Free English Translation
The Dubious Letters and Decrees of Pope Eutychian
Epistola et Decreta Dubia
12 chapters · ~28 min read · by Pope Eutychian
About The Dubious Letters and Decrees of Pope Eutychian
This collection of letters and decrees is traditionally printed under the name of Pope Eutychian, who occupied the Roman see in the late third century, but the pieces themselves are later compositions of uncertain authorship and date, not genuine writings of the historical pope. The first letter, addressed to the bishops of the province of Baetica, gives an extended defense of the Incarnation, insisting that Christ is fully God and fully man against those who would deny either nature. A second letter, to the bishops of Sicily, sets out rules for how accusations against clergy are to be judged. Ten further decrees follow, touching drunkenness, penance for perjury, mutilation and arson, marriage after baptism, the unauthorized veiling of virgins and widows, and the synodal oath.
By Pope Eutychian. Collected in Patrologia Latina, Volume 5.
In this work
Letter I. To John and to All the Bishops of the Province of Boetica. On the faith of the Incarnation of the Lord
The equity of your request urges us to grant thanks to the desire of your fraternity, and to reply briefly to your consultations.
And although I know your charity to be devoted to every good work, yet so that it may be made more effective toward those who do not think soundly, we direct you as to how you ought to instruct them concerning the incarnation of our Saviour. This one immovable foundation, this one blessed rock of faith, confessed by the mouth of Peter: Thou art, he said, Christ the Son of the living God, sustains within itself as many proofs of truth as there are questions of perversity and calumnies of unbelief that shall be stirred up. Let the dispensation of the paternal will be in the remaining matters. Therefore birth and body, and thereafter the cross, death, hell—these are our salvation; for on account of the human race the Son of God was born of the Virgin and the Holy Spirit, having been incarnate at that very time by the power of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the blessed Virgin Mary, and through this the divine nature was in no way changed.
Serving Him in this operation, and His own power—that is, God's—overshadowing, He sowed for Himself the beginnings of a body and established the origins of flesh, so that, made man from a virgin, He might receive in Himself the nature of flesh, through which, by the fellowship of this union, the body of the entire human race might exist sanctified in Him. And just as all are founded in Him through the fact that He willed Himself to be corporeal, so in turn He Himself is referred back into all through that which in Him is invisible. Therefore the invisible image of God did not refuse the shame of human origin, and passed through conception, birth, wailing, and the cradle, and all the indignities of our nature. What in the end shall be rendered by us as worthy recompense for the affection of so great a condescension?
Therefore the only-begotten God, of origin ineffable from God, inserted into the form of a human body in the womb of the holy Virgin, grows; He who contains all things, within whom and through whom all things exist, is brought forth by the law of human birth. At whose voice archangels and angels tremble, heaven and earth and all the elements of this world are dissolved, the wailing of infancy is heard. He who is invisible and incomprehensible, not to be governed by sight, sense, or touch, is wrapped in swaddling clothes. If anyone considers these things unworthy of God, he confesses himself the more indebted for so great a benefit, the less these things befitted the majesty of God. He had no need to be made man through whom man was made; but we had need that God should become flesh and dwell among us, that is, by the assumption of flesh, He alone might dwell inwardly within all flesh. His humility is our nobility; His shame is our honour.
What He is—God subsisting in flesh—that in turn we are, renewed from flesh into God. Plainly he does not know his own life, who does not acknowledge Christ Jesus as true God and likewise true man. And it is a matter of equal peril either not to believe that Jesus Christ, or the Holy Spirit, is God, or to have denied the flesh of our body in Christ. Therefore, He says, every one who shall confess me before men, I also will confess him before my Father who is in heaven; but whosoever shall deny me before men, I will also deny him before my Father who is in heaven.
These words the Word made flesh was speaking, and the man Jesus Christ, the Lord of majesty, was teaching—He Himself constituted in Himself as mediator for the salvation of the Church, and by that very sacrament of mediation between God and men, being one on both sides, since He, from natures united into the selfsame, is the same reality of each nature; yet in such a way that He lacked neither in either, lest perchance He should cease to be God by being born man, and lest again, by remaining God, He should not be man.
This therefore is the true faith of human blessedness: to proclaim God and man, to confess the Word and flesh; neither for God to be ignorant of what man is, nor for flesh to be ignorant of what the Word is. Therefore the only-begotten God, born of a virgin as man, and according to the fullness of times about to profit man unto God in Himself, maintained throughout the manner of the evangelical discourse in such a way that He taught Himself to be believed the Son of God, and proclaimed and declared Himself the Son of man, speaking and doing as man all things that belong to God, and then speaking and doing as God all things that belong to man; yet in such a way that in that very discourse of either kind He never spoke except with the signification of both man and God.
This therefore is the occasion for heretics to deceive the simple and ignorant, so that they falsely claim that what was said by Him according to man was said according to the weakness of the divine nature; and because He is one and the same, speaking all that He speaks concerning Himself, they contend that He spoke all things concerning His divinity. Nor indeed do we deny that all of that which remains in Him belongs to the discourse of His own nature. But if Jesus Christ is both man and God, and neither when He is man is He then first God, nor when He is both man and God is He then not also God, nor after man in God—not wholly man, wholly God—it is necessary that what is said to be the sacrament of His person is one and the same as that of His nature. And when you distinguish in Him man from God according to time, then distinguish the discourse of God and of man.
And when you confess God and man in time, then judge the sayings of God and of man in time. But when He is both man and God, you again understand the time of the whole man, now of the whole God: since that was said for the demonstration of time, fitted to the time, what was said; so that, since God before man is one thing, man and God is another, and after man and God, wholly man and wholly God, is yet another, you do not confuse the sacrament of the dispensation with times and kinds, since according to the quality of kinds and natures, the discourse must have been one kind with the sacrament of man not yet born, another still about to die, and another also eternal. Therefore Jesus Christ, doing all these things for our sake, and born man of our body, spoke according to the custom of our nature, yet not omitting what belongs to His own nature, namely that He is God.
For although in birth and passion and death He accomplished the work of our nature, yet He performed all those very works by the power of His own nature. Do you see how God and man are thus proclaimed, so that death is attributed to the man, but the raising of the flesh to God? Yet not so that He who died is one, and He through whom the dead man rises is another. For Christ, stripped of flesh, died; and again, Christ raising Christ from the dead, is the same Christ, stripping Himself of flesh. Understand the nature of God in the power of the resurrection; acknowledge the dispensation of man in death. And although both were accomplished in their own natures, yet remember that it is one and the same Christ Jesus who is both.
These things therefore had to be set forth by me briefly, so that we might remember that the form of each nature is to be treated in our Lord Jesus Christ; because He who, remaining in the form of God, took the form of a servant, did not in any way lose His divinity. For the rest, brethren, we exhort you to admonish them to be converted to Him. Whence it is written: Son, delay not to be converted to the Lord, and defer not from day to day. For His wrath shall come suddenly, and in the time of vengeance He shall destroy thee. Be not anxious about unjust riches: they shall profit thee nothing in the day of darkness and vengeance. Winnow not thyself in every wind, and go not in every way. For so is the sinner proved by a double tongue. Be steadfast in the way of the Lord, and in the truth of thy understanding, and in knowledge: and let the word of peace and justice follow thee.
Be meek to hear the word of God, that thou mayest understand: and answer with wisdom. If thou hast understanding, answer thy neighbour; but if not, let thy hand be upon thy mouth, lest thou be caught in an undisciplined word and be confounded. Honour and glory are in the speech of the understanding man; but the tongue of the foolish man is his overthrow. Be not called a whisperer, and be not caught by thy tongue and confounded. For upon the thief there is shame and repentance, and an evil mark upon the double-tongued; but upon the whisperer there is hatred and enmity and reproach. Justify the small and the great alike. Be not made an enemy to thy neighbour instead of a friend. For the evil man shall inherit reproach and shame, and every sinful man is envious and double-tongued.
Exalt not thyself in the thought of thy soul like a bull, lest perchance thy strength be crushed through folly, and thy leaves be devoured, and thy fruits destroyed, and thou be left like a dry tree in the desert. For a wicked soul destroys him who has it, and delivers him to the joy of his enemy, and leads him into the lot of the ungodly. With such exhortations, brethren, admonish one another in turn, and always pursue good things and avoid evil. For with great diligence (according to the blessed Apostle) it must be guarded against that the faith and discipline of the Lord be blasphemed. And if those things are sometimes to be permitted which (provided the integrity of the rest remains) alone cannot cause harm, yet those things are greatly to be guarded against which cannot be received without manifest dissimulation.
But if those very things which are sometimes believed to be indulged without any detriment are excused either by the consideration of circumstances and times, or by regard for accelerated provision: how much more are those things in no way to be altered which neither any necessity nor any ecclesiastical utility whatsoever extorts? For this reason, brethren, we have set forth these things, so that those kinds which it is not lawful to offer upon the altar according to the constitution of the apostles and their successors, may be brought to the house of the priests, and blessed by the priests, and once blessed by a simple blessing, may then be received by the people: only beans and grapes, and the other things which the apostles have ordained, are to be offered upon the altar.
We desire therefore, dearest brethren, and with all our prayers we beseech the almighty Lord, that He would make your charity to grow ever more fervent in the constancy of His love, and grant that you remain in the peace of the Church in one accord. We also admonish your fraternity to watch diligently over the souls committed to you, and to attend more to the gaining of souls than to the comforts of the present life. In holding and ordering ecclesiastical affairs, be diligent guardians, so that the coming Judge, when He shall come to judge, ought to approve that you have worthily discharged in every respect the office of shepherd which you have undertaken. May almighty God guard you with His protection, grant you to preserve in your conduct the honour bestowed upon you by God, and help you to lead the souls committed to you with manifold fruit to eternal pastures and to present them worthily to Him, and deign to place you among His saints and elect.
Given on the second day before the Ides of April, in the consulship of Aurelianus and Marcellus, most distinguished men.
To the Bishops Established Throughout Sicily
Blessed be God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in charity, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace, which hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence, that he might make known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure, which he hath purposed in him, in the dispensation of the fulness of times, to gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in him.
In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will, that we should be to the praise and glory of him who first trusted in Christ: in whom ye also, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance, unto the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.
Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and love unto all the saints, cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, the eyes of your heart being enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come.
And he put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all the Church, which is his body, and the fulness of him that filleth all in all. And you, when you were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of unbelief, among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the thoughts, and were by nature children of wrath, even as others.
Now, brethren, because out of children of wrath, by his grace and gratuitous mercy, God hath made us his children: and we, who were not worthy servants, with no preceding merits, but by his grace (as we have said) have been made his children: in whom we cry, Abba Father: following his examples, as true children of God, let us be both called and be children of mercy and justice and love, with his help, putting away all malice and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings. For those who do such things are shown to be not children of God, but rather children of wickedness, as the Apostle Paul saith: Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, contentions, emulations, wrath, strifes, dissensions, sects, envies, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like, of which I tell you beforehand, as I have also told you in time past, that they who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
A grave word, brethren, and exceedingly dreadful, which saith: That they who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. And Truth itself saith: What doth it profit a man, to gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul? These things which we have set forth are very grave, and to be guarded against most carefully. For those to whom the kingdom of God is closed, without doubt the Church also is denied. Concerning whom the Lord in the Gospel, announcing the power of the apostles and their successors, saith: Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose you shall bind, they shall be bound: that is, those to whom you shall have forbidden the Church, unless they shall have been reconciled through satisfaction, to them also the gate of the heavenly kingdom shall be closed.
1.
Wherefore, guarding against these things, and foreseeing the minds of the foolish, with pastoral care together with all the bishops and the faithful of both orders of the holy Roman and universal Church, we decree that ecclesiastical matters are not to be conducted in the same manner as secular ones. For in secular laws, after someone has been summoned and has come and begun to contend in court, it is not lawful for him to withdraw before the case is concluded; but in ecclesiastical matters, it is lawful to withdraw after the case has been stated, if it shall have been necessary, or if he shall have seen himself to be unduly burdened. Moreover, we both declare and command that the following order of accusation be observed, that is, if any one of the clergy is impeded in a criminal matter, he is not immediately to be considered guilty because he could be accused, lest we make innocence suspect.
But whosoever he is who brings the charge, let him come to judgment: let him name the accused: let him take up the bond of inscription: let him observe the similitude: yet let him be treated with due regard for his dignity: and let him not know that he has license to lie, since the similitude of punishment demands vengeance against calumniators. For all heretics, and those under suspicion, and the excommunicated, as well as murderers and evildoers, thieves, sacrilegious persons, robbers, poisoners, adulterers, and those who have committed abduction, or have borne false witness, or who have resorted to soothsayers and magicians, are by no means to be admitted to make an accusation.
2.
To no infamous and sacrilegious person shall it ever be lawful, in any matter whatsoever, to bear testimony against a devout Christian, however humble and servile a person he may be, nor to attack a Christian in any matter, action, or inscription. Likewise, the license of accusing or testifying shall be denied to all who have neglected the dignity of the Christian religion and name, and the norm of their own law or of what has been imposed upon them, or things regularly prohibited.
3.
We likewise forbid that any causes be heard by ecclesiastical judges which are not contained in the laws, or which are known to be prohibited. These things not only ecclesiastical but also secular laws command to be observed. For the accusation of priests ought not to be made indiscriminately and at random. For if it were easily admitted, very few indeed would be found: because all who wish to live godly in Christ suffer persecution. Blessed moreover are they who suffer persecution for justice's sake. Wherefore Truth itself saith: Father, I have manifested thy name to the men whom thou gavest me out of the world. Thine they were, and thou gavest them to me, and they have kept thy word. Now they have known that all things which thou hast given me are from thee: because the words which thou gavest me, I have given to them, and they have received them, and have known in very deed that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me.
I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them whom thou hast given me, because they are thine. And all my things are thine, and thine are mine, and I am glorified in them. And now I am not in the world, and these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep them in thy name whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we also are. While I was with them, I kept them in thy name. Those whom thou gavest me have I kept: and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition, that the scripture may be fulfilled. But now I come to thee, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy filled in themselves. I have given them thy word, and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, as I also am not of the world.
I pray not that thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them from evil. They are not of the world, as I also am not of the world. Sanctify them in truth. Thy word is truth. As thou didst send me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. And for them do I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth. And not for them only do I pray, but for them also who through their word shall believe in me, that they all may be one, and the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou hast given me, I have given to them, that they may be one, as we also are one. I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one, that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast also loved me.
Father, I will that where I am, they also whom thou hast given me may be with me, that they may see my glory which thou hast given me, because thou hast loved me before the foundation of the world. Just Father, the world hath not known thee, but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me. And I have made known thy name to them, and will make it known, that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them. And the same John, apostle and evangelist, speaks in his first epistle, saying: Dearly beloved, let us love one another, for charity is of God: and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not, knoweth not God, for God is charity. By this hath the charity of God appeared towards us, because God hath sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we may live by him.
In this is charity: not as though we had loved God, but because he hath first loved us, and sent his Son to be a propitiation for our sins. My dearest, if God hath so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abideth in us, and his charity is perfected in us. In this we know that we abide in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father hath sent his Son to be the Saviour of the world. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God abideth in him, and he in God. And we have known and have believed the charity which God hath to us. God is charity: and he that abideth in charity abideth in God, and God in him.
In this is charity perfected with us, that we may have confidence in the day of judgment, because as he is, we also are in this world. Fear is not in charity: but perfect charity casteth out fear, because fear hath punishment. And he that feareth is not perfected in charity. Let us therefore love God, because God first loved us. If any man say: I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar. For he that loveth not his brother whom he seeth, how can he love God whom he seeth not? And this commandment we have from God, that he who loveth God love also his brother. Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God. And every one that loveth him who begot, loveth him also who is born of him. In this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep his commandments. For this is the charity of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not heavy.
And through the prophet, the Lord, admonishing that his disciples and their successors be not harmed, saith: The angel of the Lord shall encompass about them that fear him, and shall deliver them. Taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man that hopeth in him. Fear the Lord, all ye his saints, for there is no want to them that fear him. The rich have wanted and have suffered hunger: but they that seek the Lord shall not be deprived of any good. Come, children, hearken to me: I will teach you the fear of the Lord. Who is the man that desireth life, who loveth to see good days? Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips from speaking guile. Turn away from evil and do good: seek after peace and pursue it. The eyes of the Lord are upon the just, and his ears unto their cry. But the countenance of the Lord is against them that do evil things, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.
The just cried, and the Lord heard them, and delivered them out of all their troubles. The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a contrite heart, and he will save the humble of spirit. Many are the afflictions of the just, and out of them all will the Lord deliver them. The Lord keepeth all their bones, not one of them shall be broken. The malice of the wicked shall bring death upon them, and they that hate the just shall be guilty. The Lord will redeem the souls of his servants, and will deliver them. Do ye therefore, brethren, cast your care upon the Lord, and he will sustain you, for he will not suffer the just to waver for ever. But always hope in God the Lord, and have confidence in him, for he himself will deliver us. For he is blessed from age to age, and of his kingdom there shall be no end.
Given on the thirteenth day before the kalends of October, in the consulship of the most illustrious men Carus Secundus and Carinus.
First. One must not obey a bishop who orders mass to be sung for heretics
If any bishop or abbot shall have ordered his priest or monk to sing masses for heretics, it is not permitted. For it is not expedient to obey them in this.
Second. An abbess who presumes to veil a virgin or widow shall be excommunicated
Likewise we have found in certain places an unwonted custom full of folly and contrary to ecclesiastical authority, namely that certain abbesses and some among the nuns presume, contrary to right, to impose the veil upon widows and virgin girls, and therefore some who have been unjustly veiled think they can more freely serve their carnal desires and fulfil their own wills. Wherefore we decree that if an abbess or any nun, after this definition, shall have broken forth into such great boldness as to presume to veil either a widow or a virgin girl, she shall be subjected to canonical judgment until satisfaction is made.
Third. One who refuses to do penance for perjury shall be deprived of the fellowship of the faithful
It must also be preached that the faithful should beware of perjury and abstain from it with the utmost care, knowing this to be a great crime, forbidden in the law and in the prophets and in the Gospel. We have heard, however, that some make light of this crime and impose in some manner a light mode of penance for perjuries. These ought to know that such penance must be imposed for perjury as also for adultery, and for fornication, and for homicide willfully committed, and for other criminal vices. But if anyone, having committed perjury or any criminal sin, and fearing a long penance, shall wish to come to confession, he is to be repelled from the Church, or from the communion and fellowship of the faithful, so that no one shall eat with him, nor drink, nor pray, nor receive him into his house.
Fourth. One who mutilates limbs or burns houses without judicial authority shall be excommunicated
If anyone shall have committed mutilations of limbs and burnings of houses, or shall have ordered them to be done, or shall have consented to one doing them, let him know himself to be deprived of the Church until he shall have made lawful and amicable amends to each person in these matters before the bishop of the city and other citizens. But if after a second and third summons he shall not have made amends in all the things with which he is charged, let him be separated from the entire company of Christians as a heathen and a publican.
Fifth. It shall be in the power of a believer, after baptism, to receive back the wife he had put away before
If any pagan shall have put away a pagan wife before baptism, after baptism it shall be in his power to have her or not to have her.
Sixth. A believer is not compelled to follow an unbeliever who departs
In like manner, if one of a married couple has been baptized, and the other is a pagan and does not wish to follow, as the Apostle says: If the unbeliever departs, let him depart.
Seventh. The synodal oath
A bishop presiding in synod, after a suitable address, ought to summon into the midst seven or more of the more mature, more honorable, and more truthful men from the people of his parish, as many as he shall see fit, and, the relics of the saints having been brought forward, to bind each one of them with such an oath:
that henceforth and from this time forward, whatever you know, or have heard, or shall hereafter inquire into, that has been done or shall be done in this parish against the will of God and right Christianity, if it shall occur in your days, so long as it comes to your knowledge in any manner whatsoever, if you know it or it shall have been indicated to you that it is a synodal matter and pertains to the ministry of the bishop, that you shall in no wise conceal it from the bishop, or from his representative whom he shall have ordered to inquire into this, on account of love, or fear, or reward, or kinship, whenever he shall question you about it: so help you God, and these relics of the saints, and that oath which he justly swore concerning the synodal matter, that you shall observe it of yourself, insofar as you know, or have heard, or shall inquire from this day forward: so help you God.
Eighth
The great evil of drunkenness, from which all vices spring, we command Christians to avoid in every way. But whoever shall be unwilling to avoid this, we have decreed is to be excommunicated until fitting amendment is made.
Ninth
Bishops and ministers of God ought not to give themselves over to excessive feasting and drinking, but let them consider the sentence of the Lord, saying: Take heed, lest your hearts be weighed down with surfeiting and drunkenness. For let them take food and necessary sustenance in moderation, so that, according to the Apostle, they may be sober and ready for the service of God.
Tenth
It must be observed by us that you both abstain from drunkenness yourselves, and preach that the peoples subject to you should abstain. And go not through taverns drinking or eating, nor wander through houses or villages out of any curiosity, nor hold banquets with women or with any impure persons, unless perchance some head of a household invites you to his home and wishes to rejoice with you in spiritual joy together with his wife and his household, and to receive refreshment from your words, and to offer you bodily refreshment in the duty of charity. For it is fitting that if at any time any of the faithful refreshes you with bodily feasts, he should be refreshed by you with spiritual feasts.
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