bishop is gathered from this assembly. Tax collectors sit, and a bishop is heard, and from such men doing what is not lawful you are heard. Who would not laugh at this—or rather, not grieve—when he sees the ecclesiastical rule tottering in such a way, and the force of the canons brought down to this? When and where is this shown to have been done? What age remembers the example, what priest has heard of it?

Since there are countless persons who, having cast aside the most distinguished honors, have so rejected worldly power that they preferred to endure even the least name of cleric, and to be judged without any ambition for their former dignity—and let there be a true and certain rule for judges. What do you wish concerning the consent of a lay judge? Or of a cleric who blushes at this name alone, without his former worldly glory—hear. What is it to you, if I may speak with indulgence to the flesh, that you sit with such men when you are about to judge?

But this seems to us not to be passed over, especially since no harshness of judgments has caused this, nor has any order remembered it, that the necessity of seeking out his adversary and bringing him to trial be imposed on anyone; when he who accuses ought rather to bring himself forward. Whence we have transmitted this in turn in writing to your charity through our brother and fellow bishop Numunianus. Farewell, brothers, and at the side: the sixteenth day before the Kalends of December (in the year 418, November 16), with Honorius for the twelfth time and Theodosius for the eighth time as consuls august.