The Letters of Cornelius and His Correspondents

Cyprian to Cornelius his brother, greeting.

As was fitting for servants of God, and especially for just and peaceable priests, dearest brother, we had recently sent our colleagues Caldonius and Fortunatus; so that not only by the persuasion of our letters, but by their personal presence and counsel, they might strive with all their power, and labor, to unite the members of the divided body into the unity of the Catholic Church, and to bind together the bond of Christian charity.

But since the obstinate and inflexible stubbornness of the opposing party not only refused the bosom and embrace of the root and mother; but also, with discord growing and breaking out afresh for the worse, appointed a bishop for itself, and against the sacrament once delivered of the divine ordinance and of Catholic unity, made an adulterous and contrary head outside the Church; having received letters both from you and from our colleagues, and likewise with the arrival of those good men and our dearest colleagues Pompeius and Stephanus, by whom all these things were firmly and fully asserted and proved to us with common joy, in accordance with what the holiness and truth alike of divine tradition and ecclesiastical institution required, we directed our letters to you. But also, making these same things known to each of our colleagues throughout our province, we charged that brothers should likewise be sent from them to you with letters.

Although our mind and purpose had already been made manifest to the brethren and to all the people there, when, having recently received letters from both sides, we read your letters and made known to the ears of each one the ordination of your episcopate: mindful also of the honor we share, and maintaining respect for priestly gravity and holiness, we rejected those things which had been heaped together in the balance-sheet transmitted to us from the other side with criminal bitterness; considering and weighing alike that in so great a religious assembly of brethren, with the priests of God sitting together and the altar set up, such things ought neither to be read nor heard. For those things ought not readily to be brought forth and incautiously and rashly published, which by their contentious style would cause scandal to those who hear them, and confuse with uncertain opinion brethren placed far away and established across the sea.

Let those see to it who, serving either their own rage or their own lust, and unmindful of the divine law and holiness, either are eager for the time being to boast of what they cannot prove, and when they are unable to destroy and overthrow innocence, are content to sprinkle stains by lying rumor and false report. Certainly what befits those set over others and priests is that care should be taken that such things, when written by certain persons, be rejected by us. For where will that be which we learn and teach to be written: Restrain thy tongue from evil, and thy lips that they speak no guile; and likewise elsewhere: Thy mouth abounded with malice, and thy tongue framed deceits, sitting against thy brother thou didst speak evil, and against the son of thy mother thou didst lay a stumbling-block; and likewise what the Apostle says: Let no evil speech proceed from your mouth, but that which is good for the edification of faith, that it may give grace to the hearers.

Furthermore we show that these things ought to be done, when such things have been written by the calumnious rashness of certain persons, we do not permit them to be read in our presence. And therefore, dearest brother, when such writings against you and against the fellow-presbyter sitting with you had come to me; I ordered those things to be read to the clergy and people which sounded of devout simplicity, and did not resound with any barking of slanders and reproaches.

Moreover, that we desired the written testimony of our colleagues who had been present there at your ordination, we were not forgetting ancient custom and seeking something new. For it would have been sufficient that you should announce yourself made bishop by a letter; were it not that from the other side there was a discordant faction, which by its criminal and calumnious fabrications was disturbing the minds of very many colleagues and brethren alike, and confounding their hearts. To quiet this matter we judged it necessary that the firm and solid authority of our colleagues writing to us from there should be obtained: who, proclaiming by their letters testimony worthy of your character and life and discipline, removed from rivals also, and from those rejoicing in the novelty or wickedness of events, every scruple of doubting and dissenting; and, in accordance with our counsel weighed by wholesome reason, in this surge of wavering brethren they sincerely and firmly approved your priesthood.

For this above all, brother, we both labor and ought to labor, that we take care to maintain, as much as we can, the unity delivered to us by the Lord and through the apostles our predecessors; and, as far as in us lies, to gather into the Church those wandering and straying sheep whom the stubborn faction of certain persons and heretical temptation separates from their mother: those alone remaining outside who by their own obstinacy or rage have chosen to stay away and were unwilling to return to us, themselves about to render to the Lord an account of the separation and division made by themselves, and of the Church forsaken. Now as regards what pertains here to the case of the presbyterate of certain followers of Felicissimus, that you might know what was done here, our colleagues sent you letters subscribed with their own hand: what they heard, what they judged, what they pronounced, you will learn from their letters.

But you will do better, brother, if you also order the copies of the letters which I had recently sent to you to be read there for the sake of our common love through our colleagues Caldonius and Fortunatus, which I had written about this same Felicissimus, and about the presbyterate of the same, to the clergy there and also to the people, which set forth both the order and the account of what was done, so that both there and here the brotherhood may be instructed by us in all things. Moreover I have now also sent the same copies through Mettius the subdeacon sent by me and Nicephorus the acolyte. I wish you, dearest brother, always good health.

Cyprian to Cornelius his brother, greeting.

I judged it both devout and necessary, dearest brother, to write a brief letter to the confessors who are there, and who, led astray by the obstinacy and wickedness of Novatian and Novatus, have withdrawn from the Church, by which I might appeal to them out of mutual affection, that they return to their Mother, that is, the Catholic Church. These letters I ordered to be read by you first through Mettius the subdeacon, lest anyone should pretend that I had written something other than what is contained in my letters. I have charged the same Mettius, sent by me to you, to act according to your judgment in the matter, and if you shall think that the same letters ought to be delivered to the confessors, then to hand them over. I wish you, dearest brother, always good health.

I have read your letter, dearest brother, which you sent through Primitivus our fellow-presbyter, in which I found you moved, because whereas letters had been directed to you from the colony of Hadrumetum in the name of Polycarp, after we, I and Liberalis, had come to that same place, letters had begun to be directed there to the presbyters and to the deacons. We wish you to know and to believe for certain that this was done from no levity or contempt. But since several colleagues who had gathered together in one place had resolved that, with our fellow-bishops Caldonius and Fortunatus sent as legates to you, all things should meanwhile be held in suspense, until those same colleagues of ours returned to us with matters there either brought to peace or ascertained according to the truth; the presbyters and deacons residing in Hadrumetum, with our fellow-bishop Polycarp absent, did not know what we had agreed upon in common.

But when we came in person, and our plan was learned, they too began to observe the same as the rest, so that the agreement of the churches there assembled should not differ in any point. Certain persons, however, sometimes disturb the minds and spirits of men by their words, while they report some things otherwise than the truth stands. For we know that we exhorted each one who was sailing, rendering them an account lest they sail with any scandal, that they should acknowledge and hold the root and mother of the Catholic Church.

But since our province is more widely spread, having also Numidia and Mauritania joined to it; lest the schism made in the City should confuse with uncertain opinion the minds of those absent, it was agreed that, with the truth of the matter retained by us, and with greater authority made for confirming your ordination, then at last, when every scruple had been shaken from the hearts of each, letters should be sent through all those placed there without exception, as they are being sent, so that all our colleagues there might firmly approve and hold your communion, that is, the unity and charity of the Catholic Church alike. We rejoice that this has come about by divine providence, and that our counsel has proceeded with foresight.

For thus now the truth and dignity alike of your episcopate has been established in the clearest light and by the most manifest and firm proof, so that from the replies of our colleagues who sent letters to us from there, and from the report and testimonies of the fellow-bishops Pompeius and Stephanus and Caldonius and Fortunatus, the necessary origin, and just reason, and glorious innocence also of your ordination might be known by all: which, that we may administer steadily and firmly together with the rest of our colleagues also, and hold in the harmonious unanimity of the Catholic Church, divine grace will bring to pass; so that the Lord, who deigns to choose and appoint priests for himself in his Church, may also guard those chosen and appointed by his will and assistance, inspiring those who govern, and supplying both vigor for restraining the contumacy of the wicked, and gentleness for fostering the penitence of the lapsed.

I wish you, dearest brother, always good health.

Cornelius to Cyprian his brother, greeting.

Lest anything should be wanting to the future punishment of this wicked man, cast down by the powers of God, after Maximus and Longinus and Machaeus had been expelled from there, he rose up again; and as I indicated to you in my earlier letter, which I sent through Augendus the confessor, I think that Nicostratus and Novatus and Evaristus and Primus and Dionysius have already arrived there. Let all our fellow bishops and brethren be watchful—Nicostratus is guilty of many crimes, having committed frauds and robberies against his patroness in the flesh, at whose expense he had lived; it is true that he is reserved for eternal punishment, having taken away no small amount of deposits; Evaristus having been the author of schism, a bishop having been appointed in his place for the people over whom he had previously presided.

And he has here shown greater evils in his wickedness than those which he always practiced there among his own, so that you may know what sort of leaders and protectors this schismatic and heretic always keeps joined to his side.

Cornelius to Cyprian his brother, greeting.

As great as was the anxiety and distress we endured concerning those confessors who had been ensnared by the deceit and malice of a cunning and crafty man, and had nearly been deceived and estranged from the Church; so great was the joy with which we were filled, and we gave thanks to God almighty and to Christ our Lord, when they, having recognized their error and understood the venomous cunning of the malicious man, like that of a serpent, came back to the Church from which they had gone out, as they themselves profess with one heart, of their own simple will. And at first indeed our brethren of proven faith, lovers of peace, desiring unity, were announcing that the swelling of these men had already been softened: yet the evidence was not sufficient for it to be easily granted us to believe that they had been thoroughly changed.

But afterwards Urbanus and Sidonius the confessors came to our presbyters, affirming that Maximus the confessor and presbyter equally desired with them to return to the Church: but since many things had previously been done by them, which you also learned from our fellow bishops and from my letters, so that faith should not rashly be placed in them; it was decided that those things which they had communicated through their embassy should be heard from their own mouths and confession. When they had come, and were asked by the presbyters about what they had done, at last, concerning the fact that letters full of slanders and abuse had been frequently sent in their name throughout all the churches, and had disturbed nearly all the Churches, they affirmed that they had been ensnared, and had not known what was contained in those letters: only that they had been led about and had also committed schismatic acts, and had been authors of heresy, in that they had permitted hands to be laid upon him as though upon a bishop.

When these and other things had been reproached against them, they begged that these things be abolished and removed from memory. When therefore the whole matter had been brought to me, it was decided to convene the presbyterium (five bishops were also present, who were there that very day), so that with counsel confirmed, what ought to be observed regarding their persons might be determined by the consent of all. And that you might know the disposition of all and the opinion of each, it was decided that our judgments also should be brought to your knowledge, which you may read appended below.

When these things had thus been transacted, Maximus, Urbanus, Sidonius, and many of the brethren who had joined themselves to them, came into the presbyterium, with the utmost entreaties desiring that what had previously been done should pass into oblivion, and that no mention of it should be made; and that, as if nothing had either been committed or said, with all things mutually forgiven, they might now present to God a clean and pure heart, following the evangelical voice which says, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. What followed was that this whole proceeding had to be made known to the people, so that they might see established in the Church those whom they had long seen wandering and straying and had grieved over. When their desire became known, a great gathering of the brotherhood took place. There was one voice of all giving thanks to God, expressing the joy of their hearts with tears, embracing them as though they had this day been freed from the punishment of prison.

And to set down their own very words: "We," they say, "know Cornelius to be the bishop of the most holy catholic Church, chosen by God almighty and by Christ our Lord. We confess our error: we acknowledge that we have suffered imposition; we have been ensnared by treachery and talkativeness. For even if we seemed to have had some sort of association with the schismatic and heretic; yet our sincere mind was always in the Church. For we know that there is one God, that Christ is one Lord, we have confessed one Holy Spirit, that there ought to be one bishop in the catholic Church." Should we not be moved by this their profession; so that what they had confessed before the power of the world, they might confirm when established in the Church? Wherefore we ordered Maximus the presbyter to acknowledge his place: the rest we received with the great acclamation of the people. But all things we have remitted to God almighty, in whose power all things are reserved.

Therefore, brother, at this same hour, at this same moment, we have sent this writing to you, and I immediately dismissed Nicephorus the acolyte, hastening to go down to embark, from the station to you; so that without any delay, as though present with that clergy and in that assembly of the people, you might give thanks to God almighty and to Christ our Lord. We believe moreover, indeed we now hold it for certain, that the rest also who are established in this error will shortly return to the Church, when they shall have seen their leaders acting with us. I think you ought, brother, to send this letter also to the other Churches: so that all may know that the deceit and treachery of this schismatic and heretic is being emptied out day by day. Farewell, dearest brother.

You acted both with diligence and with affection, dearest brother, in sending Nicephorus the acolyte to us in haste, both to announce to us the glorious joy concerning the confessors who have returned, and to instruct us most fully against the new and pernicious machinations of Novatianus and Novatus for attacking the Church of Christ. For whereas the day before the harmful faction of heretical wickedness had arrived there, itself already lost and destined to destroy others who had agreed with it, the next day Nicephorus arrived with your letters.

From which we both learned, and began to teach and instruct others, that Evaristus had ceased to remain even a layman from being a bishop, driven out from his see and his people, an exile from the Church of Christ, wandering through other distant provinces, and himself having become a shipwreck of truth and faith, stirring up like shipwrecks among certain others of his kind: but that Nicostratus, having lost the diaconate of holy administration, having withdrawn ecclesiastical monies by sacrilegious fraud, and having denied the deposits of widows and orphans, had wished not so much to come to Africa as to have fled thence from the city with the consciousness of his robberies and unspeakable crimes. And now, a deserter and fugitive from the Church, as though to change one's region were to change one's character, he boasts and proclaims himself a confessor beyond measure; whereas he can neither be called nor be a confessor of Christ, who has denied the Church of Christ.

For since the Apostle Paul says: For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and they two shall be one flesh; this is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the Church: since, I say, the blessed Apostle says this and with his holy voice testifies that the unity of Christ and of the Church alike coheres in indissoluble bonds, how can he be with Christ who is not with the bride of Christ and in her Church? Or how does he take upon himself the care of ruling or governing the Church, who has despoiled and defrauded the Church of Christ?

For concerning Novatus nothing needed to be announced to us from there, since Novatus ought rather to be shown to you by us; always eager for revolution, raging with the insatiable rapacity of greed, puffed up with the arrogance and stupor of proud swelling, always ill-known to the bishops there, always condemned as a heretic and traitor by the voice of all the priests; always curious to betray, he flatters in order to deceive, never faithful enough to love, a torch and fire for kindling the flames of sedition, a whirlwind and tempest for making shipwrecks of faith, an enemy of quiet, an adversary of tranquility, a foe of peace. Finally, when Novatus departed from you there, that is, when the storm and whirlwind departed, there was in part quiet there, and the glorious and good confessors who, at his instigation, had departed from the Church, after he departed from the City, returned to the Church.

This is the same Novatus who among us first sowed the fire of discord and schism, who separated certain brethren there from the bishop, who in the very persecution was another kind of persecution to us for overturning the minds of the brethren. He it is who appointed Felicissimus his satellite as deacon, neither with my permission nor my knowledge, by his own faction and ambition; and sailing with his storm to Rome as well to overturn the Church, he attempted there similar and equal things, tearing a portion of the people away from the clergy, rending the concord of the brotherhood that was well knit together and loving one another. Plainly, since Rome ought to precede Carthage by reason of its greatness, he committed there greater and more serious things. He who there had made a deacon against the Church, there made a bishop. Let no one wonder at this in such men.

Evil men are always carried along, maddened by their own fury, and after they have committed crimes, they are driven by the very consciousness of their criminal mind. Nor can those remain in the Church of God who maintained neither the divine and ecclesiastical discipline in the conduct of their life nor the peace of their character. Orphans despoiled by him, widows defrauded, the monies of the church also withheld—these exact from him those punishments which we behold in his fury. His father also died of hunger in a village, and was not even buried by him after his death. The womb of his wife was struck with a kick, and the birth was forced out by a hastened abortion into parricide. And does he now dare to condemn the hands of those who have sacrificed, when he himself is more guilty in respect of the feet by which the son who was being born was slain?

He had long feared this consciousness of his crimes: on account of this he held it for certain that he would not merely be removed from the presbyterium, but also be barred from communion: and the day of inquiry was pressing upon the urging brethren, on which his case would be tried before us, had not the persecution come first. Which he, seizing upon with a kind of vow of escaping and gaining acquittal from condemnation, committed and stirred up all these things: so that he who was to be cast out of the Church and excluded, might forestall the judgment of the priests by voluntary departure: as though it were to have escaped punishment to have anticipated the sentence.

Concerning the other brethren, however, we are laboring, grieving that they have been ensnared by him, that they may flee the pernicious side of the crafty man, that they may escape the deadly snares of the tempter, that they may seek again the Church from which he deservedly was driven out by God; whom indeed, with the Lord's help, through his mercy, we are confident can return: for he cannot perish except one who is established as about to perish, since the Lord says in his Gospel: Every plant which my heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up. He who has not been planted in the precepts and admonitions of God the Father, he alone will be able to depart from that Church, he alone, forsaking the bishops, will remain in fury with the schismatics and heretics. But the rest will be united with us by the mercy of God the Father, and the indulgence of Christ our Lord, and our patience. I pray, dearest brother, that you may always fare well.

Cyprian to Cornelius his brother, greeting.

We profess that we have given and do give without ceasing the greatest thanks to God the almighty Father and to His Christ, our Lord and God and Saviour, that the Church is so divinely protected that its unity and holiness is not continually, nor altogether, corrupted by the obstinacy of faithlessness and heretical wickedness. For we have read your letter, and received with exultation the most abundant joy of our common desire: that Maximus the presbyter and Urbanus the confessors, together with Sidonius and Macarius, have returned to the Catholic Church, that is, having laid aside their error and abandoned the schismatic—nay, heretical—fury, they have returned in faithful soundness to the dwelling-place of unity and truth; so that whence they had gone forth to glory, thither they might return in glory; lest those who had confessed Christ should afterwards desert the camp of Christ, nor should those who had not been overcome by force and violence put to the test the faith of charity and unity.

Behold the integrity of praise unharmed and unspotted, behold the uncorrupted and solid dignity of the confessors: that they withdrew from deserters and fugitives, that they left behind the betrayers of the faith and the assailants of the Catholic Church. Rightly, as you write, did both the clergy and the people and the whole brotherhood receive them returning with the greatest joy: since in the confessors who preserve their glory and return to unity, there is no one who does not count himself a sharer and partaker of their glory. The joy of this day we can estimate from our own feelings. For when here, at your letter which you sent concerning their confession, the whole number of the brethren rejoiced, and received this news of common congratulation with the greatest gladness; what must it have been there, where the very event and the present joy was being enacted before the eyes of all?

For since the Lord says in His Gospel that there is the greatest joy in heaven over one sinner doing penance; how much greater is the joy both on earth and in heaven over Confessors returning to the Church of God with their glory and with their praise, and making the way of return for others by the faith and proof of their example? For this had led some of our brethren into error, that they seemed to themselves to be following the communion of the Confessors. With this error removed, light was poured into the hearts of all, and the Catholic Church was shown to be one, and unable to be rent or divided. No one henceforth will be able easily to be deceived by the wordy speeches of a raging schismatic; since it has been proved that good and glorious soldiers of Christ could not long be kept outside the Church by another's deceit and faithlessness. I pray, dearest brother, that you may always fare well.

But that you may know how that admirable one, long since burning with desire for the dignity of the episcopate, and concealing within himself this his rash ambition, lay hidden, while he put forward this veil of his madness, that from the beginning he had had the Confessors with him, I wish to relate.

Maximus the presbyter of our Church and Urbanus, who had twice obtained the most excellent glory from confession, and Sidonius also and Celerinus, a man who bore all kinds of torments most bravely through the mercy of God, and strengthening the weakness of the flesh by the fortitude of his faith, utterly conquered the adversary: these men therefore, when they had come to know him, and had detected the craftiness and duplicity in him, and his perjuries and falsehoods, and his unsociable spirit and wolf-like disposition, returned to the holy Church, and all his stratagems and wicked deeds, which he had long been concealing within himself and suppressing, they disclosed in the presence of a sufficient number of bishops, and of presbyters and very many laymen, lamenting and repenting that, having been persuaded by that deceitful and malicious beast, they had for a short time fallen away from the Church.

Then after a little he says: It is scarcely credible, dearest brother, what a variety and change we have beheld wrought in him within a brief space of time. For that illustrious man, who by certain tremendous oaths had given assurance that he by no means coveted the episcopate, suddenly appears as a bishop, cast into the midst as if from some machine. Indeed that framer of doctrines and champion of ecclesiastical discipline, when he attempted to arrogate and steal away beyond all right the episcopate not at all granted him by God, chose for himself two associates of desperate salvation, whom he might send into a small and most worthless part of Italy: so that from there he might deceive three bishops summoned thence, men utterly rude and simple, by a certain fraudulent contrivance, affirming and steadfastly asserting that they must set out for Rome as soon as possible, so that all discord that had arisen from whatever quarter might be settled through their intervention together with other bishops.

When these had arrived, men, as we have already said, of simpler character and not sufficiently versed in the arts and deceits of the wicked, shut in by certain men of like character to himself whom he had prepared for this purpose, drunk and heavy with wine at the tenth hour, he compelled them by force with a certain fictitious and empty laying on of hands to confer the episcopate upon him; and this, though it belongs to him by no right, he claims by treachery and fraud. Not long after, one of those bishops returned to the Church, confessing his sin with lamentations and tears. Him we, when the whole people present had interceded, received to lay communion. For the remaining two bishops also we have ordained successors and sent them to their places.

Did that champion of the Gospel then not know that there ought to be one bishop in the Catholic Church? In which it was not hidden from him (for how could it be hidden?) that there were forty-six presbyters, seven deacons, seven subdeacons, forty-two acolytes, and exorcists together with readers and doorkeepers fifty-two, widows together with the afflicted more than fifteen hundred, all of whom the grace and bounty of the Lord sustains. Yet neither so great and so necessary a multitude in the Church, so vast a number enriched and abounding with the resources of divine providence, together with an immense and innumerable people, deterred him from such desperation and audacity, and recalled him to the Church. Again, with other things interposed, he adds: Come then, let us set forth in order by what works or by what manner of life he dared to aspire to the episcopate.

Was it because from the beginning he had spent his life in the Church, and had undergone many struggles on her behalf, and had been in many and great dangers for the sake of religion? By no means: for the occasion of his receiving the faith was Satan entering into him and dwelling in him for a long time. He indeed, when the exorcists were ministering to him, fell into a very severe illness, and being thought to be on the very point of death, received it by affusion on the very bed on which he lay; if indeed a man of such a character is to be said to have received it. But neither after he recovered from the illness did he receive the remaining things which according to the rule of the Church are to be received, nor was he sealed by the bishop.

Not having received this, how could he have received the Holy Spirit?

And again somewhat later he says: He who in the time of persecution, out of fear and excessive love of life, denied that he was a presbyter. For when he was urged and entreated by the deacons to come out of the little room in which he had shut himself, and to assist the brethren, to the extent that it was possible and right for a presbyter to assist brethren who were in danger and in need of help: so far was he from complying with the entreating deacons, that he rather went away and departed in indignation. For he said he no longer wished to be a presbyter; for he was held by love and zeal for another philosophy. But passing over a few things, he again subjoins these words: For that illustrious man forsook the Church of God, in which after receiving the faith he was honoured with the presbyterate through the grace and indulgence of the bishop, who laying his hand upon him advanced him to the order of the presbyterate.

The whole clergy interceded, and many of the laity, on the ground that it was not lawful for one who, just as he also had been baptized by affusion on a bed under the pressure of illness, to be admitted to any order of the clergy. But the bishop requested that permission be granted him to ordain this one man alone.

Then he adds another deed, by far the most grievous of all those committed by him, speaking thus: For when the offerings had been made and he was distributing a portion to each, and handing it over, he compels the wretched men to swear instead of receiving a blessing, holding fast with both his hands the hands of the one receiving, and not releasing them until they have said these things under oath—for I will use his own words: Swear to me by the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you will never forsake me and return to Cornelius. And the wretched man does not taste until he has first called down a curse upon himself; and instead of saying Amen when receiving that bread, he says: I will return no more to Cornelius.

And after other things he again says: Know now that he is stripped bare and deserted, the brethren forsaking him day by day and returning to the Church. Whom also Moses the blessed martyr, who lately among us completed an excellent and admirable martyrdom, while he was still alive, perceiving his audacity and madness, cut off from his communion together with the five presbyters who had likewise separated themselves from the Church along with him.

And at the end of the letter he drew up a catalogue of the bishops who had come to Rome and condemned the folly of Novatianus, noting at the same time both their names and the diocese over which each of them presided; and he also mentions the names and cities of those who had not come to Rome but had signified their agreement with the aforesaid verdict by letter, noting from what city each had written. These things Cornelius wrote to Fabius, bishop of Antioch, making them known to him.

I have received your first letter, dearest brother, firmly maintaining the harmony of the priestly college and adhering to the Catholic Church: in which you signified that you do not communicate with Novatianus, but follow our counsel, and hold one agreement with Cornelius our fellow-bishop. You also wrote that I should transmit a copy of the same letter to Cornelius our colleague; so that, with all anxiety laid aside, he might now know that you communicate with him, that is, with the Catholic Church.

But thereafter there came another letter of yours sent through Quintus our fellow-presbyter, in which I observed that your mind, moved by the letters of Novatianus, had begun to waver. For whereas you had previously fixed your counsel and agreement firmly, you desired in this letter that I should write back to you what heresy Novatianus had introduced, or for what reason Cornelius communicates with Trophimus and those who had offered incense. Which indeed, if you are anxious out of concern for an anxious faith, and are solicitously seeking the truth of a doubtful matter, the solicitude of a mind agitated in the fear of God and held in suspense is not to be blamed.

Since however I see that, after the first opinion of your letter, you were afterwards moved by the letters of Novatianus; I set this forth, dearest brother, in the first place: that grave men, once founded upon a firm rock with solid stability, are moved—I do not say by a light breeze, but not even by wind or storm—lest a doubtful and uncertain mind, tossed about by various opinions as by certain blasts of assailing winds, be frequently agitated, and be changed from its purpose with some reproach of levity. What the letters of Novatianus may do to you, or in you, or in anyone, I will briefly set forth to you, brother, as you desired, the reason of the matter.

And indeed first, since you seem to have been moved also concerning my own conduct; my own person and cause must be cleared before you: lest anyone think that I have lightly departed from my purpose; and whereas I defended the evangelical vigour at first and in the beginning, I may afterwards seem to have bent my mind from the former discipline and strictness: so as to have thought that peace should be relaxed for those who have stained their conscience with libelli, or have committed abominable sacrifices. Both of which things were done by me not without long-weighed and pondered reason.

For when the battle was still in hand, and the contest of glorious strife was burning hot in the persecution, the strength of the soldiers ought to have been roused with every exhortation and with full force, and above all the minds of the lapsed ought to have been animated by a certain trumpet-call of our voice; so that they might follow the path of penitence not only with prayers and lamentations, but since an occasion was given for renewing the contest and repairing their salvation, they might rather be provoked by our rebuking voices to the ardor of confession and the glory of martyrdom. When therefore certain presbyters and deacons had written to me that some were immoderate and were pressing urgently to receive communion, I wrote back to them in my letter which is extant, and added this as well: "If they are in too great a hurry, they have in their own power what they ask, time itself granting them more than they ask.

The battle is still being waged, and the contest is celebrated daily: if they truly and firmly repent of what they have done, and the warmth of faith prevails, one who cannot be deferred can be crowned." Concerning what ought to be decided about the cause of the lapsed, however, I deferred; so that when quiet and tranquility had been granted, and divine indulgence permitted the bishops to assemble in one place, then, with counsel shared and weighed from the deliberation of all, we might determine what ought to be done. But if anyone before our council and before a sentence established by the counsel of all should wish rashly to communicate with the lapsed, he himself should abstain from communion.

This I also wrote most fully to Rome, to the clergy then still acting without a bishop, and to the confessors Maximus the presbyter and the others held in custody, now joined in the Church with Cornelius. That I wrote this you will be able to learn from their reply: for in their letter they set it down thus: "Although in so great a matter it pleases us what you yourself have handled, that the peace of the Church should first be awaited, and then the cause of the lapsed treated after counsel has been shared with bishops, presbyters, deacons, confessors, and likewise with the laity who stand firm." It was also added, when Novatian was then writing and reciting aloud what he had written, and when the presbyter Moses, then still a confessor and now already a martyr, was subscribing, that peace should be given to the lapsed who were infirm and at the point of death. These letters were sent throughout the whole world and brought to the knowledge of all the Churches and all the brethren.

According to what had been determined before, however, when the persecution had been stilled and the opportunity of assembling had been given, a large number of bishops, whom their faith and the protection of the Lord kept whole and unharmed, assembled in one place, and with the Scriptures brought forward at length on both sides, we balanced a measure with wholesome moderation, so that hope of communion and peace should not be denied to the lapsed altogether, lest they fail the more through despair, and, because the Church was closed to them, follow the world and live as pagans; yet on the other hand the discipline of the Gospel should not be dissolved, so that they might rush rashly to communion; but that penitence should be prolonged, and the paternal clemency entreated with grief, and the causes and intentions and necessities of each individual examined, according to what is contained in the document which I trust has reached you, wherein the individual heads of the decisions are written down.

And if the number of bishops in Africa should seem insufficient, we have also written to Rome on this matter to our colleague Cornelius: who himself likewise, having held a council with very many fellow-bishops, agreed with us in the same judgment with equal gravity and wholesome moderation.

About this it was now necessary to write to you: so that you may know that I have done nothing lightly; but that, according to what I had previously set forth in my letters, I deferred everything to the common counsel of our council, and communicated with none of the lapsed beforehand, when there was still that from which the lapsed might receive not only pardon but also a crown: yet afterward, as the harmony of the college and the usefulness of gathering the brotherhood and healing the wound required, I yielded to the necessity of the times and thought provision must be made for the salvation of many; and that I do not now depart from what was once agreed upon in our council by common deliberation, although many things are ventilated by the voices of many, and lies brought forth from the mouth of the devil against the priests of God are cast about everywhere to break the harmony of catholic unity.

But you ought, as a good brother and a like-minded fellow-priest, not to receive readily what the malicious and apostate say; but to weigh what your colleagues, modest and grave men, do, from the examination of our life and discipline.

I come now, dearest brother, to the person of our colleague Cornelius: so that you may know Cornelius more truly with us, not from the lie of the malicious and slanderous, but from the judgment of God who made him bishop: and from the testimony of his fellow-bishops, whose entire number throughout the whole world has agreed with harmonious unanimity. For as to what commends our dearest Cornelius to God and to Christ and to His Church, and likewise to all fellow-priests, with laudable proclamation, he did not arrive suddenly at the episcopate; but promoted through all the ecclesiastical offices, and having often merited God's favor in divine ministrations, he ascended to the lofty summit of the priesthood through all the degrees of religion.

Then moreover he neither sought the episcopate itself, nor desired it, nor, as others whom the swelling of their arrogance and pride inflates, did he seize it: but quiet otherwise and modest, and such as those are wont to be who are chosen for this place by divine appointment, out of respect for the virginal purity of his conscience and out of the humility of the modesty innate in him and preserved, he did not, as some do, use force to become bishop; but he himself suffered force so that he was compelled to accept the episcopate. And he was made bishop by the greater number of our colleagues who were then present in the city of Rome, who sent us honorable and laudatory letters, illustrious with their testimony of praise, concerning his ordination.

Now Cornelius was made bishop by the judgment of God and of His Christ, by the testimony of almost all the clergy, by the suffrage of the people who were then present, and by the college of the ancient priests and good men: when no one had been made before him, when the place of Fabianus, that is, when the place of Peter and the rank of the priestly chair was vacant. When this was occupied by the will of God and confirmed by the consent of all of us, whoever thereafter wishes to become bishop, let him be made outside; he must not have ecclesiastical ordination, who does not hold the unity of the Church. Whoever he may be, boasting much of himself and claiming very much for himself, he is profane, he is alien, he is outside. And since after the first there cannot be a second, whoever has been made after the one who alone ought to be, is not now a second, but is nothing.

Then moreover, after an episcopate not sought, not extorted, but received by the will of God who makes priests, what great virtue in that very episcopate he has undertaken, what strength of soul, what firmness of faith—which we ought with simple heart both to perceive fully and to praise—in that he sat undaunted at Rome in the priestly chair at that time when the hostile tyrant threatened the priests of God with things speakable and unspeakable; when he heard far more patiently and tolerably that a rival prince was being raised up against him, than that a priest of God was being established at Rome? Is not this man, dearest brother, to be proclaimed with the highest testimony of virtue and faith?

Is he not to be counted among the glorious confessors and martyrs, who sat for so long a time awaiting the executioners of his body and the avengers of the raging tyrant, who might assail Cornelius resisting against the deadly edicts and trampling with the vigor of faith upon threats and tortures and torments, either with the sword, or crucify him, or burn him with fire, or tear his flesh and limbs with some unheard-of kind of punishment? Even if the majesty of the protecting Lord and His goodness protected the priest whom He willed to be made, now that he was made as well; yet Cornelius, as far as pertains to his devotion and fear, suffered whatever he could suffer, and conquered the tyrant, afterward vanquished by arms and war, first by his own priesthood.

But as for the fact that certain dishonorable and malicious things are broadcast about him, I would not have you wonder: since you know this to be always the work of the devil, to tear the servants of God with falsehood, and to defame a glorious name with false opinions; so that those who shine with the light of their own conscience may be soiled by the rumors of others. But know that our colleagues have investigated and found most truly that he has been stained by no taint of a certificate, as some boast: and that he has not mixed sacrilegious communion with bishops who sacrificed; but that he has joined with us only those whose case has been heard and whose innocence has been established.

For also in the matter of Trophimus, about which you desired to have something written to you, the situation is not as rumor and the falsehood of the malicious has reported to you. For, as our predecessors have often done, our dearest brother Cornelius yielded to necessity for the sake of gathering our brethren. And since the greater part of the people had departed with Trophimus, when Trophimus now returned to the Church and gave satisfaction and confessed his former error with the penitence of entreaty, and recalled with full humility and satisfaction the brotherhood which he had recently drawn away, his prayers were heard; and into the Church of the Lord there was admitted not so much Trophimus as the very great number of brethren who had been with Trophimus: all of whom would not have returned to the Church had they not come with Trophimus accompanying them. After deliberation held there with very many colleagues, Trophimus was received, for whom the return of the brethren and the restored salvation of many made satisfaction.

Yet Trophimus was admitted in such a way that he communicates as a layman, not, as the letters of the malicious reported to you, as though he were usurping the place of a priest.

But also as to what has been reported to you, that Cornelius communicates indiscriminately with those who have sacrificed, this too arises from the fabricated rumors of apostates. For those who depart from us cannot praise us: nor ought we to expect to please those who, displeasing us and violently stirring up matters against the Church by soliciting brethren away from the Church—wherefore both concerning Cornelius and concerning us, do not readily hear or believe what is broadcast, most dear brother.

For if any are occupied by infirmities, as it has been decided, aid is given in time of danger. After aid has been given, and peace has been granted to those in peril, they cannot be choked by us, nor urged by our force and hand into the passage of death, so that, because peace is given to the dying, those who have received peace must necessarily die; since rather in this does the judgment of divine piety and fatherly gentleness appear, that those who receive the pledge of life in the peace that is given may here also, having received peace, be held to life. And therefore if, after peace has been received, a respite is granted by God, no one ought to charge this against the priests, since it was once decided that aid should be given to brethren in danger.

Nor should you think, dearest brother, as it seems to some, that the libellatici ought to be equated with those who have sacrificed, since even among those who have sacrificed both the condition and the cause are frequently diverse. For he who rushed at once of his own will to the abominable sacrifice is not to be equated with him who, after long struggle and conflict, came to this deadly act through necessity; nor he who betrayed both himself and all his own, with him who, himself going into danger on behalf of all, protected his wife and children and his whole household by undergoing his own peril; nor he who compelled his tenants or friends to the crime, with him who spared his tenants and farm-workers, and received into his own roof and lodging very many brethren who were returning as exiles and fugitives, showing and offering to the Lord many souls living and unharmed, who might intercede for the one that was wounded.

Since therefore there is great diversity even among those who have sacrificed, what harshness is it, and how bitter a severity, to join the libellatici with those who have sacrificed, when he to whom a libellus was accepted says: I had previously read, and had learned from the bishop's teaching, that one must not sacrifice to idols, nor ought a servant of God to adore images; and therefore, lest I do what was not lawful, when the occasion of a libellus was offered—which I would not even have accepted had the occasion not been shown—I either went to the magistrate, or sent another going in my place, declaring that I am a Christian, that it is not lawful for me to sacrifice, that I cannot come to the altars of the devil, and that I give this payment so that I may not do what is not lawful.

Yet even this man who has been stained by a libellus, after he has learned by our admonition that he ought not to have done even this—though his hand be pure and his mouth has been polluted by no contact with deadly food—yet that his conscience has been polluted, weeps upon hearing us and laments, and is now admonished of his transgression, and, deceived not so much by crime as by error, declares that henceforth he is instructed and prepared.

If we reject the repentance of those who have some confidence of a tolerable conscience, they are immediately swept away, at the devil's invitation, together with their wives and children whom they had kept safe, into heresy or schism; and it will be charged against us on the day of judgment that we did not care even for a wounded sheep, and that for the sake of one wounded we lost many that were whole, and that whereas the Lord, leaving the ninety-nine that were sound, sought one that was straying and weary, and having found it carried it on his own shoulders, we not only do not seek the lapsed, but even drive away those who come; and that while false prophets do not cease to ravage and tear the flock of Christ, we give occasion to dogs and wolves, so that those whom the hostile persecution did not destroy, we destroy by our own harshness and inhumanity.

And where will be, dearest brother, what the Apostle says: I please all men in all things, not seeking what is profitable to myself, but to many, that they may be saved. Be ye imitators of me, as I also am of Christ. And again: I became weak to the weak, that I might gain the weak. And again: If one member suffers, the other members suffer with it; and if one member rejoices, the other members rejoice with it.

The reasoning of the philosophers and Stoics is one thing, dearest brother, who say that all sins are equal and that a grave man ought not easily to be moved. But among Christian philosophers there is very great difference. And since the Apostle says, See that no one deceive you through philosophy and vain deceit, those things must be avoided by us which come not from the clemency of God, but descend from the presumption of a harsher philosophy. Now of Moses we read in the Scriptures that it was said: And Moses was a man exceedingly meek. And the Lord says in his Gospel: Be merciful, as your Father also has been merciful toward you. And again: They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. What medicine can he practice who says: I cure only the healthy, who have no need of a physician? We ought to show our help, our healing, to the wounded.

Nor let us think that those are dead, but rather that they lie half-alive, whom we see wounded by the deadly persecution; for if they were wholly dead, no confessors and martyrs would afterward be made from among them.

But since there is in them that which, with repentance following, may recover strength unto faith, and strength unto virtue is armed from repentance—which strength cannot be armed if anyone fails through despair, if one harshly and cruelly cut off from the Church turns himself to gentile ways and worldly works, or, rejected by the Church, passes over to heretics and schismatics—even if he afterward be slain for the name, having been placed outside the Church and divided from unity and charity, he cannot be crowned in death. It has been decided, dearest brother, that after the causes of individuals have been examined, the libellatici be admitted in the meantime, that the sacraments be given to them in their last hour: for where there is no public confession among us, nor can anyone be compelled by us to repentance, if the fruit of repentance be taken away. If he shall have come to the conflict first, strengthened by us he goes forth armed for battle.

But if before the conflict infirmity shall have pressed upon him, he departs with the consolation of peace and communion.

For we do not prejudge the Lord so as to prevent him, if he shall find full repentance and satisfaction of the sinner, from then ratifying what shall have been here decreed. But if anyone shall have deceived us with a simulation of repentance, God, who is not mocked, and who looks upon the heart of man, will judge concerning those things which we have less clearly discerned; nor does the Lord withhold the sentence of his servants; provided that we, dearest brother, ought to remember that it is written, A brother helped by a brother shall be exalted, and that the Apostle has said: Having regard each one also to yourselves lest you also be tempted, bear one another's burdens, and so you shall fulfil the law of Christ; who, rebuking the proud and restraining arrogance, sets down in his epistle: And he who thinks himself to stand, let him take heed lest he fall; and in another place: Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? To his own lord he stands or falls.

But he shall stand; for God is able to make him stand. John also proves that Jesus Christ our Lord is our advocate and intercessor for our sins, saying: My little children, these things I write to you that you sin not; and if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the propitiation for our sins. And Paul the apostle also set down in his Epistle: If when we were yet sinners Christ died for us, much more now, being justified by his blood, shall we be saved through him from wrath.

Considering whose piety and clemency, we ought not to be so harsh or hard, nor so inhuman in cherishing our brethren, but to grieve with those who grieve and weep with those who weep, and to raise them up as much as we can with the help and comfort of our love, and not to be so cruel and stubborn in repelling their repentance, nor again so loose and easy in rashly relaxing communion. Behold, a wounded brother lies, struck by the adversary in the battle. On one side the devil strives to kill him whom he has wounded; on the other side Christ exhorts that he whom he has redeemed perish not utterly. To which of the two do we stand by, on whose side do we take our stand? Do we favor the devil that he may destroy, and, like the priest and the levite in the Gospel, pass by the brother lying half-dead?

Or rather, as priests of God and of Christ, imitating what Christ both taught and did, do we snatch the wounded man from the jaws of the adversary, that we may preserve him, healed, for God the judge?

Nor think, dearest brother, that the courage of the brethren is thereby diminished or that martyrdoms fail, because repentance has been relaxed to the lapsed and hope of peace offered to the penitent. The strength of those who truly believe remains unmoved, and integrity, stable and strong, perseveres among those who fear and love God with their whole heart. For even to adulterers a time of repentance is granted by us and peace is given. Yet virginity does not therefore fail in the Church, nor does the glorious purpose of continence languish through the sins of others. The Church flourishes, crowned with so many virgins, and chastity and modesty preserve the course of their glory, nor is the vigor of continence broken because repentance and pardon are relaxed to the adulterer.

It is one thing to stand for pardon, another to arrive at glory; one thing not to go out of prison until the last farthing is paid, another to receive at once the reward of faith and virtue; one thing to be cleansed and purged for a long time by pain for sins and by fire, another to have purged all sins by suffering; one thing finally to hang in suspense until the day of judgment for the sentence of the Lord, another to be crowned at once by the Lord.

And indeed among our predecessors, certain bishops in this province did not think that peace was to be given to adulterers, and shut off altogether the place of repentance against adultery. Yet they did not withdraw from the college of their fellow-bishops, nor did they break the unity of the Catholic Church by the obstinacy of their harshness or censure; so that because peace was given to adulterers by others, he who did not give it should be separated from the Church. The bond of concord remaining and the indivisible sacrament of the Catholic Church persevering, each bishop disposes and directs his own course of action, being about to render an account of his purpose to the Lord.

I marvel, however, that some are so obstinate as to think that repentance is not to be given to the lapsed, or to consider that pardon is to be denied to the penitent, since it is written: Remember from whence thou art fallen, and do penance, and do the first works. Which is certainly said to one who has plainly fallen and whom the Lord exhorts to rise again through works, because it is written: Almsgiving delivers from death; and not indeed from that death which the blood of Christ once extinguished, and from which the grace of saving Baptism and of our Redeemer has freed us, but also from that which afterward creeps in through transgressions.

Time for penance is given, and the Lord threatens one who does not do penance: I have, he says, many things against you, because you suffer your wife Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants, to commit fornication and to eat of things sacrificed to idols, and I gave her time that she might do penance, and she will not repent of her fornication into the greatest tribulation, unless they shall have done penance from their works. The Lord would surely not exhort these to penance, unless because he promises indulgence to those who repent. And in the Gospel: I say to you, he says, there shall be joy in heaven over one sinner doing penance more than over ninety-nine just persons who need not penance. For since it is written, God made not death, neither hath he pleasure in the destruction of the living, he who wills that no one perish surely desires sinners to do penance and through penance to return again to life.

Therefore also through the prophet Joel he cries out and says: And now these things saith the Lord your God: Turn ye to me with all your heart, and likewise with fasting and with weeping and with mourning, and rend your hearts and not your garments, and turn to the Lord your God, for he is merciful and gracious and patient and of much compassion, and who turneth away the sentence pronounced against the wickedness inflicted. In the Psalms also we read alike the severity and the clemency of God, who at once threatens and spares, who punishes in order to correct, and when he has corrected, preserves. I will visit, he says, their iniquities with a rod and their sins with stripes. But my mercy I will not take away from them.

The Lord also, showing in his Gospel the goodness of God the Father, says: What man is there among you, of whom if his son shall ask bread, will he reach him a stone; or if he shall ask him a fish, will he reach him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?

Here the Lord compares an earthly father and the eternal and abundant goodness of God the Father: that if this earthly father, evil as he is, when gravely offended by his son, shall have seen him reformed and corrected by the pain of penance from the faults of his former life to sober and good conduct and to the discipline of innocence, both rejoices and gives thanks, and receiving him back embraces with the desire of paternal exultation what he had before cast away—how much more does that one true Father, good, merciful, and gracious, yea goodness itself and mercy and graciousness, rejoice in the penance of his sons, and no longer threatens punishment to those who now repent or mourn and lament, but rather promises pardon and indulgence. Hence the Lord in the Gospel calls those who mourn blessed, because he who mourns provokes mercy; he who is stubborn and proud heaps up wrath and punishment of the coming judgment upon himself.

And therefore, dearest brother, we have judged that those who do not do penance, nor testify the grief of their sins with their whole heart and by open profession of their lamentation, must be altogether barred from the hope of communion and peace, if in sickness and in danger they begin to make supplication; because it is not repentance for their sin but the warning of pressing death that compels them to ask, nor is he worthy to receive consolation in death who did not think that he was going to die. But as regards the person of Novatian, dearest brother, concerning whom you desired that I should write to you what heresy he had introduced, know that we ought not in the first place even to be curious about what he teaches, since he teaches outside. Whoever he is and of whatever sort he is, he is not a Christian who is not in the Church of Christ.

Let him boast as he will and proclaim his philosophy or his eloquence with proud words—he who kept neither brotherly charity nor ecclesiastical unity has lost even what he was before. Unless perhaps he seems to you a bishop who, when a bishop had been made in the Church by sixteen fellow-bishops, strives by ambition through deserters to become an adulterous and alien bishop, and while the one Church of Christ is divided throughout the whole world into many members, and likewise the one episcopate is spread out in the harmonious multitude of many bishops, he after the tradition of God, after the connected and everywhere joined unity of the Catholic Church, attempts to make a human church, and sends his new apostles through very many cities, so as to establish certain fresh foundations of his own institution, and whereas bishops have already long since been ordained in all the provinces and in individual cities, ancient in age, sound in faith, proved in tribulation, proscribed in persecution, he dares to create other pseudo-bishops over them.

As though he could either traverse the whole world by the obstinacy of his new enterprise, or sever the framework of the ecclesiastical body by the sowing of his discord—not knowing that schismatics always burn hot at the beginning, but cannot have growth nor increase what they have illicitly begun, but straightway fail together with their perverse rivalry; and that one could not hold the episcopate even if he had been made a bishop before and then fell away from the body of his fellow-bishops and from the unity of the Church, since the Apostle admonishes that we should bear with one another, lest we depart from the unity which God has established, and says: Bearing with one another in love, endeavouring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.

He therefore who observes neither the unity of the spirit nor the bond of peace, and separates himself from the bond of the Church and from the college of priests, can have neither the power nor the honour of a bishop, since he was unwilling to maintain either the unity or the peace of the episcopate.

Then furthermore, how great is the swelling of arrogance, how great the forgetfulness of humility and gentleness, how great the boasting of his arrogance, that anyone should dare or believe himself able to do what the Lord did not grant even to the Apostles—to think he can discern the tares from the wheat, or as though it were granted to him openly to carry the fan and purge the threshing-floor, to attempt to separate the chaff from the wheat; and whereas the Apostle says: In a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and of earth, he appears to choose the vessels of gold and silver, but to despise, cast away, and condemn those of wood and earth—when the wooden vessels are to be burned only on the day of the Lord by the fire of divine burning, and the earthen ones are to be broken by him to whom the iron rod has been given.

Or if he has set himself up as examiner of heart and reins and as judge, let him judge equally in all things; and since he knows it is written: Behold thou art made whole, sin no more lest a worse thing happen to thee, let him separate from his side and company the fraudulent and adulterers, since the cause of the adulterer is far more grave and worse than that of the libellaticus, since the latter sinned of necessity, the former of his own will; the latter, thinking it sufficient that he had not sacrificed, was deceived by error, while the former, an assailant of another's marriage, or having entered a brothel into the sewer and filthy abyss of the common crowd, has violated a body sanctified and a temple of God with detestable pollution, as the Apostle says: Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth adultery sinneth against his own body.

Yet to these also penance is granted and the hope of lamenting and making satisfaction is left, according to the same Apostle saying: I fear lest when I come to you I shall mourn many of those who sinned before and have not done penance for the uncleannesses which they have committed and for their fornications and lasciviousness. Nor should the new heretics flatter themselves in this, that they say they do not communicate with idolaters, since among them there are both adulterers and fraudulent persons, who are held guilty of the crime of idolatry, according to the Apostle saying: For know you this and understand, that no fornicator or unclean person or covetous man, which is a serving of idols, hath inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. And again: Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth, putting off fornication, uncleanness and evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is the service of idols, for which things the wrath of God cometh.

For since our bodies are members of Christ, and each of us is a temple of God, whoever violates the temple of God by adultery violates God; and he who in committing sins does the will of the devil serves demons and idols. For evil deeds do not come from the Holy Spirit, but concupiscences born of the adversary's instigation and of an unclean spirit compel one to act against God and to serve the devil. Thus it comes about that if they say one person is defiled by another's sin and contend by their own assertion that the idolatry of the offender passes to the non-offender, they cannot by their own words be excused from the crime of idolatry, since it is established by apostolic proof that adulterers and fraudulent persons, with whom they communicate, are idolaters.

But for us, according to our faith and the form given of divine preaching, the principle of truth holds that each person is held in his own sin and that one cannot be made guilty for another, since the Lord forewarns and says: The justice of the just shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him. And again: The fathers shall not die for the children, and the children shall not die for the fathers. Every one shall die in his own sin. Reading and holding this, we think that no one is to be shut out from the fruit of satisfaction and the hope of peace, since we know, according to the faith of the divine Scriptures, with God himself as author and encourager, both that sinners are brought to do penance, and that pardon and indulgence are not denied to those who repent. And O the mockery of frustrated brotherhood! O the fleeting deception of wretched mourners and of the senseless!

O the ineffectual and empty tradition of heretical institution!—to exhort to the penance of satisfaction and to withdraw from satisfaction the remedy; to say to our brethren: "Mourn and pour forth tears, and groan day and night, and work abundantly and frequently for the washing away and purging of your sin, but after all this you shall die outside the Church; whatever pertains to peace you shall do, but no peace, which you seek, shall you receive." Who would not straightway perish, who would not fail through despair itself, who would not turn his mind away from the purpose of lamentation? Do you think a farmer can work if you say to him: "Till the field with all the skill of husbandry, apply yourself diligently to its cultivation: but you shall reap no harvest, press no vintage, take no fruits of your olive grove, pluck no apples from your trees"?

Or if to one whom you are urging to the ownership and use of ships you say: "Purchase timber from the finest forests, brother; weave the keel with very strong and choice timbers, work at the nails, ropes, sails, so that the ship may be built and fitted out; but when you have done these things, you shall see no fruit from its voyages and courses." It is to block and cut off the path of grief and the way of repentance, so that while in all the Scriptures the Lord God encourages those who return to him and repent, by our harshness and cruelty, while the fruit of penance is intercepted, penance itself is taken away. But if we find that no one ought to be kept from doing penance, and that to those who entreat and implore the mercy of the Lord, according as he is merciful and gracious, peace can be granted through his priests, the groaning of those who mourn must be admitted, and the fruit of penance must not be denied to those who grieve.

And because in hell there is no confession, nor can exomologesis be made there, those who have repented with their whole heart and have made supplication ought to be received within the Church and reserved therein for the Lord, who is coming to his Church and will judge of those whom he shall find within it. But apostates and deserters, or adversaries and enemies who scatter the Church of Christ, even if they have been slain outside for the name, cannot, according to the Apostle, be admitted to the peace of the Church, since they kept neither the unity of the spirit nor of the Church.

These things, dearest brother, I have briefly run through in the meantime—a few out of many, as best I could—by which I might both satisfy your desire and bind you more and more to the fellowship of our college and body. But if an opportunity and means of coming to us shall be available to you, we shall be able to confer more things in common and to treat more fully and completely those matters that make for wholesome concord. I wish you, dearest brother, always to fare well.

I have read your letter, dearest brother, which you sent through our brother Satyrus the acolyte, a letter sufficiently full of brotherly charity, ecclesiastical discipline, and priestly judgment, in which you signified that Felicissimus, an enemy of Christ—not a new one, but one already long since suspended on account of his many and most grave crimes, and condemned not only by my sentence but also by that of very many fellow-bishops—had been rejected by you there, and that when he had come attended by a crowd and faction of desperate men, he was driven out of the Church with the full vigor which it befits bishops to exercise: from which Church he had already long since been driven out together with his like, by the majesty of God and the severity of Christ our Lord and Judge;

lest he, as the author of schism and dissension, as the defrauder of money entrusted to him, as the defiler of virgins, the despoiler and corrupter of many marriages, should any further violate the bride of Christ—incorrupt, holy, and chaste—with the disgrace of his presence and with his shameless and unchaste contagion.

But indeed, upon reading your other letter, brother, which you appended to the first, I was greatly astonished; for I perceived that you had been somewhat too much moved by the threats of those who had come; since, as you wrote, they had assailed you with the utmost desperation, threatening that if you did not receive the letters which they had brought, they would read them publicly, and would bring forth many shameful and disgraceful things, worthy of their own mouths. But if the matter stands thus, dearest brother, that the audacity of the most wicked is to be feared, so that what evil men cannot accomplish by right and equity they may achieve by recklessness and desperation, then the vigor of the episcopate and the sublime and divine power of governing the Church is done for; nor can we any longer endure or even be Christians, if it has come to this, that we should be terrified by the threats and snares of the abandoned.

For both Gentiles and Jews make threats, and heretics and all those whose hearts and minds the devil has possessed daily bear witness to their venomous rage with furious voice: yet we must not therefore yield because they threaten; nor is the enemy adversary therefore greater than Christ, because he claims and assumes so much for himself in this world. The strength of faith must remain immovable among us, dearest brother; and a steadfast and unshaken virtue must resist all the assaults and attacks of the barking waves, like the strength and mass of a rock standing in their way. Nor does it matter whence terror or danger comes to a bishop; one who lives exposed to terrors and dangers, and yet is made glorious by those very terrors and dangers.

For we ought not to think only of and look only at the threats of Gentiles or Jews; since we see that our Lord himself was detained by his brethren and betrayed by one whom he himself had chosen among the apostles; and that at the very beginning of the world, none but a brother slew the just Abel; and that a hostile brother pursued the fleeing Jacob; and that Joseph was sold by his brothers; and that we read in the Gospel that it was foretold that those of one's own household would be the greater enemies, and that those who had previously been united by the sacrament of unanimity would themselves betray one another. It matters not who betrays or rages, since God permits one to be betrayed and crowned. Nor is it a disgrace for us to suffer what Christ suffered; nor is it a glory for them to do what Judas did.

But what is this boasting, this swelling and inflated vaunting of those who threaten; to threaten one who is absent, when here they could not act against me present and in their power? Their insults, by which they daily lacerate themselves and their own life, we do not fear; the clubs and stones and swords which they brandish in their deadly words, we do not dread. Such men are murderers before God: they cannot kill unless the Lord shall have permitted them to kill. And since we must die once, they daily perish through their own hatred and words and crimes. But for this reason, dearest brother, ecclesiastical discipline must not be abandoned, nor priestly censure relaxed, because we are assailed with insults and shaken with terrors; since the divine Scripture meets us and admonishes us, saying: But the man who is proud and arrogant, a boastful man, shall accomplish nothing at all, who has enlarged his soul like hell.

And again: And the words of a sinful man, fear them not, for his glory shall come to dung and worms. Today he is exalted, and shall not be found; for he is turned to his own earth, and his thought shall perish. And again: I saw the wicked exalted, and lifted up above the cedars of Lebanon; and I passed by, and behold he was not; and I sought him, and his place was not found. Exaltation and inflation, and arrogant and boastful vaunting, spring not from the teaching of Christ who teaches humility, but from the spirit of Antichrist, whom the Lord rebukes through the prophet, saying: Thou hast said in thy heart: I will ascend into heaven, I will set my throne above the stars of God; I will sit on high, I will ascend above the high mountains toward the north; I will ascend above the clouds, I will be like the Most High.

And he added, saying: But thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the foundations of the earth, and they that see thee shall wonder at thee. Wherefore the divine Scripture in another place threatens an equal punishment to such persons and says: For the day of the Lord of Sabaoth is upon every injurious and proud man, and upon every one that is lifted up and lofty. Thus each person is immediately revealed by his own mouth and words, and whether he has Christ or Antichrist in his heart is disclosed by his speaking; according to what the Lord says in his Gospel: O generation of vipers, how can you speak good things, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. A good man out of a good treasure brings forth good things, and an evil man out of an evil treasure brings forth evil things.

Hence also that rich sinner who, while he is tormented in his sufferings and burned by the heat of the consuming flame, implores help from Lazarus placed in Abraham's bosom and set in refreshment, among all the parts of his body suffers punishment most in his mouth and tongue; because, that is, he had sinned more through his tongue and mouth. For since it is written: Neither shall the evil-speakers inherit the kingdom of God, and again the Lord says in his Gospel: Whosoever shall say to his brother, Thou fool; and whosoever shall say, Raca, shall be in danger of the fire of hell, how can those escape the judgment of the Lord who takes vengeance, who heap upon others not only upon brothers but even upon priests things far worse; to whom so great an honor is granted by God's condescension, that whoever did not obey his priest and judge here for a time was immediately put to death?

In Deuteronomy the Lord God speaks, saying: And whatever man shall act with pride, so as not to hearken to the priest or to the judge, whoever he shall be in those days, that man shall die; and all the people when they hear shall fear, and shall not act impiously even now. Likewise to Samuel, when he was despised by the Jews, God says: They have not despised thee, but they have despised me. And the Lord also in the Gospel: He that heareth you, he says, heareth me and him that sent me; and he that rejecteth you, rejecteth me, and him that sent me. And when he had cleansed the leper: Go, he said, and show thyself to the priest.

And when afterwards at the time of his passion he received a blow from the servant of the priest, and when it was said to him, Dost thou answer the high priest so?, the Lord said nothing contumelious against the high priest, nor did he detract anything from the honor of the priest; but rather asserting and showing his own innocence, he said: If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil; but if well, why dost thou strike me? Likewise in the Acts of the Apostles, when it was afterwards said to the blessed Paul, Dost thou thus revile the high priest of God?, although after the crucifixion of the Lord those men had begun to be sacrilegious and impious and bloodthirsty, and retained nothing any longer of priestly honor and authority: yet Paul, thinking of the very empty name and a certain shadow of a priest: I knew not, brethren, he says, that he is the high priest; for it is written, Thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of thy people.

Since so many and such great and numerous other examples precede, by which priestly authority and power is confirmed by divine condescension, what do you think of those who are enemies of priests and rebels against the Catholic Church, and are terrified neither by the threatening of the Lord who forewarns nor by the vengeance of the coming judgment? For heresies have not arisen from any other source, nor have schisms been born, than from this: that obedience is not rendered to the priest of God, and that one priest in the Church for a time, and one judge for a time in the place of Christ, is not acknowledged.

If the whole brotherhood were to obey him according to the divine teachings, no one would stir anything against the college of priests; no one, after the divine judgment, after the suffrage of the people, after the consent of the bishops, would make himself a judge not of a bishop but of God; no one by the division of unity would rend the Church of Christ; no one, pleased with himself and puffed up, would found a new heresy apart and outside, unless there be someone of such sacrilegious rashness and ruined mind as to think that a priest is made without the judgment of God; since the Lord says in his Gospel: Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing, and not one of them falls to the ground without the will of the Father?

Since he says that not even the smallest things happen without the will of God, does anyone suppose that the greatest and most important things happen in the Church of God without God's knowledge or permission, and that priests, that is his stewards, are ordained not by his judgment? This is to have no faith by which we live, this is to give no honor to God, by whose nod and will we know and believe that all things are ruled and governed. Plainly those bishops are not made by the will of God who are made outside the Church, who are made against the disposition and tradition of the Gospel: as the Lord himself sets down and says in the twelve Prophets: They have set up a king for themselves, and not through me. And again: Their sacrifices shall be as the bread of mourning; all that eat thereof shall be defiled.

And through Isaiah also the Holy Spirit cries out and says: Woe to you, apostate children, saith the Lord: you have taken counsel, but not of me; and have begun a league, but not by my spirit, to add sin upon sin.

For the rest (for I speak provoked, I speak in grief, I speak compelled), when a bishop is substituted in the place of one deceased, when he is chosen in peace by the suffrage of the whole people, when he is protected by God's help in persecution, faithfully joined to all his colleagues, approved to his own flock in the episcopate now for four years, serving discipline in quiet, proscribed in the storm with the name of his episcopate attached and joined to him, so many times demanded for the lion in the circus, honored in the amphitheatre by the testimony of the Lord's condescension: even in these very days in which I wrote this letter to you, demanded again for the lion in the circus by the clamor of the populace on account of the sacrifices which by a published edict the people were ordered to celebrate: when such a man, dearest brother, is seen to be attacked by certain desperate and abandoned persons established outside the Church, it is apparent who it is that attacks.

Not Christ, of course, who either establishes or protects his priests; but that one who is the adversary of Christ and the enemy of his Church, who for this purpose pursues with his harassment the one set over the Church, so that with the helmsman removed, he may rage more fiercely and violently amid the shipwrecks of the Church.

Nor ought it to move any faithful man who is mindful of the Gospel and who keeps the commands enjoined by the Apostle's warnings, dearest brother, if certain proud and contumacious men, enemies of God's priests, either withdraw from the Church or act against the Church in these last times; since both the Lord and His apostles foretold beforehand that such men would arise. Nor should anyone wonder that a master servant is forsaken by some; since the disciples themselves forsook the Lord Himself, who was performing great deeds and wonders of the highest order and confirming the works of God the Father by the testimony of His own acts. And yet He did not rebuke those who withdrew, nor did He threaten them severely; but rather, turning to His apostles, He said: Will you also go away? Preserving, that is, the law by which man, left to his own freedom and placed in the power of his own will, seeks for himself either death or salvation.

Yet Peter, upon whom the Church had been built by the same Lord, speaking for all and answering with the voice of the Church, said: Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life; and we believe and have known that thou art the Son of the living God: signifying and showing, that is, that those who have withdrawn from Christ perish by their own fault; that the Church, however, which believes in Christ and which holds fast to what it has once come to know, never wholly departs from Him; and that those who remain in the house of God are the Church; but that those whom we see not made firm by the steadfastness of wheat, but tossed about like chaff by the breath of the scattering enemy, are not a planting planted by God the Father, of whom also John said in his Epistle: They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us.

Likewise Paul warns us, when evil men perish from the Church, not to be moved, nor to let our faith be diminished by the defection of the faithless: For what, he says, if some of them have not believed, shall their unbelief make the faith of God of none effect? God forbid: for God is true, but every man a liar.

As for what concerns us, dearest brother, it befits our conscience to take care that no one perish from the Church through our fault. But if anyone shall have perished of his own accord and by his own crime, and shall have been unwilling to do penance and to return to the Church, we who have looked to his healing shall be blameless on the day of judgment, while those who have been unwilling to be healed by the wholesome benefit of our counsel shall remain in their punishments. Nor ought the reproaches of the lost to move us from departing from the straight path and from the sure rule, since the Apostle also instructs us, saying: If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ. It makes a difference whether one desires to win the favor of men or of God. If men are pleased, the Lord is offended; but if we strive and labor to be able to please God, we ought to despise the reproaches and curses of men.

Now as to why I did not write to you immediately, dearest brother, concerning that pseudo-bishop Fortunatus, set up by a few hardened heretics: the matter was not one that needed to be conveyed to your knowledge by us in haste, as though it were something great or to be feared; especially since you already knew well enough the name of Fortunatus, who is one of the five presbyters long since fugitives from the Church, and recently suspended by the sentence of our fellow-bishops, many and most weighty men, who wrote letters to you on this matter the previous year; likewise you would recognize Felicissimus, the standard-bearer of sedition, who is himself also contained in those same letters of our fellow-bishops previously sent to you: who was not only suspended by them there, but was also recently expelled from the Church by you there.

Since I was confident that these things were in your knowledge, and knew that they were fixed with certainty in your memory and discipline, I did not think it necessary to announce to you hastily and urgently the follies of the heretics. For it ought not to concern the majesty and dignity alike of the Catholic Church, what the audacity of heretics and schismatics may be plotting among themselves. For the party of Novatian is also said to have recently made for itself there a pseudo-bishop in Maximus the presbyter, lately sent to us as a legate from Novatian and rejected from our communion. Yet I had not written to you about this either; since all these things are to be held in contempt by us, and I had recently sent you the names of the bishops established there, who, sound and whole, preside over the brethren in the Catholic Church.

This was decided, by the counsel of all of us, to be written to you precisely so that a means of dispelling error and discerning the truth might be provided, and that you and our colleagues might know to whom to write and from whom you ought mutually to receive letters: but if anyone beyond those comprised in our letter should dare to write to you, you should know that he is either stained by sacrifice or by certificate, or is one of the heretics, that is, perverse and profane. Having thus obtained the opportunity through a most intimate man and cleric, by means of Felicianus the acolyte, whom you had sent with Perseus our colleague, among the other things that were to be conveyed from here to your knowledge, I also wrote to you about that Fortunatus. But while our brother Felicianus was delayed there either by wind or detained by receiving other letters from us, he was forestalled by Felicissimus hastening to you. For so crimes always hasten, as though they could prevail against innocence by their speed.

Through Felicianus, however, I informed you, brother, that Privatus had come to Carthage—an old heretic in the colony of Lambaesis, condemned many years ago for many and grave offences by the sentence of ninety bishops, and, as your conscience also is not unaware, most severely censured by the letters of our predecessors Fabianus and Donatus: who, when he said he wished to plead his cause before us in the council which we held on the Ides of May last past, and was not admitted, made that Fortunatus a pseudo-bishop for himself, worthy of his company. There had also come with him a certain Felix, whom he himself had once set up outside the Church in heresy as a pseudo-bishop. But also Jovinus and Maximus, companions of the heretic Privatus, were present, condemned by the sentence of nine of our colleagues for abominable sacrifices and crimes proved against them, and also again suspended by more of us in council the previous year.

Joined with these four was also Repastus of Suturnica, who not only himself fell in the persecution, but also cast down the greater part of his flock by sacrilegious persuasion. These five, together with a few who had either sacrificed or had guilty consciences, co-opted Fortunatus as their pseudo-bishop; so that, with their crimes consenting together, such a ruler there should be, as those are who are ruled.

From this, dearest brother, you can now also recognize the other lies which desperate and ruined men spread abroad there: so that whereas there were no more than five pseudo-bishops, from among those who had sacrificed or from among the heretics, who came to Carthage and set up Fortunatus as a partner in their madness, they nevertheless, like sons of the devil and full of falsehood, dared, as you write, to boast that twenty-five bishops had been present: which lie they had also been spreading beforehand there among our brethren, saying that twenty-five bishops were going to come from Numidia to make a bishop for them; in which lie of theirs, after they were detected and confounded when only five shipwrecked men suspended by us assembled, they sailed to Rome with the merchandise of their lies, as though the truth could not sail after them to convict lying tongues by the proof of a certain fact.

And this, brother, is true madness: not to think or know that lies do not deceive for long, that night lasts only until day dawns, but when day is bright and the sun has risen, darkness and gloom yield to the light, and the robberies that prowled through the night cease. In short, if you were to ask them for names, they would not have even those whom they might falsely name: so great is the poverty of evil men among them, that not even twenty-five can be gathered from among those who sacrificed or from among the heretics. And yet, to deceive the ears of the simple and of those far away, the number is inflated by a lie: as though, even if this number were true, the Church could be overcome by heretics, or justice by the unjust.

Nor ought I now, dearest brother, to do as they do, and run through in my discourse what they have committed and continue to commit up to this point; since we must consider what it befits priests of God to bring forward and write, and not so much pain as shame ought to move us to speak: lest I seem, when provoked, to be heaping up insults rather than crimes and sins.

I pass over therefore the frauds committed against the Church, I pass over conspiracies and adulteries, and various kinds of offences: that one thing, in which the cause is not mine, nor men's, but God's, I do not think should be passed over in silence regarding their wickedness; that from the very first day of the persecution, when the fresh crimes of the offenders were still hot, and not only the altars of the devil but still the very hands and mouths of the lapsed were smoking from abominable sacrifices, they did not cease to communicate with the lapsed and to intercede against the doing of penance. God cries out: He that sacrificeth unto gods shall be destroyed, save only unto the Lord. And the Lord says in the Gospel: Whosoever shall deny me, him will I also deny. And in another place the indignation and divine wrath is not silent, saying: To them ye poured out libations, and to them ye offered sacrifices; shall I not be angry at these things? Saith the Lord.

And they intercede that God should not be entreated, who himself testifies that he is angry. They intercede that Christ should not be appeased by prayers and satisfactions: he who professes that he will deny the one who denies him.

We in the very time of the persecution sent letters about this very matter, and were not heeded; having frequently held council, we decreed not only by our common agreement but also by threat, that the brethren should do penance, that no one should rashly give peace to those not doing penance; and those sacrilegious men against God, rash with impious fury against the priests of God, withdrawing from the Church and taking up arms of parricide against the Church, strive that the devil's malice may complete his work, and that the wounded may not be healed by divine clemency in his Church; they corrupt the penance of the wretched by the fraud of their lies, lest satisfaction be made to the indignant God: lest the one who was either ashamed or afraid to be a Christian before should afterward seek Christ his Lord, lest he who had withdrawn from the Church should return to the Church.

Effort is made that sins should not be redeemed by satisfactions and just lamentations, that wounds should not be washed away by tears. True peace is taken away by the lie of false peace, the saving bosom of the mother is closed by the intervention of a stepmother, lest the weeping and groaning of the lapsed be heard from their breast and mouth. The lapsed are moreover compelled further, that with the tongue and mouth with which they had previously sinned in the capitol, they should revile the priests; that they should pursue with insults and abusive words the confessors, and virgins, and also the just who are especially distinguished by the praise of faith and glorious in the Church. By whom indeed not so much the modesty and humility and shame of our people is struck, as the hope and life of those very persons is torn to pieces.

For it is not he who hears, but he who utters the insult, who is wretched; nor is he who is beaten by a brother, but he who beats his brother, a sinner in the law; and when the guilty do injury to the innocent, those who think they are doing it suffer the injury. Hence their mind is struck, their understanding dull, and their sense estranged. It is the wrath of God not to understand one's offences, lest penance follow, as it is written: And God gave them a spirit of stupor; lest, that is, they should turn back, and be healed, and be restored after their sins by prayers and just satisfactions. The apostle Paul sets down and says in his Epistle: They received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved; and for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie; that they all might be judged who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

The first degree of happiness is not to sin: the second is to acknowledge one's sins. There runs the integrity of innocence, whole and undefiled, which preserves; here follows the remedy which heals: both of which these men have lost by offending God, so that the grace which is received from the sanctification of Baptism is lost, and there is no penance remaining by which guilt is healed. Do you think, brother, that the crimes against God are light, the offences small and trifling, that through them the majesty of the indignant God is not entreated? That the wrath and fire and day of the Lord is not feared? That, with Antichrist threatening, the faith of the warring people is disarmed, while the vigour and fear of Christ is taken away?

Let the laity see how they deal with this; a greater burden rests upon the priests in asserting and maintaining the majesty of God, lest we seem to neglect anything in this regard, when the Lord admonishes and says: And now this commandment is for you, O priests: if ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart, to give glory unto my name, saith the Lord, I will send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings.

Is honour then given to God, when the majesty and judgment of God is so despised, that whereas he himself says he is angry and wrathful at those who sacrifice, and whereas he threatens eternal punishments and perpetual torments, it is proposed and declared by the sacrilegious: Let not the wrath of God be thought of, let not the judgment of the Lord be feared, let not Christ's Church be knocked at: but with penance removed, and no confession of the crime made, with bishops despised and trampled upon, let peace be proclaimed by not true presbyters in deceitful words; and lest the lapsed should rise, or those placed outside should return to the Church, let communion be offered by those who are not in communion?

For whom it was not enough to have departed from the Gospel, to have taken away from the lapsed the hope of satisfaction and penance, to have removed those entangled in frauds or defiled by adultery, or polluted by the deadly contagion of sacrifices, from all sense and fruit of penance, so that they should not entreat God, should not make confession of their crimes in the Church: to have set up outside for themselves, outside the Church and against the Church, a conventicle of a ruined faction, to which a crowd of those with guilty consciences and unwilling to pray to God and make satisfaction might flock: after all this, moreover, with a pseudo-bishop set up for them by heretics, they dare to sail, and to bring to the chair of Peter and to the principal Church, whence priestly unity has sprung, letters from schismatics and profane men, not considering that those are Romans whose faith was praised by the Apostle in his preaching, to whom faithlessness cannot have access.

But what is the reason for coming and announcing that a pseudo-bishop has been made against a bishop? For either they are pleased with what they have done and persist in their crime: or if it displeases them and they withdraw, they know where to return.

For since it has been established by all of us, and is equally fair and just, that the cause of each person should be heard there where the crime was committed: and since a portion of the flock is assigned to each individual shepherd, for each to rule and govern, about to render account of his conduct to the Lord; it is altogether fitting that those over whom we preside should not run about, nor by their crafty and deceitful rashness dash together the harmony of bishops cleaving together; but should plead their cause there where they can have both accusers and witnesses of their crime: unless perhaps, to a few desperate and ruined men, the authority of the bishops established in Africa seems lesser, who have already judged concerning them, and have recently condemned by the gravity of their judgment their conscience bound by many snares of offences.

Their cause has already been examined: sentence has already been pronounced upon them, and it does not befit the censure of priests to be reprehended by the fickleness of a changeable and inconstant mind, since the Lord teaches and says: Let your speech be, Yea yea, Nay nay.

If the number of those who passed judgment on them in the previous year be reckoned together with the presbyters and deacons, more were then present at the trial and inquiry than are those same persons who now appear to be joined with Fortunatus. For you ought to know, dearest brother, that since he was made a pseudo-bishop by heretics, he has now been abandoned by nearly all. For those who in times past had pretensions and deceits held out before them, and were given deceitful words—being told that they would return to the Church together—after they saw a pseudo-bishop made there, perceived that they had been frustrated and deceived, and they return daily and knock at the Church's door; yet we, upon whom the account must be rendered to the Lord, anxiously weigh and carefully examine who ought to be received and admitted into the Church.

For to some their crimes so stand in the way, or the brethren so stubbornly and firmly resist, that they cannot be received at all without scandal and danger to the many. For we must not so gather certain husks that those which are whole and sound are wounded: nor is that shepherd useful or prudent who so mingles diseased and infected sheep with the flock that he contaminates the whole flock with the affliction of a clinging evil. O if only you could be present with us there, dearest brother, when these wicked and perverse persons return from the schism! You would see what labor it is for me to persuade our brethren to patience, that, with the pain of their hearts soothed, they may consent to receive and heal the wicked.

For as they rejoice and are glad when those who are tolerable and less culpable return, so on the contrary they murmur and resist whenever the incorrigible and shameless, defiled either by adulteries or by sacrifices, and after all this still proud besides, return to the Church in such a way as to corrupt the good dispositions within. I can scarcely persuade the people—nay, I must wrest it from them—to suffer such persons to be admitted: and the grief of the brotherhood has been made more just by the fact that one and another, received through my indulgence despite the resistance and objection of the people, turned out worse than they had been before, and could not keep faith with their penitence, because they had not come with true penitence.

But what shall I say of those who have now sailed to you with Felicissimus, guilty of all crimes, sent as legates by the pseudo-bishop Fortunatus, bringing to you letters as false as he himself is false whose letters they carry; as manifold is his consciousness of sins, as execrable his life, as shameful—so that even if they were in the Church, such persons ought to have been cast out of the Church? In the end, because they know their own conscience and dare not come, nor approach the threshold of the Church, they wander abroad through the province to ensnare and despoil the brethren; and being now sufficiently known to all, and excluded on every side for their misdeeds, they sail even to you. For they cannot have the face to approach us or to stand before us; since there are most bitter and most grave crimes which the brethren lay to their charge. If they wish to experience our judgment, let them come.

In the end, if they can have any excuse and defense, let us see what sense of satisfaction they have, what fruit of penitence they bring: nor is the Church closed there to anyone, nor is the bishop denied to any; our patience and indulgence and humanity are ready for those who come. I desire all to return into the Church, I desire all our fellow-soldiers to be enclosed within the camp of Christ and the dwelling-places of God the Father: I remit all things, I overlook much, out of zeal and desire for gathering the brotherhood, I do not even examine with the full judgment of religion the offenses committed against God, and in remitting faults more than is fitting I myself almost offend: I embrace with ready and full love those who return with penitence, confessing their sin with humble and sincere satisfaction.

But if there are any who think they can return to the Church not by entreaties but by threats; or who suppose they can make an entrance for themselves not by lamentations and satisfactions but by terrors: let them know for certain that against such persons the Church of the Lord stands closed, and that the unconquered and strong camp of Christ, fortified under the Lord's protection, does not yield to threats. A priest of God holding the Gospel and keeping the precepts of Christ can be killed, he cannot be conquered. Zacharias the minister of God, who could not be terrified by threats and stoning, and was slain in the temple of God, furnishes and supplies us with examples of virtue and faith; crying out and saying repeatedly what we too cry out and say against heretics: Thus saith the Lord: Ye have forsaken the ways of the Lord, and the Lord will forsake you.

For because a few rash and wicked men, headstrong and forsaking the saving ways of the Lord, are deserted by the Holy Spirit for not doing holy things; we ought not therefore to be unmindful of the divine tradition, so as to judge that the crimes of the raging are greater than the judgments of priests, or to esteem that human efforts can prevail more to assail than what divine protection avails to defend.

Is it to this end, dearest brother, that the dignity of the Catholic Church is to be laid aside, and the faithful and uncorrupted majesty of the people placed within, and also the authority and power of the priesthood, that those constituted outside the Church should say they wish to judge the head of the Church; heretics a Christian, the wounded a sound man, the injured a whole man, the fallen a standing man, the guilty a judge, the sacrilegious a priest? What remains, but that the Church yield to the Capitol, and that, with the priests withdrawing and removing the altar of the Lord, idols and images with their altars should pass into the sacred and venerable assembly of our clergy, and a larger and fuller opportunity of declaiming and railing against us be afforded to Novatian; if those who have sacrificed and publicly denied Christ should begin not only to be entreated and admitted without penitence, but moreover to lord it over us by the power of their terror?

If they seek peace, let them lay down their arms: if they make satisfaction, why do they threaten? Or if they threaten, let them know that the priests of God do not fear them. For neither will Antichrist, when he begins to come, enter the Church because he threatens; nor is way yielded to his arms and violence because he declares that he will slay those who resist. Heretics arm us, while they think we are terrified by their threatening: nor do they cast us down in peace, but rather raise us up and advance us, while they make that very peace worse than persecution for the brethren. And we do indeed desire that they may not fulfill in crime what they speak in fury; and that those who sin in faithless and cruel words may not also offend in deeds.

We pray and beseech God, whom they cease not to provoke and exasperate, that their hearts may be softened, that, laying aside their fury, they may return to soundness of mind, that hearts covered with the darkness of sins may acknowledge the light of penitence; and that they may rather seek that prayers and supplications be poured out for them by the bishop, than that they themselves pour out the blood of the priest. But if they shall have persisted in their fury, and shall have cruelly persevered in their ambushes and parricide-like threats, no priest of God is so weak, so prostrate and abject, so feeble with the infirmity of human mediocrity, as not to be raised up divinely against the enemies and assailants of God, whose humility and weakness is not animated by the vigor and strength of the Lord protecting him. It matters nothing to us by whom or when we are slain, since we are to receive from the Lord the reward of death and blood.

Theirs is the condition to be wept over and lamented, whom the devil so blinds that, not thinking of the eternal punishments of Gehenna, they endeavor to imitate the coming of Antichrist now drawing near. And although I know, dearest brother, that by reason of the mutual love which we owe and show to one another, you always read our letters to the most flourishing clergy there presiding with you, and to the most holy and ample people, yet now I both advise and ask that what you do at other times of your own accord and honorably, you do also at my request, that when this my letter has been read, if any contagion of poisoned speech and pestilential sowing had crept in there among the brethren, all of it may be stripped from the ears and hearts of the brethren, and the whole and sincere love of the good may be cleansed by all from the filth of heretical detraction.

Moreover let our most beloved brethren henceforth strongly shun and avoid the words and conversations of those whose speech creeps like a cancer: as the Apostle says: Evil communications corrupt good minds. And again: A heretical man after one correction avoid, knowing that such a one 49 is perverse, and sins, and is condemned by himself. And the Holy Spirit speaks through Solomon: A perverse man, he says, carries destruction in his mouth, and lays up fire in his lips. Likewise he warns again saying: Hedge your ears with thorns, and refuse to hear a wicked tongue. And again: An evil man heeds the tongue of the wicked; but a just man pays no attention to lying lips.

Although I know that our brotherhood there, fortified by your providence, and also sufficiently cautious by its own vigilance, can neither be caught by the poisons of heretics nor deceived, and that the divine teachings and precepts prevail among them as great as is their fear of God: yet our solicitude or charity, out of abundance, has persuaded us to write these things to you, that no dealings be joined with such persons, no banquets or conversations be mingled with the wicked, and that we be as separated from them as they are fugitives from the Church; because it is written: But if he shall also despise the Church, let him be to thee as a heathen and a publican: and the blessed Apostle not only advises but also commands that we withdraw from such persons. We command you, he says, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw from all brethren walking disorderly and not according to the tradition which they received from us. No fellowship of faith and faithlessness can exist.

He who is not with Christ, who is an adversary of Christ, who is an enemy of his unity and peace, cannot dwell together with us. If they come with prayers and satisfactions, let them be heard: if they bring curses and threats, let them be rejected. I desire you, dearest brother, always to fare well.

We have learned, dearest brother, the glorious testimonies of your faith and virtue: and we have received the honor of your confession with such exultation that we count ourselves also as sharers and partners in your merits and praises. For since the Church is one for us, and our mind is joined, and our concord is indivisible; what priest does not rejoice in the praises of his fellow-priest as in his own? Or what brotherhood does not rejoice everywhere in the joy of the brethren?

It cannot be sufficiently expressed how great was the exultation there and how great the joy, when we had learned prosperous and brave things of you—that you had stood forth there as the leader of confession for the brethren; but also that the confession of the leader had grown from the confession of the brethren; so that while you went before to glory, you made many companions of glory, and persuaded the people to become confessors, while you yourself were the first ready to confess for all: so that we find not what we ought first to proclaim in you, whether your prompt and steadfast faith, or the inseparable charity of the brethren. The virtue of the bishop going before was publicly proved, the unity of the following brotherhood was shown. While there is one mind and one voice among you, the whole Roman Church has made confession.

The faith which the blessed Apostle proclaimed concerning you has shone forth, dearest brother. He foresaw in the spirit even then this praise of virtue and this firmness of strength, and bearing witness to your merits by the proclamation of things to come, while he praised the parents he was stirring up the children. By being so united, by being so strong, you have given great examples of unity and fortitude to the other brethren. You have taught them greatly to fear God, to cleave firmly to Christ, for the people to be joined to their priests in time of danger, for brethren not to be separated from brethren in persecution; that concord joined together can in no wise be overcome; that whatever is sought together by all, God of peace grants to the peaceable.

The adversary had leapt forth with violent terror to throw the camp of Christ into confusion; but with the same force with which he came, he was driven back; and as great as was the dread and terror he brought, so great was the fortitude and strength that were found. He had believed he could again trip up the servants of God, and shake them after his usual manner as though they were raw recruits and novices, as if less prepared and less cautious. Attacking one first, he had tried, as a wolf to cut off a sheep from the flock, as a hawk to separate a dove from a flight of birds; for he who has not strength enough against all seeks to ensnare the solitude of individuals.

But repulsed by the faith and vigor alike of the united army, he understood that the soldiers of Christ were now watchfully sober, and standing armed for battle; that they could not be conquered, though they could die; and that by this very fact they were unconquered, because they do not fear to die; nor do they fight back against those who attack them, since it is not lawful for the innocent to kill even the guilty, but they readily surrender both their souls and their blood: so that, since such great wickedness and savagery rages in the world, they may the more swiftly depart from the wicked and the savage. What a glorious spectacle was that before the eyes of God? What joy for Christ and for His Church, that against the battle which the enemy had attempted to bring on, not individual soldiers but the whole camp at once went forth? For it is established that all would have come, had they been able to hear; since whoever heard came hastening and came forward.

How many there who had lapsed were restored by a glorious confession? The strong stood firm, and made stronger for battle by the very pain of repentance: so that it appears they were lately taken by surprise, and had trembled with fear at something new and unaccustomed; that true faith returned to them afterward, and that they had gathered their strength from the fear of God and steadfastly and firmly fortified it for all endurance, and that they now stand no longer for the pardon of a crime, but for the crown of suffering.

What of Novatian in the face of all this, dearest brother? Does he now lay aside his error? Or rather, as is the way of madmen, has he been driven to yet greater fury by our very blessings and prosperity; and the more the glory of love and faith grows here, the more the madness of dissension and jealousy breaks out afresh there; and the wretch does not tend his own wound, but still more grievously wounds both himself and his followers; his tongue clamoring for the ruin of the brethren, and hurling the darts of his poisoned eloquence; more hardened by the perversity of worldly philosophy than made peaceable by the gentleness of the Lord's philosophy; deserter of the Church, enemy of mercy, slayer of repentance, teacher of pride, corruptor of truth, destroyer of charity? Does he now recognize who is the priest of God, what is the Church and the house of Christ, who are the servants of God whom the devil assails, who are the Christians whom Antichrist attacks?

For he does not seek those whom he has already subdued, nor does he eagerly overthrow those whom he has already made his own. The enemy and foe of the Church despises as captives and prisoners those whom he has alienated from the Church and led outside, and passes them by, and presses on to harass those in whom he perceives Christ to dwell.

And yet even if any one of such persons shall have been seized, he has no reason to flatter himself as though in the confession of the Name: since it is established that if persons of that kind are slain outside the Church, theirs is not the crown of faith, but rather the punishment of faithlessness; and that those whom we see to have departed from the peaceful and divine house in the fury of discord will not dwell in the house of God among the united.

We exhort you plainly, as much as we are able, dearest brother, by the mutual charity with which we cleave to one another, that since we are instructed by the providence of the Lord as He warns us, and are admonished by the wholesome counsels of divine mercy that the day of our contest and struggle is now drawing near, we should not cease to press on with fasting, vigils, and prayers together with all the people, and should apply ourselves to continual groaning and frequent supplications. For these are our heavenly weapons, which cause us to stand and to persevere with fortitude: these are the spiritual defenses and divine arms which protect us. Let us be mindful of one another, united and of one mind, let us always pray on both sides for one another, let us relieve pressures and distresses with mutual charity.

And if any one of us from this side shall have gone before by the swiftness of divine favor, let our love for our brethren and sisters persevere before the Lord, and let prayer on our behalf not cease before the mercy of the Father. I desire that you, dearest brother, may always fare well.