Petition to the Emperors 15–28

Do you see the wonderful proofs of prevarication condemned by God? All Spain knows better that we are not inventing these things. And the prevarication of the sacred faith did not go unpunished in Potamius either. In short, as he was hurrying to the estate which he had deserved to obtain from the emperor for his impious subscription of faith, paying new penalties in his tongue, through which he had blasphemed, he dies on the road, receiving no fruit of the estate even by seeing it. This was no light torment for a greedy man. He dies who for desire of an estate of the treasury had violated the sacred faith; and as he hurries to the estate, he is forestalled by a penal death, so that he should not enjoy even the consolation of seeing it. In the holy gospel we read the words of the one reproaching the rich man who boasted most vainly of what he had stored up: "Fool," he says, "this night your soul will be taken from you; whose will be the things you have prepared?" If anyone considers that this writing fits Potamius too, he will understand that he was judged not lightly, especially since he suffered punishment of the tongue, in which that rich man too is tormented more fiercely in the lower world. And Florentius too, who knowingly communicated in a certain place with Ossius and Potamius, already prevaricators, himself paid new punishments. For when he sits on the throne in the assembly of the people, he is suddenly thrown down and convulses, and when carried outside he recovered his strength. And again, another time, when he had entered and sat down, he suffered likewise, still not understanding the penalties of his stained communion. Nevertheless, when afterward he persisted in entering, he was thrown from the throne a third time, so that he seemed to be driven off as unworthy of the throne; and thrown to the ground, he was so tormented with convulsions that his spirit was wrung from him with a certain hardness and great tortures. And from there he is now carried, not to be revived as before, but to be buried. The great city of Emerita knows what we relate, whose people saw this very thing with their own eyes in its church. And this too must be considered, that Florentius suffered these things who had not yet subscribed to impiety, but only communicated with prevaricators of the faith, not ignorant of their prevarication. We have related this so that those may see what they should do who, though they did not subscribe as prevaricators, have only joined themselves by communion to prevaricators known to them. And I think they will understand what they ought to fear from the example of Florentius.

But it would take long to relate the other proofs too of prevarication condemned by present punishments, which the divine judgment has carried out in various places; for this purpose, namely, that whoever for some reason does not regard the divine Scriptures may understand, at least by present vengeance through divine punishment, what he should follow and what avoid. God wished, without doubt, to take vengeance at least on a few, and for this reason, lest what he threatens through the divine Scripture about the future punishments of prevaricators should be thought a fable, if now in this world he took vengeance on no one. Let all the bishops who are prevaricators of the faith now understand for what most grievous punishments they are reserved, since vengeance has been taken on their associates even in this world, to the astonishment of all. For we have set out the present punishments of prevarication for this purpose, that what was avenged on a few may be believed to be avenged on all who are like them, especially since the divine Scripture too asserts this very thing which has also been shown by present proofs. And let this be considered, most pious emperors: in what are they guilty who do not join the divine sacraments with such men, whose perpetual punishments are read in the sacred books, and examples of whose punishments are seen in the world? But we ask your wonderful benevolence still to lend us, in contemplation of Christ God, untiring patience in hearing, while we set out, though briefly, how far impiety has grown.

For the execrable Arians in the regions of the East, and especially in Egypt, were not content with this alone, that the bishops, having condemned the whole faith, should decline to their impious opinion; but these very men who had first been ordained by Catholic bishops, when they had subscribed according to their wishes, they reduced to the number of lay people, and afterward the same heretics ordained them bishops again; so that they would be seen to condemn not only the Catholic faith but also ordination performed by Catholic bishops. Consider in this a kind of triumph of the heretics over the Catholics, and a wretched and as it were final and most foul captivity; in these bishops the devout faith was condemned, and the Catholic bishops too; they gave themselves up to their dominion and mockery for fear of exile, and so that they might seem to keep the episcopal name among men, which surely they no longer had with God after their impious subscriptions. But the authority of that name was sought even with every disgrace, so that the possessions of the church should not be taken from them, which would that the church had never possessed, so that, living in the apostolic manner, it might possess the whole faith inviolably! And now not to communicate with such men is called the supreme impiety; and this under you emperors, who, as your constitutions declare, judge the divine holiness of the venerable church: but it is no wonder if, occupied with the provisions of the state, you are unaware of such atrocious deeds of theirs. The bishops who suffered the penalties of exile for the faith, or who had taken to flight, cursing these impieties of theirs, though separated in body by the distances of regions, yet united in spirit, decree by mutual letters, with apostolic vigor, that in no way can communion be held with such bishops who betrayed the faith in the manner we related above, unless they ask for lay communion, grieving for their impieties.

But when Constantius, the patron of the heretics, died, Julian alone held the empire, by whose precept all the Catholic bishops were released from their exiles. The Godhead is accustomed to do this, to take thought for its own even through the adversaries of the Christian religion, so that those who are worshipers of Christ may labor all the more for the faithful. But not long after Julian was slain, Jovian becomes emperor, who, upholding the Catholic faith, gave his vote to the Catholic bishops. But those distinguished bishops, who had condemned by a heretical subscription the whole faith they had upheld under Constantius, seeing that by the emperor's will bishops now become heretics from Catholics, return also, these same bishops, from heretics to the Catholic faith. But even if some confessors, worn out, believed at last that they should be joined to the communion of such men, overturning perhaps those statutes which they had earlier decreed against them by prophetic and apostolic authority, can this overwhelm the divine truth? Can this prejudge the gospel teachings? Can it shake the apostolic judgments, and especially that voice of God which says, "He who endures to the end will be saved"? And of the apostle Paul too, whom Christ the Lord pronounced a vessel of election, whose words, writing to the Galatians, are these: "But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel other than we preached to you, let him be anathema." Hence the same apostle continues further on in the same letter, saying: "For if I build again what I destroyed, I make myself a prevaricator." Surely he was made a confessor by the gospels, by the voices of the prophets, by the teachings of the apostles; and the faithful do not doubt that he then has no merit of confession if, overturning the laws of the divine Scriptures, he begins to build what the gospels destroy.

Are not the divine Scriptures attacked when the peace of the church is joined with bishops who deny the Son of God? For who is there who, considering the force of divine religion, would trust that the peace of the faithless pleases God, unless, as was decreed by the fathers, they hand themselves over to the number of lay people, grieving for their faithlessness? But suppose they have peace with the unfaithful: in what, nevertheless, do they offend, in what do they injure the emperors, in what do they trouble the state, who, in contemplation of the divine judgment, reject a peace of this kind, which receives the sacrilegious, honors the prevaricators of the faith, favors hypocrites, despises truth, sets up the deniers of Christ, the true Son of God, as lords of the church, contaminates the people with the stain of faithlessness, and overturns the gospel? For this we are guilty; for this, under the authority of your name, we suffer persecutions from these bishops who, upholding heresy at the nod of the former emperor, sinned against the Catholic faith. Alas, the groaning! These same bishops put forward the laws of Catholic emperors against the faithful and the defenders of the Catholic faith. We say this weeping, with grief in all our inward parts: not because it is not glorious for the faithful to suffer under any child, but because there is such stupor in the world that this impiety of theirs, wrapped in such great faithlessness, is not recognized, so that no one understands how they always deceive even the royal ears in harassing Christians and faithful priests. But impiety is covered under the word peace, and the specious name of truth is set up as a patronage for the faithless. But it is well that the Savior himself set out the power of his peace, so that no one should be taken in by the simple word peace and join it to whatever impieties of the world, saying: "My peace I leave you, my peace I give you; not as this world gives do I give you." He distinguished his peace from the peace of the world. For if this peace is pleasing to God which receives unfaithful bishops into the church, what need is there, then, in persecutions to suffer heat, to endure prison, to go to meet swords, and to bear all kinds of punishments and death, since after denial, after the sacrileges of faithlessness, on account of this peace which they trust pleases God, each of the unfaithful is safely received as if unblemished, with his episcopal honor intact? According to this assertion, the martyrs too must now be judged vain. For to what fruit did they prefer to bear punishments and death? For if those who denied the Son of God through fear of persecution have no punishment, but are rather honored, the martyrs ought not to have hoped for the crown of passion either, but should rather pay the punishments of their rashness. For this must follow; for it cannot be that contrary things are not judged there. Is it not plain to what saying they are pressed by the word of this peace, or what they are forced to pronounce: that, if the deniers of the Son of God are rightly confirmed in honor, the martyrs must be believed to be punished as for their rashness? But far be it, far be it that Christian conscience should admit this. For we believe the Son of God when he pronounces: "Whoever denies me before men, I too will deny him before my Father; and whoever confesses me before men, I will confess him before my Father."

Nevertheless, recognize in this case too the divine judgment proved by present proofs, lest anyone think that the peace of such bishops is to be accepted, even if they returned to the confession of the true faith after impious subscriptions or wicked communions with heretics, to which they knowingly yielded so as not to lose either the possessions of the church or their honors. The holy man Maximus, a bishop, whom we mentioned above, upholding the right faith and rejecting the fellowship of the heretics, was led into exile. In his place the prevaricators ordain one named Zosimus, who himself too at first upheld the Catholic faith. This happened in the city of Naples in Campania. Holy Maximus learns of this and, writing from exile, gives sentence against him, not only by episcopal authority but also enjoying the emulation and virtue of martyrdom, to the divine glory. But after some years blessed Lucifer, going from his fourth exile to Rome, entered Naples in Campania. Zosimus tried to come to him, perhaps with that confidence by which, namely, he seemed already to have corrected himself from impiety. But Lucifer the confessor would not receive him, not ignorant of what he had done; rather, with the fervor of the Holy Spirit, he carried out more firmly the sentence of the bishop and martyr, saying that the episcopate itself, which he claims for himself like an adulterer, he will not have by the special judgment of God, and so too he will feel the punishment of his impiety. And not long afterward this same Zosimus, when in the assembly of the people he wished to perform the offices of a priest, among the very priestly words his tongue was stretched out, and he could not draw it back within the passage of his mouth, because, contrary to the measure of nature, it hung outside his mouth like that of a panting ox. But when he saw that he had lost the use of his tongue, he went out of the basilica; and, a wonderful thing, outside his tongue was again recalled to its function. And at first it was not understood that the sentence of the martyr and confessor was being fulfilled in him; but when he suffered this same thing as many times again as he tried, on different days, to enter the basilica, he himself at last recognized that his tongue was denied him among the solemn words of the pontificate for this reason, so that he might prove the sentence of the holy bishops rightly pronounced against him. In short, he gave up the episcopate, so that the tongue that had given up might be restored. We are not relating ancient things, which for some reason usually come into doubt. For Zosimus is still in the body today, no longer losing the use of his tongue, since he preferred to live with the loss of his episcopate, grieving for his impieties.

Has it not also been judged beforehand about similar men that it profits them nothing that they continue, as it were, under the correction of a bishop? For this is not correction but mockery, to change the faith according to the times of the emperors. This, this thing deceived the emperor Valens too, when he saw in the heretics constancy of defense, but in these distinguished Catholics inconstancy of faith. For it was certainly proved to him that those who asserted themselves Catholics had previously subscribed with the heretics, condemning the faith they had first defended; and the heretics said: "If our faith is bad, why was it subscribed for under Constantius by those who now call themselves Catholics, upholding this faith which, when they first defended it, they condemned under Constantius, convinced by reasons?" Moved by these things, Valens, not knowing the power of the true faith, and comparing constancy with inconstancy, upheld the impiety of the heretics with a certain justice. And we pass over that even under Valens some again gave themselves up to the heretics, whom nevertheless we now see named among the Catholics. That is why the peoples of the heretics too were strengthened in their impious faith, while the heretics persevere in evil, and those who are thought Catholics withdraw from the good, sometimes yielding to the heretics. For with what authority do such bishops preach against a heresy to which they cannot deny that they subscribed? And with what confidence do they strive to persuade the people of the Catholic faith, when it is plain that they rejected it by impious subscriptions?

Do you see that even in your times (but, as we believe, without your knowledge), the devout faith is indeed upheld (and would that it were truly so; but even if truly), yet with a certain injustice, since it is upheld by unworthy bishops, to the affliction of the priests who defend the devout faith and to the ruin of faithful lay people? But it is thought wrong to depose so many prevaricators, to reject a crowd consenting to injustice. And where is the justice of true religion, if it is to be handed over to an impious multitude, and this under most pious and most religious emperors? It was not judged so in the flood, that the crowd of the unfaithful should win. But that most just Noah pleased God the more because in that destruction of the world he alone was found just. Likewise in Sodom and Gomorrah the impious multitude paid heavy penalties, from which the hospitable Lot alone was set free for his justice, with only two daughters. Nor was Elijah, the zealot for God, who was alone, overcome when four hundred and fifty false priests were sent against him. But that whole impious crowd of priests paid the penalty under the hand of one faithful man, and this with King Ahab looking on, who impiously upheld the false priests. Nor did Jehu, king of Israel, defer to the impious multitude of priests. In short, when he had called together, by a religious trick, into the house of the impious religion all the false priests who had been at the height of power under King Ahab, as if to reward them after the rites of the religion, he ordered them to be killed, so that none of them survived. And we read that for this deed he so pleased the Lord that the sons of that same king sat on the throne of Israel to the fourth generation.

There are many other very similar examples too. We do not say these things as though we wished anyone's blood to be shed. Far be this from our prayers; for whoever wishes this to happen strays from the Christian laws. It was indeed done then, because at that time it was permitted by divine law to do this very thing, when everything was still done bodily, until spiritual instruction should grow. But it does not follow, because it is now not permitted to the good and faithful to desire the blood of false priests, that the faithful are therefore to be handed over to false priests, so as to be afflicted with their most grievous persecutions. Let what we say seem false if the churches of faithful priests have not in various places been invaded in some and destroyed in others; if, at their petitions, all the holy ones have not been arrested and long shut up for injuries and finally sent into exile; if also some others have not given up their souls, some in prison, others dragged off and punished with blows, for no other cause than that, for fear of the divine judgment, they would not communicate with the faithless or the associates of the faithless.

In Spain the presbyter Vincentius, a leader of the true faith, what atrocities of the prevaricators did he not suffer, because he would not be an associate of their impious prevarication, because he communicated with blessed Gregory? With that Gregory, I say, whose faith and virtue we related above as best we could. Against him they first petitioned the consular governor of the province of Baetica; then at last, under the appearance of a requested intervention, a plebeian multitude is gathered from other places, and they burst into the church on the Lord's day. They did not find Vincentius, because, warned beforehand, he had also told the people not to go out on that day, when they were coming with slaughter. For he thought it better done if he gave place to anger. But those who had come ready for slaughter, lest their fury should seem to have come without cause, so beat with clubs certain ministers devoted to Christ God who were found there that not long afterward they died. But since the holy people of the presbyter Vincentius entreated them the more after those slaughters of theirs that were done in the Lord's house, the bishops went out and, so that the whole people might be terrified, begin with the leading men themselves. In short, they demand that the decurions of that city be brought forth, so as to be shut in prison; of whom one, a leading man of his native town, because he held firmly to the faith in God as a faithful man, cursing the stain of prevarication, was himself, among them, killed in chains by hunger and cold, with the groaning and weeping of that province, which knew his honorable life very well. The distinguished Catholic bishops Luciosus and Hyginus were the authors of this cruelty; and meanwhile they invaded the basilica indeed, but they could not invade the faith of the people. In short, the same people built themselves a basilica elsewhere, on a small farm, where they gathered with holy Vincentius. But Satan, who nowhere allows Christ to be devoutly worshiped, inflames them, and again, a petition being lodged, a crowd of decurions and plebeians is gathered from various cities. At the same time his presbyters too come to the place. They break the doors of that church, plundering from it whatever belonged to the sacred ministries. And finally, what is horrible to say, to crown the sacrilege committed, they placed the very altar of God, taken from the Lord's house, in a temple under the feet of an idol.

These things, surely, are done by those who, through penance for their impious subscription, have been received to Catholic discipline for the good of peace and unity. What more grievous thing would a pagan worshiper of idols do, if he had license to persecute the church? But at Trier the presbyter Bonosus was shut up and long paid penalties, an old man, for his observance of that undefiled faith for which also the renowned Paulinus, bishop of the same city, gave up his soul as a martyr in exile. In the city of Rome itself, too, how grievous were the persecutions brought on the faithful, where blessed Aurelius, a bishop who communicated with the most blessed Gregory, was afflicted! But this holy man, though he was often afflicted, yet rested by his own summons. But many things were committed by the impious against the presbyter Macarius. He was a presbyter in the same city of Rome of wonderful continence, not relieving his stomach with wine, not caring for his body with the eating of meat, but softening his rougher food with oil alone, given to fasts and prayers. Indeed, for the merit of his faith and abstinence, he had the grace of the Holy Spirit in this, that he cast out demons from possessed bodies. We have recalled his life and merit so that those may be judged the more impious who do not allow such men to live in the Roman empire. At the same time a grievous persecution had arisen against our people, with Damasus, the distinguished archbishop, attacking, so that faithful priests were not freely permitted on the sacred days to call together assemblies of the people to serve Christ God. But since, according to the condition of things, the sacraments of our salvation must be performed at any time, even secretly, this same holy presbyter Macarius arranges to call the brotherhood together in a certain house for vigils, so that at least by night the holy people might strengthen their faith with the divine readings. But the devil, who favors the impious, since the impious too favor the devil, does not allow the divine sacraments to be celebrated even in secret. In short, the clergy of Damasus lay an ambush, and when they learned that the presbyter Macarius was celebrating the holy vigils with the people, they burst into that house with officials and scatter the people, who did not resist; and the presbyter himself, arrested, they no longer deign to lead but drag over the stones, so that a dangerous wound was made in his hip; and the next day they set him before the judge as guilty of a great crime. The judge indeed tries, as if under an imperial rescript, and with threats, to force him to come to terms with Damasus. But the presbyter, mindful of the divine judgment, not fearing the present judge, rejected the communion of faithlessness; and so he is sent into exile; and while he was at Ostia, he died from the atrocity of that wound. His holiness was so great that even the bishop of that place, named Florentius, who communicated with Damasus, looked up to him with a certain veneration. For when the brothers had buried him in an old tomb, the same Florentius would not allow him to lie there, where it seemed an unworthy burial; but transferring him from there, he buried him in the basilica of the martyr Asterius, in the place of the presbyters who have [their burial] next to it; by this devout service of his, as far as he could, he strove to make the crime of Damasus foreign to himself.

Let your tranquility consider whether you wish this to be done in the Roman empire against the holy and faithful by those who are prevaricators: is there not fear that the blood of the faithful may weigh down the Roman empire? For the same Damasus, having received royal authority, also pursued other Catholic presbyters, and lay people too, and sent them into exile, pleading this very thing through pagan advocates, with the judges favoring him; though your constitutions were decreed against heretics, not against Catholics, and such Catholics as did not abandon the whole faith even under heretical emperors, and indeed suffered many grievous things. And recently he tried to persecute severely the most blessed bishop Ephesius, fervent with zeal for the holy faith, ordained for the undefiled Roman people by the most constant bishop Taorgius, himself a recruit of unblemished faith, petitioning the judge Bassus through his advocates under the odium of a false nickname imposed on him, as if against Luciferians. But Bassus, long revering the Catholic faith, knew that in Lucifer there had been no depravity of heresy, since he knew well too that he had suffered exile for ten years for the Catholic faith; and for the integrity of his constancy he rejected the accusations of Damasus, refusing to pursue Catholic men and men of the whole faith, saying especially that the very constitutions of the emperors were plainly promulgated against heretics only, not against those who keep the most holy faith without worldly ambition.

And then for the first time Damasus blushed, because a judge was found who alone, interpreting the imperial writings most devoutly, protected them. For this very thing too is necessary, that we dispel the odium of the false nickname by which they cry out that we are Luciferians. Who does not know that a nickname is given to the followers of the man from whom some new doctrine has been passed on to the disciples by the authority of his teaching? But Christ is our master: we follow his doctrine, and therefore we are reckoned by the sacred name of his name, so that we ought rightly to be called nothing else than Christians, who follow nothing else than what Christ taught through the apostles. Heresies, however, have been marked by the names of men because they have handed on the inventions of men. For he loses in himself the name of Christian who does not follow the discipline of Christ. Let them say now what new thing Lucifer taught that was not handed down from the teaching of Christ, that was not passed on to posterity by the apostles, the disciples of the Savior. And it is well that he wrote books to Constantius, not, as most do, seeking glory for his talent, but gathering divine testimonies most aptly against the heretics and against the patron of the heretics himself, inflamed to divine zeal for the love of the Son of God. Let them point out what in them is contrary to the Scriptures, what new thing he wrote as a heretic. These books, since he dealt with everything in its integrity, Athanasius too admired, as being a true champion, and translated into the Greek style, so that the Greek language should not lack so great a good. That is not all; the same Athanasius in his own letters proclaims these same books as woven of the teachings of the prophets, evangelists and apostles and of devout confession. And though he is raised up with very many praises of him, yet he does not equal the proclamation of his merit, though indeed he could not praise him more: so is every praising tongue overcome by the surpassing greatness of the matter.

But Lucifer, though ignorant of artful eloquence, yet, so as to write in the prophetic, evangelic and apostolic manner, which is above all human eloquence, had the grace of the Holy Spirit by the merit of right faith and a most sincere conscience, through whom he also worked divine miracles, not only in Sardinia but also in his four exiles themselves; so much so that his adversaries called him great, since they could not deny that apostolic miracles were done through him. Holy Gregory too came to him and admired in him so great a learning in the divine Scriptures, and his very life, truly as if established in heaven. How great a man Lucifer was, when even Gregory admires him, who is admirable to all, not only from that clash with Ossius but also from the divine miracles which, having in himself the grace of the Holy Spirit, he performs! In what, then, are they impious in this too? Though Lucifer both believed and taught and lived according to the divine Scriptures, and worked miracles in the name of Christ, they impose Lucifer's name to crush the champions of the true faith, not knowing, wretched men, that they commit the supreme sacrilege when they mark the doctrine of Christ with a man's name; just as they are impious in this too, when they defend sacrilegious institutions issued at men's will under the authority of the Christian name. Is it not the supreme impiety to uphold one's iniquities and sacrileges under the name of Christ? Is it not impiety to mark with human names a devout doctrine consecrated under the name of Christ? But this fraud, this atrocity, is carried on against the faithful in Spain, and at Trier, and at Rome, and in various regions of Italy.