The Acts of the Synod of Sinuessa

by name Urbanus, who was pontiff of the Capitol, and, filled with a multitude of soldiery, began to have an altercation with him about offering incense to the gods; and said to Marcellinus, bishop of the city of Rome: "If your Christ, whom you say was born of the Virgin Mary, what did the Magi, sent by Herod at the first light, offer him as gifts before himself? What were they?

Gold, incense, and myrrh, so that the priests might know by what means to appease him whom you say rose again and sits above." Bishop Marcellinus said to him: "They did not offer them to him that they might sacrifice to vanity, but rather that they might show him to be God and Lord Most High, whom they were denying." Urbanus answered to this, saying: "Let us stand together one night before our lords the most invincible emperors Diocletian and Maximian and the most clement princes, and I will put to you a question about the burning of incense." And coming on the day which they call the Vulcanalia, Urbanus said to him: "Let us make two little documents, one from each side, as it were petitions of increase, and let us bring them to the most clement princes." Both did as Urbanus had said, and coming to the most sacred princes they offered them.

Marcellinus therefore, bishop of the city of Rome, keeping the faith, preaching Christ, said to the princes: "What have I to do with you, princes terrible to the whole world, since the superstition of burning incense is vain?" But Urbanus said: "Speak to us and against the pontiffs, most clement and most invincible princes, since we fashion the god Jupiter and unconquered Hercules in bodily form, and we call Jupiter the heaven, the earth and sea together with Saturn measuring out the months?

Why then does this pontiff Marcellinus, like myself, not offer incense to your majesties?" Then Diocletian said: "Do not curse this man, since it does not trouble our clemency that he shows himself inflamed; but let us accept his counsel on both sides, since we have not approved that it be obscure to our serenity, nor to give sentence against the immortal gods." So Romanus and Alexander said secretly to Diocletian: "If you, lord and most invincible prince, hold this man by counsel with blandishments, you will keep the whole city populace in unity, and rebuke the nations through most faithful sacrifices." to the temple of Vesta and to Isis, he brought in the bishop. And when they had entered, there were with him two deacons, Gaius and Innocentius, and three priests, Urbanus, Castorius, and Juvenalis. When they saw him entering, yet not casting incense and offering it, all these fled to their fellow-priests, and found them in the Vatican of the Neronian palace, and told the thing which they had seen done.

But many Christians, going for the sake of the example of truth, departed, and saw him casting incense and offering it, and become a friend of the princes. Those who departed from him, that they might bear witness to the truth, are these: Bonosus, Maximus, Carpilio, Cyprianus, Olympius, Priscus, Hercules, Androphemus, Benenatus, Epiphanius, Crispinus, Victor, Theodolus, Alexander, Romanus, Bajulus, Quiriacus, Theodolus, Caritosus, Omitazio, Honoratus, Crescentio, Maximus, Probinus, Urbicus, Concordius, Neapolis, Refrigerius, Sebastianus, Calpurnius, Julianus, Epiphorus, Crispianus, Habetdeum, Crescens, Rapula, Cyprianus, Abeulius, Exquiro, Orphitus, Venerius, Carpulianus, Constantius, Ursus, Valentinianus, Priscus, Severus, Probius, Faustus, Antonius, Quirillus, Albulus, Pulsanor, Homobonus, Caritto, Tespias, Marinus, Fabius, Crispinianus, Herculentius, Petrus, Nonnosus, Honestulus, Auriclianus, Impeditus, Furinus, Domitianus, Agapitus, Ilimulus, Capillatus, Nepotianus, Concordius, Bonifacius, Reparatus, Jugundinus, Auxentius, Cyprius, Bonushomo, Corporalis, Sallustius, Origanus, Venerosus, Abundius, Tinulus, Major. All these were chosen men of the western scale, who bear witness, having seen this Marcellinus offer incense. Of presence. But indeed when you come to your own judgment, you shall be condemned out of yourself, and justified out of yourself; for you are judge, you the accused.

But as for the priests or deacons, since the pontiff who created them in the honor of the order of the priesthood or diaconate, and they abandoned the threshing-floor and emptied the granary, let them enter examination for proof, having lost their rank, since they emptied the granary. For the pontiff ought to have died with five rather than live condemned by his own judgment." Then the whole synod entered into the crypt of Cleopatra in the city of Sessa, and because the multitude could not be contained in the crypt, the synod entered in groups of fifty.

And they judged, yet they did not judge the pontiff: for on this they were unanimously agreed with one mouth, that within these seventy-two witnesses he himself should be judge, he himself the accused, he himself in their presence should either keep himself innocent or condemn himself as unfaithful; since in seventy-two of the western scale the year rises again in restoration. This deed then was a wonder, that there should enter, out of the testimony, such a case of one wife, having sons, just as also this man who, having a wife and sons, committed adultery against his wife, and gave his wife a bill of divorce.

And there entered others, ten, and then three more, saying: "We saw you offering and burning incense to Hercules, Jupiter, and Patusinus." Marcellinus said: "On what day?" One of them answered, and said: "On the day when you put off the purple and put on the scarlet, and Diocletian rejoiced over you, because a little before you had denied it, and before his tribunal you offered incense." Bishop Athanasius said: "Are these things which they testify true?" And bishop Petrus answered, and said: "Speak, you pontiff, and judge your own cause." And fifty bishops, who are mentioned above, subscribed to the fourteen men, who spoke with one mouth concerning the seventy-two, and confirmed the judgment. That, having lost their rank, they should enter the synod, behold there entered also fourteen witnesses, who said that they had seen Marcellinus offering incense.

One bishop named Sallustius answered: "Speak the truth before us." Petrus answered, and said to bishop Marcellinus: "Now hear, pontiff, and judge your own cause: for out of your own mouth you shall be justified, and out of your own mouth condemned: since all the members cannot be sound, if the head has become sick." Marcellinus answered, and said with a clear voice: "I did not sacrifice to the gods, but only burned grains of incense with raised hands upon the coals." All fifty presiding bishops rose up, saying to the fourteen witnesses: "What did you see this man doing? What is testified from his own mouth, as if speaking with one voice." And all fifty subscribed to the five testimonies of the fourteen men: so that twenty-eight were completed together with those before.

But one of the bishops, named Quirinus, said: "You have poured malice into your heart, pontiff, you who for eighteen years had guarded yourself so carefully in chastity; you have wounded, O bishop, all your members: therefore I will not withdraw from the whole entry of the synod: your whole purple heart." On another day these two hundred bishops determined that they too should enter the synod in groups of fifty. And a conference having been held together with the hundred who had gone before, three hundred sat together in that same city in one single examination, and they bound and condemned these—Urbanus, Castorius, and Juvenalis, priests, Gaius and Innocentius, deacons. Bishop Sebastianus answered: "This tribunal, by our word, by our handwriting, by our speech, by our aid, by our constancy and truth, in a fixed and clear arrangement of hearing, we present as a binding sentence.

For you shall not be justified by our mouth, nor condemned by our mouth, since your own tunic, which you formerly wore stitched together, is now cut apart out of your own heart and your own hands, to be wrapped up in your own sin, O Marcellinus, former pontiff of Rome." Bishop Urbanus answered bishop Sebastianus and said: "Let the witnesses, forty-four men, be brought in manfully, that the western scale may be filled out by many, since it was fashioned by many." And there entered as witnesses: Tranquillinus, Priscus, Bonus, Servulus, Cyprianus, Petrus, Quadratianus, Aresto, Tespius, Quadrus, Epiphorus, Maximus, Gordianus, Gaudiosus, Saturninus, Urbanus, Reparatus, Priscus, Venerosus, Romanus, Exsuperius, Crispianus, Barbarus, Leo, Forianus, Bacauda, Ambrosius, Terula, Johannes, Jubentius, Proculus, Octavianus, Romanus, Valerius, Iacinthus, Mellicianus, Petrus, Claudius, Exper, Probus, Nicorus, Probatianus, Ursinus, Urbatianus.

Now with all standing together in the assembly of three hundred bishops and thirty Roman priests, and the twenty-eight aforesaid witnesses, so that the scale might be completed: since twelve ounces in the scale will prove the reckoning, and in seventy-two compared the prelate will be condemned. Bishop Quiriacus answered, and said to Marcellinus: "You do not recognize the whole veil of your heart: judge your own cause, and tear, waste your own wasting. You shall not be judged by us: for by your own pontificate you shall be condemned, and by our testimony you shall have unfolded the boundaries: since we bring nothing against you as a charge, we defend nothing: but we condemn these, who emptied the temple, and abandoned the building constructed by hand above, so that wolves might enter, and make dens, and devour the spotless lambs, and make old those who had come from the old to the new.

But you we do not condemn, since out of your own mouth you shall be justified, and out of your own mouth condemned." But Marcellinus in the sight of the synod fell to the ground. And lying there, and while he delayed there, they condemned him. And the synod and thirty priests with a clear voice confirmed the document against Urbanus, Castorius, and Juvenalis, the priests, these being: Humanus, Capuanus, Castorius, Innocentius, Audax, Homobonus, Petrus, Quiriacus, Herculanus, Serenus, Johannes, Nepotianus, Cyprianus, Corporanus, Eusebius, Castinus, Victor, Matthaeus, Spesindeo, Virus, Vincomalus, Collecticius, Valentinus, Priscillianus, Julianus, Lucianus, Castorius; and these deacons: Hermes, Xystus, Petrus. And they subscribed to the condemnation of these five, Urbanus, Castorius, and Juvenalis, priests, and Gaius and Innocentius, deacons.

Then, in the midst of the three hundred bishops, Marcellinus, bishop of the City, his head wrapped in ashes, crying out with a clear voice, said: "I have sinned before you, and I cannot remain in the order of priests: for greed corrupted me with gold." And they subscribed to his condemnation, and condemned him outside the city. A priest named bishop Helciadis subscribed first to his condemnation, not only for the time that the order required, but also for time to come.

Which also he himself said with a clear voice: "Justly he is condemned by his own mouth, and by his own mouth he has received a solemn anathema: since he is condemned by his own mouth. For no one ever judged a pontiff, nor a bishop his own priest: since the first see shall be judged by no one." Now when this was heard, Diocletian, while he was in the war against the Persians, heard that three hundred bishops and thirty priests and three deacons had come together for condemnation. When all had subscribed, he himself, first of all, with his own hand, enclosed Marcellinus in his own anathema, subscribing to the anathema. But Diocletian, enraged, sent into that same city, and drew many bishops to the crown of martyrdom. Nothing else came of this, save that at first three priests and two deacons had been condemned. And Marcellinus the bishop was also condemned by his own judgment, on the tenth day before the Kalends of September, in the eighth consulship of Diocletian and the seventh of Maximian.