# Three Letters to Sympronianus - Author: [Pacian of Barcelona](https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/authors/pacian-of-barcelona/) - Latin title: *Epistolae tres ad Sympronianum Novatianum* - Date: ca. 360-390 (approximate) - Source: J.-P. Migne, ed., Patrologiae cursus completus, series Latina, vol. 13 (Paris, 1845), digital text of the printed volume; column ranges as the digital text gives them (Latin text: Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. 13, digitized by Open Greek and Latin (patrologia_latina-dev, University of Leipzig), CC BY-SA 4.0) - Translation: Claude, from the original text, unless a passage says otherwise; each passage below gives the translator - Editions and translations: The standard modern edition is C. Granado, ed., Pacien de Barcelone: Ecrits, SC 410 (Paris: Cerf, 1995). Cited only, not reproduced. - Work page: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/pacian-epistulae/ - Passages: 45 ## Three Letters to Sympronianus 1.0 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/pacian-epistulae/1-0/#p-1-0 - Source: PL 13:1052a - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-10-23 Summary: The heading and greeting of Pacian's first letter to Sympronian. ### Latin text De Catholico nomine. Pacianus Symproniano fratri salutem. ### English translation (Claude) On the name Catholic. Pacian to his brother Sympronian, greeting. ### Translation notes - The title “On the name Catholic” is part of the heading as printed in Migne. ### Citation (SBL) Pacian, Ep. Symp. 1.0 (PL 13:1052a; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/pacian-epistulae/1-0). ## Three Letters to Sympronianus 1.1 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/pacian-epistulae/1-0/#p-1-1 - Source: PL 13:1052a–1053b - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-10-23 Summary: Pacian complains that Sympronian has not said what he holds, lists the many heresies, and notes that Sympronian sides with those who reject penance. ### Latin text Si non carnalis intentio, sed, ut ego arbitror, vocatio spiritualis est, domine, quod ex nobis fidem catholicae veritatis examinas: tu potissimum quae vel quam diversa sequereris indicare debueras, qui a rivulo procul in quantum apparet exorsus, fontem atque originem principalis Ecclesiae non tenebas: te, ut quae causa potissimum de unitate corporis nostri solvisset, aperires: nudari enim eas partes oportet quibus medicina deposcitur. Nunc clauso, ut ita dixerim, litterarum sinu, quae membra nobis potissimum curanda sint non videmus. Tantae enim a capite christiano haereses exstiterunt, ut nominum ipsorum sit volumen immensum. Nam ut Judaeorum haereticos praetermittam, Dositheum Samaritanum, Sadducaeos et Pharisaeos: quanti apostolorum temporibus emerserint, dinumerare perlongum est: Simon magus, et Menander, et Nicolaus, et caeteri quos fama recondit obscura. Quid a posterioribus temporibus Ebion, et Apelles, et Marcion, et Valentinus et Cerdon: nec longe post eos, Cataphryges et Novatiani, ut examina novella praeteream? Quis ergo mihi primum per litteras refutandus est? Ipsa, si voles, nomina omnium charta non capiet: nisi quod scriptis tuis, poenitentiam usquequaque damnantibus, secundum Phrygas te assensisse pronuntias: Verum his ipsis, domine charissime, tam multiplex et diversus est error, ut non hoc unum in illis quod contra poenitentiam sapiunt, sed quasi quaedam capita Lernaea caedenda sint. ### English translation (Claude) If it is not a carnal purpose but, as I suppose, a spiritual calling that leads you, sir, to examine us about the faith of catholic truth, you ought first of all to have indicated what you follow, and how different it is, since you, having set out, so far as appears, from a stream far off, do not hold the fountain and source of the principal church. You ought to have disclosed what cause in particular had loosed you from the unity of our body; for the parts for which medicine is sought must be laid bare. As it is, with the fold of your letter closed, so to speak, we cannot see which members we most need to treat. For so many heresies have arisen from the Christian head that their very names would fill a huge volume. To pass over the heretics of the Jews, Dositheus the Samaritan, the Sadducees and the Pharisees, it would take very long to count how many sprang up in the times of the apostles: Simon Magus, and Menander, and Nicolaus, and the others whom dim report keeps hidden. What of the later times: Ebion, and Apelles, and Marcion, and Valentinus, and Cerdo, and not long after them the Cataphrygians and the Novatians, to pass over the young swarms? Whom, then, must I refute first by letter? The paper itself, if you like, will not hold the names of them all; except that in your writings, which condemn penance altogether, you declare that you have agreed with the Phrygians. But among these very people, dearest sir, the error is so manifold and varied that it is not only this one thing in them, that they think against penance, but as it were several heads of the Hydra of Lerna that must be cut off. ### Extrabiblical texts - Virgil, Aen. 5.302 (Virgil): allusion, high confidence ### Translation notes - “Whom dim report keeps hidden” echoes Virgil, Aeneid 5.302; Sympronian picked this up (see Letter 2.4). - “Penance” renders poenitentia, here the church’s discipline of repentance and reconciliation after serious sin after baptism, which the Novatians denied; elsewhere the word is rendered “repentance”. - The “Phrygians” (Cataphrygians) are the Montanists. ### Citation (SBL) Pacian, Ep. Symp. 1.1 (PL 13:1052a–1053b; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/pacian-epistulae/1-1). ## Three Letters to Sympronianus 1.2 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/pacian-epistulae/1-0/#p-1-2 - Source: PL 13:1053d–1054a - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-10-23 Summary: Pacian lists the authorities of the Montanists, asks Sympronian to state his position plainly, and says no one can be persuaded against his will. ### Latin text Et primam hi plurimis nituntur auctoribus: nam puto, et Graecus Blastus ipsorum est: Theodotus quoque et Praxeas, vestros aliquando docuere: ipsi illi Phryges nobiliores qui se animatos mentiuntur a Leucio, se institutos a Proculo gloriantur: Montanum et Maximillam et Priscillam secuti, quam multiplices controversias excitarunt de Paschali die, de Paracleto, de apostolis, de prophetis: multaque alia, sicut et hoc de Catholico nomine, de venia poenitentiae. Quare si omnia ista discutere velimus, docili praesentia opus est: si haec sola quae scribis non satis instruerem, tamen quia quoquo modo admirantibus serviendum est, informandi tui gratia, summatim ad ea de quibus scribere dignatus es conloquimur. Si quid scire plenius de nostro voles, oportet ut de tuo profiteare simplicius; ne obscurius consulendo, non scire nos facias, utrum interroges an lacessas. Interea quod ad praesentes pertinebit, ante omnia te rogatum volo, ne ob hoc ipsum auctoritatem mutueris errori; quod, sicut ais, per orbem totum nullus intus sit qui te revinceret, aut persuadere tibi posset contra quam crederes. Nam et si nos imperiti, peritissimus Dei Spiritus: et si nos infideles, fidelis Deus, qui negare se non potest. Tum porro, quod obnitendo, sacerdotibus Dei diu contendere non licebat. Nos, inquit Apostolus, talem consuetudinem non habemus, nec Ecclesia Dei. Post unam correptionem, sicut scis ipse; contentiosus omittitur. Persuadere autem quis aliquid possit invito? Tua ergo, frater, non illorum culpa est, si tibi quod erat optimum, nemo persuasit. Nam et hodie in potestate tua est ut nostra etiam scripta contemnas, si ea mavis vincere quam probare. Caeterum et ipsi Domino et apostolis ejus plurimi restiterunt; nec persuaderi veritas cuiquam potuit, nisi el propria religione consensit. Itaque, domine, et nos non ea fiducia scripsimus, qua repugnanti aliquid persuadere possimus; sed ea fide qua volenti bonae pacis aditum non negemus; quae si animo tuo et cordi est, de Catholico nomine nullum habet esse luctamen. Si enim per Deum id populus noster adipiscitur; nec interrogandum est, praecedente auctoritate divina: si per hominem; quando usurpatum, detegendum. Tunc si bonum nomen est, non recipit odium: si malum, caret invidia. ### English translation (Claude) And first, these people rely on very many authorities. For I think the Greek Blastus is theirs; Theodotus too and Praxeas once taught your people; those more notable Phrygians themselves, who falsely claim to have been inspired by Leucius and boast that they were instructed by Proculus, followed Montanus and Maximilla and Priscilla. How many controversies they stirred up about the day of Easter, about the Paraclete, about apostles, about prophets, and much else, as also this about the name Catholic and about the pardon of penance! So if we wished to discuss all these things, we would need your presence and a teachable spirit. Even if I should not adequately instruct you on these things alone that you write about, yet because one must serve those who wonder in whatever way one can, I address briefly, for your instruction, the matters you were pleased to write about. If you wish to know our position more fully, you ought to declare your own more plainly, so that by consulting us obscurely you do not leave us not knowing whether you are asking or provoking. Meanwhile, as regards the present matters, I ask you before all else not to borrow authority for error from this very fact, that, as you say, there was no one within in the whole world who could refute you or persuade you against what you believed. For even if we are unskilled, the Spirit of God is most skilled; and even if we are faithless, God is faithful, who cannot deny himself. Then too, as for resisting: the priests of God were not permitted to dispute long with one who resists. “We,” says the Apostle, “have no such custom, nor has the church of God.” After one rebuke, as you know yourself, the contentious man is let go. And who could persuade anyone of anything against his will? So it is your fault, brother, not theirs, if no one persuaded you of what was best. For even today it is in your power to despise our writings too, if you prefer to defeat them rather than test them. Besides, very many resisted the Lord himself and his apostles; and truth could not be persuaded on anyone unless he agreed with it by his own devotion. So, sir, we too have not written in the confidence that we can persuade someone who resists, but in the good faith by which we would not deny the approach of good peace to one who wishes it; and if this is in your mind and heart, there need be no struggle about the name Catholic. For if our people obtain it through God, there is nothing to ask, since divine authority goes before; if through a man, then it must be shown when it was usurped. Then, if it is a good name, it admits no hatred; if a bad one, it has nothing to envy. ### Scripture references - 2 Tim 2:13: quotation, high confidence - 1 Cor 11:16: quotation, high confidence - Titus 3:10: allusion, high confidence ### Translation notes - “Priests” renders sacerdotes, here the bishops. - The clause “unless he agreed with it by his own devotion” translates a doubtful reading of the digital text (nisi el propria religione consensit), rendered by sense. ### Citation (SBL) Pacian, Ep. Symp. 1.2 (PL 13:1053d–1054a; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/pacian-epistulae/1-2). ## Three Letters to Sympronianus 1.3 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/pacian-epistulae/1-0/#p-1-3 - Source: PL 13:1054d–1055a - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-10-23 Summary: Pacian argues that the name Catholic was needed to distinguish the one church from the heresies and is sanctioned by Cyprian and the bishops of the whole world. ### Latin text Novatianos audio de Novato aut Novatiano vocari: sectam tamen in his, non nomen accuso: nec Montano aliquis aut Phrygibus nomen objecit. Sed sub apostolis, inquies, nemo Catholicus vocabatur. Esto, sic fuerit, vel illud indulge. Cum post apostolos haereses exstitissent, diversisque nominibus columbam Dei atque reginam lacerare per partes et scindere niterentur: nonne cognomen suum plebs apostolica postulabat, quo incorrupti populi distingueret unitatem, ne intemeratam Dei virginem error aliquorum per membra laceraret? Nonne appellatione propria decuit caput principale signari? Ego forte ingressus populosam urbem hodie, cum Marcionitas, cum Apollinariacos, Cataphrygas, Novatianos et caeteros ejusmodi comperissem, qui se christianos vocarent: quo cognomine congregationem meae plebis agnoscerem, nisi Catholica diceretur? Age, quis caeteris plebibus nomina tanta largitus est? Cur tot urbibus, tot nationibus sua quaeque descriptio est? Ipse ille qui catholicum nomen interrogat, causam sui nominis nesciet, si requiram unde mihi traditum est. Certe non est ab homine mutuatum, quod per saecula tanta non cecidit. Catholicum istud nec Marcionem, nec Apellem, nec Montanum sonat, nec haereticos sumit auctores. Multos nos Spiritus sanctus edocuit, quem paracletum apostolis et magistrum Deus misit e coelis; multa ratio, sicut dicit Paulus, et honestas, et, ut ait, ipsa natura. Quid? Parva nobis de apostolicis viris, parva de primis sacerdotibus, parva de beatissimo Cypriano martyre atque doctore currit auctoritas? An volumus docere doctorem? An sapientiores illo sumus, et spiritu carnis inflantur adversus eum, quem aeterni Dei testem nobilis cruor et clarissimae passionis corona produxit? Quid tot earum partium sacerdotes, quos per totum orbem cum eodem Cypriano pax una solidavit? Quid tot annosi episcopi, tot martyres, tot confessores? Age. Si illi usurpando nomini huic auctores idonei non fuerint, nos idonei erimus negando? Et nostram potius auctoritatem patres sequentur, et emendanda sanctorum cedet antiquitas, et jam putrescentia vitiis tempora canones apostolicae antiquitatis eradent? ### English translation (Claude) I hear that the Novatians are called after Novatus or Novatian; yet it is the sect in them that I accuse, not the name; nor has anyone reproached Montanus or the Phrygians with their name. “But under the apostles,” you will say, “no one was called Catholic.” Granted, let it have been so; grant me this too. When after the apostles heresies had arisen and were striving under various names to tear apart and divide the dove and queen of God, did not the apostolic people require a surname of its own, by which to distinguish the unity of the uncorrupted people, so that the error of some might not tear apart limb by limb the undefiled virgin of God? Was it not fitting that the principal head should be marked by its own name? Suppose I entered a populous city today and found Marcionites, Apollinarians, Cataphrygians, Novatians, and the others of that kind, who call themselves Christians: by what surname would I recognize the congregation of my own people, unless it were called Catholic? Come, who bestowed so many names on the other peoples? Why does each of so many cities, so many nations, have its own designation? The very man who questions the name Catholic will not know the cause of his own name if I ask where mine was handed down to me from. Certainly it was not borrowed from a man, which has not fallen in so many ages. This name Catholic does not sound of Marcion, nor of Apelles, nor of Montanus, nor does it take heretics as its authors. The Holy Spirit has taught us many things, whom God sent from heaven to the apostles as Paraclete and teacher; reason has taught us much, as Paul says, and propriety, and, as he says, nature itself. What then? Is the authority that comes down to us from apostolic men, from the first priests, from the most blessed Cyprian, martyr and teacher, small? Do we wish to teach the teacher? Are we wiser than he, and are we puffed up by the spirit of the flesh against him, whom his noble blood and the crown of a most glorious passion brought forth as a witness of the eternal God? What of the many bishops of those parts, whom one peace bound firmly together with that same Cyprian throughout the whole world? What of so many aged bishops, so many martyrs, so many confessors? Come, if they were not fit authorities for using this name, shall we be fit authorities for denying it? Shall the fathers rather follow our authority, and shall the antiquity of the saints give way to be corrected, and shall times already rotting with vices erase the rules of apostolic antiquity? ### Scripture references - 1 Cor 11:14: allusion, medium confidence ### Translation notes - “Puffed up” renders inflantur (third person in the text, “are they puffed up”), taken with the first-person questions around it. ### Citation (SBL) Pacian, Ep. Symp. 1.3 (PL 13:1054d–1055a; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/pacian-epistulae/1-3). ## Three Letters to Sympronianus 1.4 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/pacian-epistulae/1-0/#p-1-4 - Source: PL 13:1055a–1055b - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-10-23 Summary: Pacian explains that Christian is his name and Catholic his surname, and interprets Catholic as “one everywhere” or “obedience in all things.” ### Latin text Nec tamen aestues, frater: Christianus mihi nomen est, Catholicus vero cognomen. Illud me nuncupat; istud ostendit: hoc probor, inde significor. Et si reddenda postremo Catholici vocabuli ratio est, et exprimenda de graeca interpretatione Romana: Catholicus, ubi unum, vel, ut doctiores putant, obedientia omnium nuncupatur, mandatorum scilicet Dei. Unde Apostolus: Si in omnibus obedientes estis. Et iterum: Sicut enim per inobedientiam unius peccatores constituti sunt multi: sic per dicto audientiam unius, justi constituentur multi. Ergo qui Catholicus, idem justi obediens. Qui obediens, idem est Christianus: ita Catholicus, Christianus est. Quare ab haeretico nomine noster populus hac appellatione dividitur, cum Catholicus nuncupatur: sed et si Catholicus ubique unum est, sicut superiores putant, id ipsum David indicat dicens: Astitit regina in veste aurata et variegata, hoc est, una in omnibus. Et in Cantico canticorum Sponsus haec loquitur: Una est columba mea, perfecta mea, una est matri suae, electa est genitrici suae. Et iterum: Adducentur regi virgines post eam. Et adhuc: Adolescentulae, quarum non est numerus. Ergo in omnibus una, et una super omnia. ### English translation (Claude) But do not be agitated, brother: Christian is my name, Catholic my surname. The one names me, the other shows me; by the one I am approved, by the other I am marked out. And if an account of the word Catholic must finally be given, and the Greek rendered into Latin: “Catholic” means “one everywhere,” or, as the more learned think, “obedience in all things,” that is, of the commandments of God. Hence the Apostle says: “If you are obedient in all things.” And again: “For as by the disobedience of one man many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one many will be made righteous.” Therefore one who is Catholic is likewise obedient to righteousness; one who is obedient is likewise a Christian: so a Catholic is a Christian. That is why our people are distinguished from the heretical name by this designation, when they are called Catholic. But even if “Catholic” means “one everywhere,” as those mentioned before think, David points to this very thing when he says: “The queen stood by in a golden and many-coloured robe,” that is, one in all. And in the Song of Songs the Bridegroom says this: “My dove, my perfect one, is one; she is the only one of her mother, the chosen one of her that bore her.” And again: “Virgins will be brought to the king after her.” And further: “Young maidens without number.” Therefore she is one in all and one above all. ### Scripture references - 2 Cor 2:9: quotation, high confidence - Rom 5:19: quotation, high confidence - Ps 45:9 (44:10 Vulg.): quotation, high confidence - Song 6:9 (6:8 Vulg.): quotation, high confidence - Ps 45:14 (44:15 Vulg.): quotation, high confidence - Song 6:8 (6:7 Vulg.): quotation, high confidence ### Translation notes - Pacian’s two etymologies of the Greek katholikos: “one everywhere” and “obedience in all things”; the second is his own (or his source’s) and not the usual derivation. - The Psalm quotations follow the Latin Psalter (Ps 44 in the Vulgate numbering). ### Citation (SBL) Pacian, Ep. Symp. 1.4 (PL 13:1055a–1055b; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/pacian-epistulae/1-4). ## Three Letters to Sympronianus 1.5 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/pacian-epistulae/1-0/#p-1-5 - Source: PL 13:1055c–1057a - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-10-23 Summary: Pacian argues from the prophets, the Psalms, David, Nebuchadnezzar, the parables, the letters to the seven churches, and Paul that God offers penance to the baptized who sin. ### Latin text Si rationem nominis quaeris, apparet. De poenitentia vero, Deus praestet ut nullis fidelibus necessaria sit; nemo post sacri fontis auxilium, foveam mortis incurrat: nec tarda solamina ingerere sacerdotes aut docere cogantur, ne peccandi iter aperiant, dum peccanti remediis blandiuntur. Sed nos hanc indulgentiam Dei nostri miseris, non beatis, nec ante peccatum, sed peccata detegimus: nec sanis medicinam, sed male habentibus nuntiamus. Si nihil in baptizatos possunt nequitiae spirituales, nihil fraus illa serpentis quae primum subvertit hominem, quae posteris ejus tot titulos damnationis impressit; si recessit a mundo, si regnare jam coepimus, si nullum oculis, nullum manibus, nullum mentibus nostris crimen obrepit; abjiciatur hoc Dei donum, repellatur auxilium, nulla exomologesis, nulli gemitus audiantur; contemnat omne remedium superba justitia. Quod si haec homini suo Dominus providit; si idem stantibus praemia, qui jacentibus remedia largitus est: desinite divinam accusare pietatem, aut tot coelestis clementiae titulos objectu rigoris eradere, aut gratuita Domini bona inobsecrabili asperitate prohibere. Non largimur ista de nostro. Convertimini ad me, dicit Dominus, simulque jejunio, et fletu, et planctu, scindite corda vestra. Et iterum: Relinquat impius vias suas, et vir facinorosus cogitationes suas, et convertatur ad Dominum, et misericordiam consequetur. Itemque Propheta in hunc modum clamat: Quoniam Deus pius, et mitis et patiens est, et qui reflectat sententiam adversus malitias irrogatam. Habet ne tam diutinum serpens venenum, et Christus non habet medicinam? Diabolus in mundo interficit, Christus hic non potest subvenire? Pigeat sane peccare, sed poenitere non pigeat. Pudeat periclitari, sed non pudeat liberari. Quis naufrago tabulam, ne evadat, eripiet? Quis sanandis vulneribus invidebit? An non David dicit: Lavabo per singulas noctes lectum meum, lacrymis stratum meum rigabo. Et iterum: Peccatum meum ego agnosco, et facinus meum non texi. Et adhuc: Dixi: prosequar adversum me delictum meum Deo meo, et tu remisisti impietatem cordis. Nonne ille post caedis et adulterii reatum, pro Bethsabee poenitenti, Propheta respondit: Dominus abstulit a te peccatum tuum. Num Babylonium regem post tot idololatriae facinora damnatum, exomologesis non liberavit? Et quid est quod ait Dominus: Nonne qui ceciderit, resurget, et qui aversus fuerit, convertetur? Quid illa tot similitudinum dominicarum argumenta respondent? Quod drachmam invenit mulier, et gratulatur inventam; quod pastor ovem reportat erraticam; quod filio revertenti, post prodacta omnia bona, et cum meretricibus et fornicariis nepotata, pater blandus occurrit, et invidum fratrem ostensa ratione castigat? Filius, inquiens, meus hic mortuus fuerat, et revixit; perierat. et inventus est. Quid ille in via vulneratus, a Levita et sacerdote praeteritus? Nonne curatur? Revolve quae Spiritus dicat ecclesiis: Ephesios desertae dilectionis accusat: stuprum Thyatirenis imputat; Sardos in opere cessantes, Pergamenos docentes diversa reprehendit; Laodicenorum divitias inurit; et tamen omnes ad poenitentiam satisfactione invitat. Quid Apostolus ad Corinthios cum ita dicit: Ne cum venero, lugeam multos ex his qui ante peccaverunt, et non egerunt poenitentiam ex his quae ante gesserunt in fornicatione et immunditiis suis. Quid, cum rursus ad Galatas? Si quis praeventus fuerit in aliquo delicto; id est, quocumque, vos qui spiritales estis, instruite ejusmodi in spiritu mansuetudinis, cavens ne et tu tenteris. At numquid paterfamilias, in magna domo, argentea tantum et aurea vasa custodit? Nonne et fictilia et lignea, et composita quaedam et refecta dignatur? Nunc gaudeo, inquit Apostolus, quia contristati estis ad poenitentiam. Et iterum: Quia secundum Deum tristitia, poenitentiam, in salutem, stabilem operatur. ### English translation (Claude) If you ask the reason for the name, it is plain. As for penance, may God grant that it be necessary for none of the faithful; that no one after the help of the sacred font fall into the pit of death; and that priests not be forced to apply or teach its slow consolations, lest, while they soothe the sinner with remedies, they open a road to sinning. But we disclose this indulgence of our God to the wretched, not to the blessed, and not before sin but after sins; and we announce medicine not to the healthy but to those who are ill. If the spiritual forces of wickedness can do nothing against the baptized; if that deceit of the serpent, which first overthrew man and stamped so many marks of condemnation on his descendants, can do nothing; if it has withdrawn from the world; if we have already begun to reign; if no crime creeps upon our eyes, our hands, our minds: then let this gift of God be thrown away, let the help be rejected, let no confession, no groans be heard; let proud righteousness despise every remedy. But if the Lord has provided these things for his own man; if the same one who gave rewards to those who stand gave remedies to those who have fallen: cease to accuse the divine kindness, or to erase so many marks of heavenly mercy by setting severity against them, or to forbid the free gifts of the Lord with an unappeasable harshness. We do not bestow these things from our own store. “Turn to me,” says the Lord, “and at the same time with fasting and weeping and mourning rend your hearts.” And again: “Let the wicked man forsake his ways, and the criminal his thoughts, and let him turn to the Lord, and he will obtain mercy.” And likewise the Prophet cries out in this way: “For God is kind and gentle and patient, and one who turns back the sentence pronounced against wickedness.” Does the serpent have so lasting a poison, and Christ not have a medicine? Does the devil kill in the world, and is Christ unable to help here? Let a man be ashamed to sin, certainly, but not ashamed to repent. Let him be ashamed to be in danger, but not ashamed to be rescued. Who will snatch a plank from a shipwrecked man so that he may not escape? Who will begrudge the healing of wounds? Does not David say: “Every night I will wash my bed; I will water my couch with tears”? And again: “I acknowledge my sin, and I have not covered my crime.” And further: “I said: I will declare against myself my transgression to my God, and you forgave the wickedness of my heart.” After the guilt of murder and adultery over Bathsheba, did not the Prophet answer him when he repented: “The Lord has taken away your sin from you”? Did not confession free the king of Babylon, condemned after so many crimes of idolatry? And what is it that the Lord says: “Shall not he who falls rise again, and he who has turned away return?” What do so many proofs from the Lord’s parables answer? That a woman finds a drachma and rejoices that it is found; that a shepherd carries back the straying sheep; that a fond father runs to meet his returning son after all his goods had been squandered and wasted on harlots and the sexually immoral, and rebukes the envious brother by showing him the reason: “This my son,” he says, “was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and is found.” What of the man wounded on the road and passed by the Levite and the priest? Is he not cared for? Turn over what the Spirit says to the churches: he accuses the Ephesians of having abandoned love; he charges the Thyatirans with sexual immorality; he rebukes the Sardians for slackness in work and the Pergamenes for teaching other doctrines; he brands the riches of the Laodiceans; and yet he invites them all to repentance with satisfaction. What of the Apostle when he says this to the Corinthians: “Lest when I come I should mourn many of those who sinned before and have not repented of what they did before in sexual immorality and their uncleanness”? What when he writes again to the Galatians: “If anyone is overtaken in any fault,” that is, any whatever, “you who are spiritual, instruct such a one in a spirit of gentleness, taking care lest you also be tempted”? Or does the master of a household in a great house keep only vessels of silver and gold? Does he not think fit to keep vessels of earthenware and wood too, and some that are mended and repaired? “Now I rejoice,” says the Apostle, “because you were grieved to repentance.” And again: “For sorrow according to God works repentance unto salvation, a steadfast one.” ### Scripture references - Joel 2:12: quotation, high confidence - Isa 55:7: quotation, high confidence - Joel 2:13: quotation, high confidence - Ps 6:6 (6:7 Vulg.): quotation, high confidence - Ps 51:3 (50:5 Vulg.): quotation, high confidence - Ps 32:5 (31:5 Vulg.): quotation, high confidence - 2 Sam 12:13 (2 Reg. 12:13 Vulg.): quotation, high confidence - Dan 4:34: allusion, medium confidence - Jer 8:4: quotation, high confidence - Luke 15:8: allusion, high confidence - Luke 15:4: allusion, high confidence - Luke 15:11: allusion, high confidence - Luke 15:32: quotation, high confidence - Luke 10:30: allusion, high confidence - Rev 2:4: allusion, high confidence - Rev 2:20: allusion, high confidence - Rev 3:1: allusion, high confidence - Rev 2:14: allusion, high confidence - Rev 3:17: allusion, high confidence - 2 Cor 12:21: quotation, high confidence - Gal 6:1: quotation, high confidence - 2 Tim 2:20: allusion, high confidence - 2 Cor 7:9: quotation, high confidence - 2 Cor 7:10: quotation, high confidence ### Translation notes - “Who turns back the sentence” renders reflectat sententiam, the Old Latin form of Joel 2:13 (“relents over evil”). - The quotation “I said: I will declare against myself my transgression” follows the Latin Psalter of Ps 31(32):5; Migne’s reference “(Ibid.)” was removed from the text. - The king of Babylon is Nebuchadnezzar (Dan 4); Pacian treats his restoration as the fruit of confession. - “With satisfaction” renders satisfactione, the making of amends that belonged to penance. - “Steadfast” renders stabilem (2 Cor 7:10, “not to be regretted”). ### Citation (SBL) Pacian, Ep. Symp. 1.5 (PL 13:1055c–1057a; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/pacian-epistulae/1-5). ## Three Letters to Sympronianus 1.6 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/pacian-epistulae/1-0/#p-1-6 - Source: PL 13:1057a–1057c - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-10-23 Summary: Pacian argues that the power to bind and loose given to the apostles has passed to the bishops along with baptism and chrism. ### Latin text Sed poenitere non licuit. Nemo sine fructu imperat laborem: Dignus est enim mercenarius mercede sua. Numquam Deus non poenitenti comminaretur, nisi ignosceret poenitenti. Solus hoc, inquies, Deus poterit. Verum est: sed et quod per sacerdotes suos facit, ipsius potestas est. Nam quid est illud quod Apostolis dicit: Quae ligaveritis in terris, ligata erunt et in coelis: Et quaecumque solveritis in terris, soluta erunt et in coelis? Cur hoc, si ligare hominibus ac solvere non licebat? An tantum hoc solis Apostolis licet? Ergo et baptizare solis licet, et Spiritum sanctum dare solis, et solis gentium peccata purgare: quia totum hoc, non aliis quam Apostolis imperatum est. Quod si uno in loco, et resolutio vinculorum et sacramenti potestas datur; aut totum ad nos ex apostolorum forma et potestate deductum est; aut nec illud ex decretis relaxatum est. Ego, inquit, fundamentum posui; alius autem superaedificat. Hoc ergo superaedificantes, quod Apostolorum doctrina fundavit. Denique et episcopi, Apostoli nominantur, sicut de Epaphrodito Paulus edisserit: Fratrem et commilitonem, inquit, meum; vestrum autem apostolum. Si ergo et lavacri et chrismatis potestas, majorum et longe charismatum ad episcopos inde descendit; et ligandi quoque jus adfuit atque solvendi. Quod etsi nos ob nostra peccata temerarie vindicamus; Deus tamen illud, ut sanctis et Apostolorum cathedram tenentibus, non negabit; qui episcopis, etiam Unici sui nomen indulsit. ### English translation (Claude) “But it was not permitted to repent.” No one commands labour without fruit: “for the labourer is worthy of his wages.” God would never threaten the one who does not repent unless he pardoned the one who repents. “God alone,” you will say, “can do this.” That is true; but what he does through his priests is also his own power. For what is it that he says to the apostles: “Whatever you bind on earth will be bound also in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed also in heaven”? Why this, if it was not permitted to men to bind and loose? Or is this permitted only to the apostles? Then it is permitted to them alone to baptize, and to them alone to give the Holy Spirit, and to them alone to cleanse the sins of the nations, since all this was commanded to none other than the apostles. But if both the loosing of bonds and the power of the sacrament are given in one place, then either the whole has come down to us from the pattern and power of the apostles, or not even that has been granted by the decrees. “I,” he says, “laid the foundation, and another builds on it.” We then build on what the teaching of the apostles founded. Indeed, bishops too are called apostles, as Paul declares of Epaphroditus: “My brother and fellow soldier,” he says, “but your apostle.” If, then, the power of the washing and of the chrism, gifts far greater, has come down from there to the bishops, the right of binding and loosing was with them too. And although we claim it rashly, because of our sins, God will nevertheless not deny it to them, as to the holy ones who hold the chair of the apostles, he who has granted to bishops even the name of his only Son. ### Scripture references - Luke 10:7: quotation, high confidence - Matt 18:18: quotation, high confidence - 1 Cor 3:10: quotation, high confidence - Phil 2:25: quotation, high confidence ### Translation notes - “Priests” renders sacerdotes, here the bishops. - “The name of his only Son”: probably that bishops, as the anointed, bear the name of Christ (compare 3.7). - “Your apostle” follows the Latin of Phil 2:25 (apostolum, “messenger”). ### Citation (SBL) Pacian, Ep. Symp. 1.6 (PL 13:1057a–1057c; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/pacian-epistulae/1-6). ## Three Letters to Sympronianus 1.7 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/pacian-epistulae/1-0/#p-1-7 - Source: PL 13:1057c–1058a - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-10-23 Summary: Pacian defends the bishop’s authority to forgive as derived from the apostles and says the pardon of penance is granted only after long and careful testing. ### Latin text Plura scriberem, frater, ni et celeritate pueri revertentis urgerer, et vel praesenti tibi, vel de omni proposito confitenti, copiosiora servarem. Nemo episcopum hominis contemplatione despiciat. Recordemur, quod Petrus Apostolus Dominum nostrum Episcopum nominarit; Sed conversi, inquit, modo ad episcopum et pastorem animarum vestrarum. Quid episcopo negabitur, in quo Dei nomen operatur? Reddet quidem illi rationem, si quid perperam fecerit, vel si corrupte et impie judicarit. Nec praejudicatur Deo, quo minus mali aedificatoris opera rescindat: interea si pia illa administratio est, adjutor Dei operum perseverat. Ecce Apostolus ad laicos scribit: Si cui quid donatis, et ego: Nam et ego quod donavi, si quid donavit propter vos in persona Christi; ut non possideatur a satana; non enim versutias ejus ignoramus. Si autem quod laici donant, Apostolus donasse se dicit; quod episcopus fecerit, qualiter respuetur? Ergo nec baptisma, nec criminum remissio, nec innovatio corporis, sanctae potestati ejus indulta est; quia nihil propria usurpatione mandatum est, totumque id ex apostolico jure defluxit. Scio, frater, hanc ipsam poenitentiae veniam non passim omnibus dari, nec ante quam aut interpretatio divinae voluntatis, aut forsitan visitatio fuerit, relaxari. Magno pondere magnoque libramine post multos gemitus effusionemque lacrymarum, post totius ecclesiae preces, ita veniam verae poenitentiae non negari, ut judicaturo Christo, nemo praejudicet. Si apertius, quid tu sentias, scripseris, frater; plenius instrueris. ### English translation (Claude) I would write more, brother, if I were not pressed by the haste of the returning servant, and if I were not saving fuller things either for when you are present or for when you have declared your whole position. Let no one despise a bishop on account of the man. Let us remember that the apostle Peter called our Lord a bishop: “But you have now turned,” he says, “to the bishop and shepherd of your souls.” What will be denied to a bishop in whom the name of God works? He will indeed give account to him if he has done anything wrongly, or judged corruptly and impiously. Nor is God prejudged, so that he may not undo the works of a bad builder; meanwhile, if that administration is godly, he remains a helper of God’s works. See, the Apostle writes to lay people: “If you forgive anyone anything, I do too. For what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for your sake in the person of Christ, so that we may not be overreached by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his designs.” If the Apostle says that he has forgiven what lay people forgive, how shall what a bishop has done be rejected? Therefore neither baptism, nor the remission of sins, nor the renewal of the body has been granted to his holy power on the ground that anything was enjoined by his own usurpation; the whole of it has flowed down from apostolic right. I know, brother, that this very pardon of penance is not given to all indiscriminately, nor is it granted before there has been either an interpretation of the divine will or perhaps a visitation. With great weight and great weighing, after many groans and the shedding of tears, after the prayers of the whole church, the pardon of true penance is not denied, in such a way that no one prejudges Christ, who is to judge. If you write more openly what you think, brother, you will be more fully instructed. ### Scripture references - 1 Pet 2:25: quotation, high confidence - 2 Cor 2:10: quotation, high confidence - 2 Cor 2:11: quotation, high confidence ### Translation notes - “Visitation” (visitatio) is uncertain: perhaps a sign from God, or a visit by the bishop. - “The renewal of the body” renders innovatio corporis, apparently the restoration of a penitent to the church as Christ’s body. ### Citation (SBL) Pacian, Ep. Symp. 1.7 (PL 13:1057c–1058a; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/pacian-epistulae/1-7). ## Three Letters to Sympronianus 2.0 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/pacian-epistulae/1-0/#p-2-0 - Source: PL 13:1058b - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-10-23 Summary: The heading and greeting of Pacian's second letter to Sympronian. ### Latin text De Symproniani litteris. Pacianus episcopus Symproniano fratri salutem. ### English translation (Claude) On the letter of Sympronian. Bishop Pacian to his brother Sympronian, greeting. ### Citation (SBL) Pacian, Ep. Symp. 2.0 (PL 13:1058b; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/pacian-epistulae/2-0). ## Three Letters to Sympronianus 2.1 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/pacian-epistulae/1-0/#p-2-1 - Source: PL 13:1058b–1058c - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-10-23 Summary: Pacian promises to answer Sympronian without malice, though he finds his questions crafty, and first comments on his covering letter. ### Latin text In quaestione prolixa, quantum potero brevitatem sequar. Neque tibi, frater, sub interrogationis bonae specie, occulta verborum tela jaculanti atque objicienti, quae ipse machinare, aliquam vicem malitiae repensabo. Orare pro persequentibus jubemur, maledicentibusque benedicere. Fraus enim quasi vulpeculae, vis autem leonis est: utrumque ab homine alienissimum; sed fraus odio digna majore. Nam cum plus nocere credas, quasi ignarus interrogas; cum docere te putes, simulas erudiri. Rabbi, Dominum vocabant veteres Pharisaei, cum aenigmata legis opponerent; Magistrum appellabant, cum sibi omne magisterium vindicarent. Quidlibet agas, frater, totum ex me simpliciter recognosces. Malo imperitus, quam malitiosus intelligi: malo fatuus quam callidus judicari. Quare prius quam rationem fidei nostrae (de qua moveris) assignem, accipe pauca de litteris tuis quas tractatui praetulisti. ### English translation (Claude) In a lengthy question I shall aim at brevity as far as I can. Nor shall I, brother, repay you with any return of malice, although under the appearance of a good question you hurl hidden darts of words and throw out things that you yourself contrive. We are commanded to pray for those who persecute us and to bless those who curse us. For deceit is like the little fox, and violence like the lion; both are utterly foreign to man, but deceit deserves the greater hatred. For when you think you are doing more harm, you ask as if ignorant; when you think you are teaching, you pretend to be instructed. The Pharisees of old called the Lord “Rabbi” when they set riddles of the law before him; they called him “Teacher” when they claimed all teaching for themselves. Whatever you do, brother, you will find everything in me straightforward. I would rather be thought unskilled than malicious; I would rather be judged a fool than crafty. So before I set out the account of our faith, which troubles you, hear a few things about the letter that you placed before your treatise. ### Scripture references - Matt 5:44: allusion, high confidence - Luke 6:28: allusion, medium confidence ### Citation (SBL) Pacian, Ep. Symp. 2.1 (PL 13:1058b–1058c; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/pacian-epistulae/2-1). ## Three Letters to Sympronianus 2.2 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/pacian-epistulae/1-0/#p-2-2 - Source: PL 13:1058d–1059a - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-10-23 Summary: Pacian denies that his first letter was bitter and restates his account of the name Catholic, which Sympronian himself accepts. ### Latin text Refectum esse te dicis prioribus epistolis meis, et statim addis me cum amaritudine respondisse quae scripserim. Si amara reficiunt, quid dulcia operentur ignoro; nisi quia; ut in medicinae poculis, solet amarum magis quam dulce medicari. Sed quaeso, litteras meas repetas, an aliquo felle respersae sint, quid superbum, quid insuave responderim. Plures me, ais, haereses nominasse, de quibus nemo quaesierit. Age, quid tua si haereticus non eras? Qui cum de fide nostra moveres quaestionem, et doceri velle te diceres, scripsi ignorantiae causas esse multiplices, quae vos potissimum haberet, ut aperires, ne retexendis pluribus aestuarem. De Catholico nomine multa respondi placide. Dixi enim, nihil alterius interesse quid alius vocaretur. Ac si vim nominis postulares, quodcumque illud esse mirificum, seu unum in omnibus, seu unum super omnia, seu quod ante non dixi, filius regis, id est populus Christianus. Adeo certe non inditum nobis quod per saecula tanta non caderet. Et sane gratulor quod licet alios anteposueris, etiam circa nos assentiare de nomine. Quid si negares? Natura clamaret. Aut si adhuc dubitas, taceamus. Ambo, quod vocabimur, hoc erimus teste nominis vetustate. Caeterum si pertinacius flagitaveris, vide ne tibi vir ille virtutis exclamet; Quid interrogas nomen meum? Et ipsum est mirabile. Tunc addidisti sane, unde Catholici nomen hoc traherent, non esse reputandum; quia nec Valentinis si a Valentino, nec Phrygibus si a Phrygia, nec Novatianis si a Novatiano vocarentur, imputari solere. ### English translation (Claude) You say that you were refreshed by my earlier letter, and at once you add that I answered what I wrote with bitterness. If bitter things refresh, I do not know what sweet things would do; unless, as in the cups of medicine, the bitter usually heals better than the sweet. But I beg you, read my letter again, whether it is sprinkled with any gall, whether I answered anything proud or unpleasant. You say I named several heresies about which no one had asked. Come, what did it matter to you, if you were not a heretic? When you raised a question about our faith and said you wished to be taught, I wrote that the causes of ignorance are manifold, and asked you to disclose which one held you in particular, so that I would not be troubled with unravelling many. About the name Catholic I answered much, and gently. For I said that it made no difference to anyone what another was called. And if you asked for the force of the name, I said that whatever it was, it was wonderful: whether “one in all,” or “one above all,” or, what I did not say before, “the son of the king,” that is, the Christian people. Certainly it was not given to us so that it might not fall in so many ages. And indeed I am glad that, although you have put others before us, you agree with us about the name. What if you denied it? Nature would cry out. Or if you still doubt, let us be silent. We shall both be what we shall be called, with the antiquity of the name as witness. Otherwise, if you press more stubbornly, take care lest that man of power cry out to you: “Why do you ask my name? It is wonderful.” Then you added that one should not consider where the Catholics drew this name from, since it was not usually held against the Valentinians if they were called after Valentinus, nor the Phrygians if after Phrygia, nor the Novatians if after Novatian. ### Scripture references - Judg 13:18: quotation, high confidence - Gen 32:29: allusion, low confidence ### Translation notes - “That man of power” is the angel of Judg 13:18 (compare Gen 32:29). - “Certainly it was not given to us so that it might not fall” is a doubtful rendering of a compressed sentence (Adeo certe non inditum nobis quod per saecula tanta non caderet), taken by sense: the name was not imposed by men, since it has lasted so long. ### Citation (SBL) Pacian, Ep. Symp. 2.2 (PL 13:1058d–1059a; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/pacian-epistulae/2-2). ## Three Letters to Sympronianus 2.3 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/pacian-epistulae/1-0/#p-2-3 - Source: PL 13:1059a–1059c - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-10-23 Summary: Pacian rejects Sympronian’s insulting names for Cyprian’s people and presses him to admit that his sect is called Novatian. ### Latin text Hic tu graviter commoveris, et quasi aculeo fixus erigeris; nam sic iratus exclamas: Numquid Cypriano sancto viro hoc obest, quod populus ejus apostaticum nomen habet, vel Capitolinum, vel Syndreum? Conviciaris; et ecce non moveor. Horumne aliquid appellati sumus? Interroga saeculum, frater, totosque ex ordine annos; an nobis nomen hoc haeserit, an Cypriani populus aliud quam Catholicus nominatus sit. Numquam nomen ullum ex his audivi. Jam vide, si vocari aliquis eo nomine potuit, quod sibi nescit impositum. Quid ergo? Maledicta sunt ista, non nomina; et maledicta irascentium, maledicta petulantium. Quotvis et ego vos possum appellare nominibus, si liceat irasci. Cyprianum sanctum vocas, et populum ejus apostaticum? Quomodo? si initium sanctum, et farina; et si radix sancta, et rami. Egone apostaticus, an Novatus? Novatus, inquam, patre prodito, Ecclesia derelicta, partu uxoris effuso? Egone apostaticus, an Novatianus, quem absentem epistola episcopum finxit; quem consecrante nullo, linteata sedes accepit? Verum ista posterius: interim ipsi vos dicite quid vocemini. Negatisne Novatianos a Novatiano vocari? Quodlibet nomen imponas, semper istud haerebit. Scrutare totos (si videtur) annales, et crede tot saeculis: respondebis Christianum. Inquirente me genus sectae; Novatianum non inficiaberis. Nec tamen ego Novatiani tui nomen accuso, quod toties requisitum circumloquentibus lineis, et operto quodam sinu claudis. Fatere simpliciter: nihil est sceleris in nomine. Quid te toties interrogatus abscondis? quid causam nominis erubescis? Cum primum scripseras, Cataphrygem putabam. Tune secundis quidem litteris confiteris? Meo invides nomini, et tuum vitas? Vide qui sit pudoris in causa, quae refugit quod vocatur. ### English translation (Claude) Here you are gravely moved and rise up as though pricked by a goad; for, angry, you cry out: “Does it harm Cyprian, a holy man, that his people bear the name Apostatic, or Capitoline, or Synedrian?” You insult us; and see, I am not moved. Have we been called any of these? Ask the age, brother, and all the years in order, whether this name has stuck to us, whether the people of Cyprian has been called anything but Catholic. I have never heard any of these names. Now see whether anyone could be called by a name that he does not know was imposed on him. What then? These are insults, not names, and the insults of angry men, the insults of the insolent. I too could call you by as many names as you like, if it were permitted to be angry. You call Cyprian holy, and his people apostate? How? If the first portion is holy, so is the lump; and if the root is holy, so are the branches. Am I an apostate, or Novatus? Novatus, I say, who betrayed his father, abandoned the church, and caused his wife to miscarry? Am I an apostate, or Novatian, whom a letter made a bishop in his absence, whom, with no one consecrating him, a linen-covered seat received? But of this later. Meanwhile, tell us yourselves what you are called. Do you deny that the Novatians are called after Novatian? Whatever name you impose, this one will always stick. Search all the annals, if you please, and trust so many ages: you will answer “Christian.” When I ask the kind of sect, you will not deny “Novatian.” Yet I do not accuse the name of your Novatian, which, so often asked about, you shut up in roundabout lines and a kind of covered fold. Confess it plainly: there is no crime in a name. Why do you hide when asked so often? Why do you blush at the cause of your name? When you first wrote, I thought you a Cataphrygian. Do you admit it in your second letter? Do you envy my name and avoid your own? See what shame there is in a cause that flees what it is called. ### Scripture references - Rom 11:16: quotation, high confidence ### Extrabiblical texts - Cyprian, Ep. 52.2 (Letters): allusion, medium confidence ### Translation notes - The insulting names (apostaticum, Capitolinum, Syndreum) are Novatian charges that the Catholics were apostates who had sacrificed at the Capitol; “Synedrian” (Syndreum) is uncertain, perhaps from Greek synedrion or a misreading. - On Novatus’s crimes see Cyprian, Letter 52 (Hartel), which Pacian follows. - “A linen-covered seat” (linteata sedes): apparently that Novatian was enthroned without a valid consecration. ### Citation (SBL) Pacian, Ep. Symp. 2.3 (PL 13:1059a–1059c; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/pacian-epistulae/2-3). ## Three Letters to Sympronianus 2.4 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/pacian-epistulae/1-0/#p-2-4 - Source: PL 13:1059d–1060c - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-10-23 Summary: Pacian defends his use of a line of Virgil by Paul’s quotations of pagan poets and mocks Sympronian’s appeal to the Muses. ### Latin text Quae castigas et agis? Quasi ad rhetorem venerimus, aut ars sit tractanda, aut de versibus Virgilii, versus enarrarem? Cum plures haereticos nominassem, addidi: Et quos fama recondit obscura. Et unde tu hoc de Virgilii versu tractum putas, si Virgilium omnino non noveras? Atqui ego non ex ordine versum posui. Dixi enim: Quos fama recondit obscura: ut loquentibus moris est, ex copia sermonis humani dicere aliquid quod ante dictum sit. Tu vero versum suo ordine sua compage repetisti. Adeo Virgilium plus amasti, ut ne fas fieri putares, si versum ejus infringeres? Et tamen ego a parvulo didiceram. Quid mirum si in ea incidi quae sciebam? In te, frater, tantus est labor ut ea nunc demum legas quae lecta quondam ab aliis erubescebas? Latinis institutum, Latini loquentem tam accusare debebis quam Graece Graecum, quam Parthice Parthum, quam Punice Poenum: Medis, AEgyptiis, Hebraeis sua lingua est secundum copiam Domini, qui eam in centum viginti ora modulatus est. Poeticum versum episcopus dixit. Quid Paulus Apostolus? Erubescit, cum Atheniensem illum versum et dixit et comprobat? Nam in Actis Apostolorum ita ponit; Quidam etiam secundum vos dixerunt: Hujus namque genus sumus: cum igitur genus simus Dei. Et rursus ad Titum dixit: Dixit quidam ex illis proprius earum propheta, Cretenses semper mendaces, malae bestiae, ventres pigri. Et addit: Testimonium hoc verum est. Sic peccamus exemplo: nec rhetores sumus, sed quamcumque vocem, copiam Dei credimus. Latium, AEgyptus, Athenae, Thraces, Arabes, Hispani Deum confitentur; omnes linguas Spiritus sanctus intelligit. Tu ipse cur ais, Litteras tuas vivaci cedro perlinam propter cariosos hostes musarum? Quarum, oro, musarum? An quae invenerint litteras et scripserint chartas quas tincae persequentur? Dic, oro, frater, musae litteras reperunt Nonne per Dominum omnia, et Deo omnia? Praeter illas centum et viginti linguas, fuit adhuc alia musarum? Hesiodus istud in Helicone mentitus est, sed Atheniensium studio, quibus, ut Apostolus ait, nihil vacabat nisi loqui. Nos teste Apostolo omnium vocum modos, omnium genera linguarum a Deo inspirata retinemus. Ignosco tamen, frater, si quid et tu de tuo auctore praesumis, et Novatiani philosophiam per quam ille in naufragium religionis incurrit, cum Hesiodi auctoritate conjungis. Verumtamen Apostoli meminisse debueras, qui ait: Videte ne quis vos decipiat per philosophiam et inanem seductionem. ### English translation (Claude) What do you reproach and pursue? As if we had come to a teacher of rhetoric, or as if an art were to be treated, or I were expounding verses of Virgil! When I had named several heretics, I added: “And those whom dim report keeps hidden.” And where do you think this was drawn from, from a verse of Virgil, if you had not known Virgil at all? Yet I did not set down the verse in its order. For I said: “whom dim report keeps hidden,” as is the custom of speakers, saying out of the store of human speech something that has been said before. But you repeated the verse in its own order, in its own structure. Did you love Virgil so much that you thought it an outrage if I broke up his verse? And yet I had learned it from a little boy. What wonder if I fell into what I knew? Is there such toil in you, brother, that you now at last read what you once blushed at when it was read by others? You ought no more to accuse one schooled in Latin and speaking Latin than a Greek speaking Greek, a Parthian speaking Parthian, a Carthaginian speaking Punic. The Medes, the Egyptians, the Hebrews have their own language according to the bounty of the Lord, who tuned it into a hundred and twenty mouths. A bishop has quoted a poet’s verse. What of the apostle Paul? Does he blush when he both quoted and approved that Athenian verse? For in the Acts of the Apostles he says: “As some of your own have said: For we are also his offspring. Since then we are the offspring of God.” And again he said to Titus: “One of them, their own prophet, said: Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy bellies.” And he adds: “This testimony is true.” So we sin by example; we are not rhetoricians, but we believe every word to be from the bounty of God. Latium, Egypt, Athens, the Thracians, the Arabs, the Spaniards confess God; the Holy Spirit understands all languages. Why do you yourself say: “I will smear my letter with lively cedar because of the decaying enemies of the Muses”? Of which Muses, I ask? Those who invented letters and wrote the papers that the moths pursue? Tell me, I ask, brother, did the Muses discover letters? Is not all through the Lord and all to God? Besides those hundred and twenty languages, was there yet another of the Muses? Hesiod told that lie on Helicon, but through the zeal of the Athenians, who, as the Apostle says, had leisure for nothing but talking. We, with the Apostle as witness, hold that the modes of all speech and the kinds of all languages are inspired by God. Yet I forgive you, brother, if you too presume something from your own author, and join the philosophy of Novatian, through which he ran into the shipwreck of religion, with the authority of Hesiod. But you ought to have remembered the Apostle, who says: “See that no one deceives you through philosophy and empty seduction.” ### Scripture references - Acts 17:28: quotation, high confidence - Acts 17:29: quotation, high confidence - Titus 1:12: quotation, high confidence - Titus 1:13: quotation, high confidence - Acts 17:21: allusion, high confidence - Col 2:8: quotation, high confidence - 1 Tim 1:19: allusion, low confidence ### Extrabiblical texts - Virgil, Aen. 5.302 (Virgil): quotation, high confidence - Aratus, Phaen. 5 (Aratus, Phaenomena): quotation, high confidence - Epimenides (Epimenides (fragments)): quotation, medium confidence - Hesiod, Theog. 22–34 (Hesiod, Theogony): allusion, medium confidence ### Translation notes - The Virgil line is Aeneid 5.302 (see 1.1). - “A hundred and twenty mouths”: Pacian’s count of the languages; the source of the number is uncertain. - The verse quoted in Acts 17:28 is Aratus, Phaenomena 5; the Cretan line in Titus 1:12 is traditionally ascribed to Epimenides. - Hesiod’s meeting with the Muses on Helicon is in Theogony 22–34. ### Citation (SBL) Pacian, Ep. Symp. 2.4 (PL 13:1059d–1060c; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/pacian-epistulae/2-4). ## Three Letters to Sympronianus 2.5 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/pacian-epistulae/1-0/#p-2-5 - Source: PL 13:1060d–1061b - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-10-23 Summary: Pacian answers the charge that Catholics brought imperial persecution on the Novatians: Christian rulers acted on their own, as rulers in Scripture defended the righteous. ### Latin text Jam quale illud est quod Catholicis imputandum putas, si quando vos reges aut imperia persecuta sunt? Ergo e contrario vobis debuit imputari quoties regum et persecutionem Catholici pertulerunt: atque nostros pagani principes, persecuti sunt. Vos Christianorum odia pertulistis! Sed nostri magis questi sunt. Viderit qui hoc fecit qua mente, quo spiritu; pacemne an procorarit. Verum et si quidam eorum deliquerunt, inquit, numquid fidem Dei destruunt? Nec tamen tu querelam putes fuisse nostrorum. Sed cum per nostram fidem Christiani principes esse coepissent; ipsi principes Catholicae, hoc est suae parti faventes proprio dolore commoti sunt; nisi forte Danieli imputabitur quod a Dario vindicatus est; aut Hesteri sanctissimae feminae, cum pro ea dux regis occiditur; aut tribus pueris, quod propter eos post experimenta flammarum, profanis et incredulis rex Babylonius comminatur. Nonne Simonem Petrus, judice astipulante, confundit? Non Helima, favente Sergio, Paulus excaecat? Vindicatus esset et Hierosolymis, si quid fidei ligatus habuisset. Nescis servire ipsas innocentibus potestates, et in bonum sanctis patribus ministrare? Sicut Apostolus dicit: Principes non sunt timori bono operi, sed malo. Vis autem non timere potestatem? Bonum fac, et habebis laudem ex ea per Dominum: Minister enim est tibi in bonum. Et tamen ego de nullo questus sum, de nemine vindicatus. Nec impedire mihi Novatianos puto, quorum parvitate si vellem atque defectu poteram gloriari. Ecce plebem tuam imperatori nullus accusat, et solus es. Oportet nos tamen omnes stare ante tribunal Dei. Quod unum scio, quererentur Novatiani, si causa eorum esset ullis grata principibus. ### English translation (Claude) Now what is this, that you think it should be charged to the Catholics if kings or authorities have at any time persecuted you? By the same reasoning it ought to have been charged to you whenever Catholics suffered the persecution of kings; and pagan princes did persecute ours. Have you suffered the hatred of Christians? But ours have complained more. Let him who did this see with what mind, in what spirit, whether he sought peace or something else. “But even if some of them did wrong,” he says, “do they destroy the faith of God?” And yet do not think that the complaint came from our people. But when, through our faith, princes had begun to be Christian, the princes themselves, favouring the Catholic, that is, their own party, were moved by their own grief; unless perhaps it will be charged to Daniel that he was vindicated by Darius, or to Esther, a most holy woman, when the king’s chief was put to death for her sake, or to the three youths, that because of them, after the trial of the flames, the king of Babylon threatened the profane and unbelieving. Does not Peter confound Simon with a judge supporting him? Does not Paul blind Elymas with Sergius favouring him? He would have been vindicated in Jerusalem too, if he had had anything of the faith while in chains. Do you not know that the authorities themselves serve the innocent and minister for good to the holy fathers? As the Apostle says: “Rulers are not a terror to good work, but to evil. Do you wish not to fear the authority? Do good, and you will have praise from it through the Lord; for it is a minister to you for good.” And yet I have complained of no one, I have sought vengeance on no one. Nor do I think the Novatians hinder me, over whose smallness and failure I could boast if I wished. See, no one accuses your people to the emperor, and you are alone. Yet we must all stand before the judgment seat of God. This one thing I know: the Novatians would complain if their cause were pleasing to any princes. ### Scripture references - Rom 3:3: allusion, medium confidence - Dan 6:24: allusion, high confidence - Esth 7:10: allusion, high confidence - Dan 3:29: allusion, high confidence - Acts 8:20: allusion, low confidence - Acts 13:11: allusion, high confidence - Rom 13:3: quotation, high confidence - Rom 13:4: quotation, high confidence - Rom 14:10: quotation, high confidence - 2 Cor 5:10: allusion, medium confidence ### Translation notes - “Whether he sought peace or something else” renders a corrupt word (pacemne an procorarit), translated by sense. - “With a judge supporting him”: Peter’s confrontation with Simon Magus before a judge is not in Acts 8 and probably reflects the apocryphal Acts of Peter. - “He would have been vindicated in Jerusalem too …”: the sense of this sentence is uncertain; it seems to refer to Paul’s arrest in Jerusalem (Acts 21–23). - “The king’s chief” is Haman. ### Citation (SBL) Pacian, Ep. Symp. 2.5 (PL 13:1060d–1061b; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/pacian-epistulae/2-5). ## Three Letters to Sympronianus 2.6 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/pacian-epistulae/1-0/#p-2-6 - Source: PL 13:1061c–1061d - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-10-23 Summary: Pacian answers Sympronian’s preference for winning over pleasing with Paul’s rejection of contentiousness. ### Latin text Utilius esset, ais, vincere quam placere. At qui vincendi ardore ducuntur, contentione proficiunt. Apostolus vero ait: Si quis autem videtur contentiosus esse, nos talem consuetudinem non habemus, nec Ecclesia Dei. Contra de studio placendi: Omnibus, inquit, per omnia placeo, non quaerens quod mihi utile sit, sed quod multis, ut salventur. Vos autem dum vestra non fratrum commoda cogitatis, vincendo mavultis elidere, quam placendo recreare. Malum bono vicisse, rationis est; caeterum in quacumque causa velle superare, praesumptionis insanae est. Non de Apostolico jure, sed de Graeco, apud quos scriptum putatur, omnem morem Lacedaemoniorum inflammatum esse cupiditate vincendi. Sus quoque ille lutulentus, et insana tigris, quid aliud velint nisi vincere quam placere? Vacare tibi scribis; et ideo te contentiosa delectant. Mihi vero catholicis negotiis occupato, post triginta ferme dies litterae tuae traditae sunt, post alios quadraginta repetitae. ### English translation (Claude) “It would be more useful,” you say, “to win than to please.” But those who are led by the passion for winning make progress in contention. The Apostle, however, says: “If anyone seems to be contentious, we have no such custom, nor has the church of God.” On the other side, of the zeal to please he says: “I please all men in all things, not seeking what is useful to me, but what is useful to many, that they may be saved.” But you, while you consider your own advantage and not your brothers’, would rather crush by winning than revive by pleasing. To have overcome evil with good is a matter of reason; but to wish to prevail in any cause whatever is a matter of insane presumption. This is not from apostolic law but from Greek, among whom it is thought to have been written that the whole character of the Lacedaemonians was inflamed with the desire to win. The muddy pig too, and the mad tigress, what else do they want but to win rather than to please? You write that you have leisure, and that is why contentious things delight you. But I, occupied with catholic business, received your letter after almost thirty days, and it was asked for again after another forty. ### Scripture references - 1 Cor 11:16: quotation, high confidence - 1 Cor 10:33: quotation, high confidence - Rom 12:21: allusion, medium confidence ### Translation notes - The saying about the Lacedaemonians is unidentified. ### Citation (SBL) Pacian, Ep. Symp. 2.6 (PL 13:1061c–1061d; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/pacian-epistulae/2-6). ## Three Letters to Sympronianus 2.7 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/pacian-epistulae/1-0/#p-2-7 - Source: PL 13:1061d–1063a - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-10-23 Summary: Pacian denies that Novatian was a martyr, recounts his schism against Cornelius from Cyprian’s letters, and argues that suffering outside the church’s peace is no martyrdom. ### Latin text Irasci me ais; absit. Stimulari ut apem, credo quae interdum aculeo mella defendit. Verum recole utrimque litteras; jam videbis spiculisne an floribus paginam conseramus. De similibus quidem Apostolus, quos oportet indentari. Sed attende. Nos tecum quasi columbae, ore potius quam dente, confligimus. Utinam verum esset quod doceri velle te dicis jam ipse tibi manibus meis sancti Spiritus unguenta suggererem, Amas me? Non laesi, scio. Sed tunc demum amares, si non diversa sentires, atque operi meo blandus accederes. Cypriani epistolas mihi placere miraris? Quidni beati martyris et catholici sacerdotis? Novatianum mihi ingeris? Philosophum saeculi fuisse audio; nec satis miror ab Ecclesia Dei vivi degenerasse. Cognosco, radicem legis antiquae, fontem veteris populi reliquisse, Cornelio invidentem, Novati insaniae commodatum, sine consecratione legitima episcopum factum, ideoque nec factum per epistolam eorum qui se Confessores esse simularent, qui matris unius membra divellerent. Haec ego tibi, frater, confessione vestrorum, litteris approbabo. Ita tuus iste philosophus, sapientiam suam quaerens statuere, sicut Apostolus ait, sapientiae Dei non est subjectus; quoniam per sapientiam suam mundus non recognovit sapientiam Dei. Nam quod ante passum Novatianum putas, et Cyprianum dixisse subjungis; Praecessit me adversarius meus; vide quam manifeste respondeam. Novatianus martyrium numquam tulit, nec ex verbis beatissimi Cypriani auditum istud aut lectum est. Habes ejus epistolas quibus Cornelium Urbis episcopum, cui tunc Novatianus inviderat, inimicis principibus resistentem, saepe confessum, saepe vexatum refert; plurimis Confessoribus, plurimis quoque Martyribus ducem factum, et cum plurimis gloriosissime coronatum vivente tunc Novatiano etiamque securo. Nam et ideo ab ecclesia Christi recesserat, ne illum labor confessionis urgeret. Qui primum stimulatus invidia, episcopatum Cornelii non ferebat; inde se Novato, paucorum epistolis derisus addixerat. Haec te omnia de Novatiano Cypriani litterae perdocebunt. Porro etiam si passus est aliquid Novatianus, non tamen etiam occisus: etiam si occisus, non tamen coronatus. Quidni? Extra Ecclesiae pacem, extra concordiam, extra eam matrem cujus portio debet esse qui martyr est. Audi Apostolum: Et si habuero omnem fidem, ita ut montes transferam; charitatem autem non habeam, nihil sum. Et si in cibos pauperum divisero omnem substantiam meam, et si tradidero corpus meum ad comburendum, charitatem autem non habeam, nihil mihi prodest. Cyprianus autem in concordia omnium, in pace communi, in Confessorum grege passus est, et saepe confessus iteratis persecutionibus, et multa laceratione vexatus, et novissime salutari calice propinatus est. Hoc fuit coronari. Quare sibi habeat Novatianus epistolas suas; sibi tumorem, sibi superbiam, qua dum in altum levatur, elisus est; dum nemini parcit, effusus. En qui salutis viam fratribus inexorabili religione praecludat! En qui se palam ferre, et aream Domini purgare confidat! ### English translation (Claude) You say I am angry; far from it. Stirred, I believe, like the bee, which sometimes defends its honey with its sting. But read both letters again; you will see at once whether we sow the page with darts or with flowers. Of such people indeed the Apostle says that they ought to be silenced. But pay attention. We contend with you like doves, with the beak rather than the tooth. Would that what you say were true, that you wish to be taught: I would myself now apply to you with my own hands the ointments of the Holy Spirit. You love me? I have not hurt you, I know. But you would truly love me only if you did not think differently and came gently to my work. Do you wonder that the letters of Cyprian please me? Why not, those of a blessed martyr and catholic priest? You thrust Novatian upon me? I hear that he was a philosopher of the world, and I do not much wonder that he fell away from the church of the living God. I recognize that he abandoned the root of the ancient law, the fountain of the old people; that, envying Cornelius, he lent himself to the madness of Novatus; that he was made a bishop without lawful consecration, and therefore not made one at all, through the letter of those who pretended to be confessors, who tore apart the members of the one mother. These things, brother, I will prove to you by the letters and the confession of your own people. So this philosopher of yours, seeking to establish his own wisdom, as the Apostle says, was not subject to the wisdom of God; since through its own wisdom the world did not recognize the wisdom of God. As for your thinking that Novatian suffered first, and your adding that Cyprian said, “My adversary has gone before me,” see how plainly I answer. Novatian never underwent martyrdom, nor has this been heard or read in the words of the most blessed Cyprian. You have his letters in which he reports that Cornelius, bishop of the City, whom Novatian then envied, resisted hostile emperors, often confessed, was often harassed, became the leader of very many confessors and very many martyrs, and was most gloriously crowned with very many, while Novatian was then still living and even free from danger. For he had left the church of Christ precisely so that the labour of confession might not press upon him. First, spurred by envy, he could not bear the episcopate of Cornelius; then, mocked by the letters of a few, he gave himself over to Novatus. Cyprian’s letters will teach you all these things about Novatian. Moreover, even if Novatian suffered something, he was not therefore killed; even if killed, not therefore crowned. Why not? He was outside the peace of the church, outside its concord, outside that mother of whom one who is a martyr must be a part. Hear the Apostle: “And if I have all faith so that I could move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And if I distribute all my substance for the food of the poor, and if I hand over my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.” But Cyprian suffered in the concord of all, in the common peace, in the flock of confessors; he often confessed in repeated persecutions, was harassed with much tearing, and at last was given to drink the cup of salvation. This was to be crowned. So let Novatian keep his letters to himself, his swelling, his pride, by which, while he was raised on high, he was dashed down; while he spared no one, he was poured out. Here is the man who would shut the way of salvation to his brothers with an inexorable religion! Here is the man who is confident that he carries the winnowing shovel and cleanses the Lord’s threshing floor! ### Scripture references - Titus 1:11: allusion, low confidence - Rom 10:3: allusion, medium confidence - 1 Cor 1:21: allusion, high confidence - 1 Cor 13:2: quotation, high confidence - 1 Cor 13:3: quotation, high confidence - Matt 3:12: allusion, high confidence ### Extrabiblical texts - Cyprian, Ep. 55 (Letters): allusion, medium confidence ### Translation notes - “That they ought to be silenced”: the verb (indentari in the digital text) is corrupt; the sense is taken from the probable allusion to Titus 1:11. - “With the beak rather than the tooth” renders ore potius quam dente (literally “with the mouth rather than the tooth”). - “Priest” renders sacerdos, here bishop. - “My adversary has gone before me” is a saying Sympronian ascribed to Cyprian; it is not found in Cyprian’s works, as Pacian says. - On Cornelius and Novatian see Cyprian, Letters 44–55 (Hartel). ### Citation (SBL) Pacian, Ep. Symp. 2.7 (PL 13:1061d–1063a; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/pacian-epistulae/2-7). ## Three Letters to Sympronianus 2.8 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/pacian-epistulae/1-0/#p-2-8 - Source: PL 13:1063b–1063c - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-10-23 Summary: Pacian warns Sympronian against Novatian’s pride, contrasting it with the intercession of Moses and Paul for sinners, and announces his treatise on penance. ### Latin text Miserere tui, Symproniane frater, nec te Novatianus sub hac fronte decipiat; et ideo justior putetur, quia reliquos sui comparatione despexit. Saepe fiduciam mentitur audacia; et desperatis quibusque peccatoribus, falsa bonae conscientiae imago blanditur. Contra vero omnis humilitas innocentia est, etiam illa debitrix, etiam illa peccatrix, etiam illa quae animam suam cum peccatore blanditur. Dele me, inquit Moyses, de libro quem scripsisti; ne peccatores perirent. Optaveram, inquit Apostolus, anathema esse ipse ego in Christo pro fratribus meis, cognatis secundum carnem. Utique ambo pro peccatoribus deprecantur; et propter hoc. Deum nec Moyses nec Paulus offendit. Novatianus his melior? Emendator Prophetarum? doctor Apostolorum? Jam cum Christo videtur ut idem Moyses? Jam ut Paulus in tertium coelum sublimis evehitur? Jam neglectis omnibus solus auditur? Haec ad litteras tuas respondisse suffecerit. Sed quia de poenitentia non agenda, vel ante baptismum agenda latius disputasti; multisque capitulis exemplorum, tractatus ipsius paginam refersisti, respondebo ad singula ex abundanti: quae fides verior habeat, non tacebo. Tu, ut auditui nostro largiter imperare dignatus es, benignam rursus vicem praebeto tractatui. Praestabit fortasse Dominus, ut qui nos tibi patienter obtulimus, fructum aliquem de tua etiam patientia reportemus. Dominus te in aeternum custodire et protegere dignetur, et Christianum atque Catholicum vivere faciat, et concordare nobiscum. Amen. ### English translation (Claude) Have pity on yourself, brother Sympronian, and do not let Novatian deceive you under this face, and be thought more righteous because he despised the rest by comparison with himself. Boldness often counterfeits confidence, and a false image of a good conscience flatters all sorts of desperate sinners. On the contrary, all humility is innocence, even when it is in debt, even when it is a sinner, even when it pleads for its soul together with the sinner. “Blot me out,” says Moses, “from the book that you have written,” so that sinners might not perish. “I could wish,” says the Apostle, “that I myself were accursed in Christ for my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.” Both, surely, pray for sinners, and for this neither Moses nor Paul offended God. Is Novatian better than they? A corrector of the prophets? A teacher of the apostles? Does he already seem to be with Christ, like Moses himself? Is he already, like Paul, carried up on high to the third heaven? Is he already, all others neglected, the only one to be heard? Let this suffice as an answer to your letter. But since you have argued at length that penance is not to be done, or is to be done before baptism, and have filled the page of your treatise with many headings of examples, I will answer each point beyond what is needed; I will not be silent about what the truer faith holds. As you were pleased to lay generous commands on our hearing, grant in return a kind hearing to our treatise. Perhaps the Lord will grant that we who offered ourselves patiently to you may carry away some fruit from your patience too. May the Lord deign to keep and protect you for ever, and make you live a Christian and a Catholic, and agree with us. Amen. ### Scripture references - Exod 32:32: quotation, high confidence - Rom 9:3: quotation, high confidence - 2 Cor 12:2: allusion, high confidence - Matt 17:3: allusion, medium confidence ### Translation notes - “Pleads for its soul together with the sinner” renders a doubtful text (animam suam cum peccatore blanditur), translated by sense. - The “treatise” is the third letter. ### Citation (SBL) Pacian, Ep. Symp. 2.8 (PL 13:1063b–1063c; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/pacian-epistulae/2-8). ## Three Letters to Sympronianus 3.0 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/pacian-epistulae/1-0/#p-3-0 - Source: PL 13:1063d - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-10-23 Summary: The heading and greeting of Pacian's third letter, his answer to the Novatian treatise. ### Latin text Contra tractatus Novatianorum. Pacianus episcopus Symproniano fratri salutem. ### English translation (Claude) Against the treatise of the Novatians. Bishop Pacian to his brother Sympronian, greeting. ### Citation (SBL) Pacian, Ep. Symp. 3.0 (PL 13:1063d; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/pacian-epistulae/3-0). ## Three Letters to Sympronianus 3.1 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/pacian-epistulae/3-1/#p-3-1 - Source: PL 13:1063d–1064b - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-10-23 Summary: Pacian sums up the Novatian treatise (no repentance after baptism; the church cannot forgive mortal sin) and asks by what authority Novatian, so late, could teach a new gospel. ### Latin text Tractatus omnis Novatianorum quem ad me confertis undique propositionibus destinasti, Symproniane frater, hoc continet: Quod post baptismum poenitere non liceat; quod mortale peccatum Ecclesia donare non possit, immo quod ipsa pereat recipiendo peccantes. Praeclarus honos, singularis auctoritas, magna constantia; rejicere nocentes, attactus peccantium fugere, innocentia sua male confidere. Quis hoc vindicat, frater, Moyses, an Paulus, an Christus? At Moyses deleri e libro pro blasphematoribus optat: et Paulus anathema esse pro fratribus; et ipse Dominus pro injustis pati mavult. Nullus horum, inquies. Quis ergo? Novatianus hoc praecepit. Immaculatus aliquis et purus, qui Novatum non audierit. qui numquam Ecclesiam deseruerit, qui ab episcopis episcopus factus sit, qui jure ordinario consecratus, qui vacantem cathedram in Ecclesia consecutus? Quid ad te? inquies; Novatianus hoc docuit. At vel quando, frater, quibusve temporibus? Statim post Domini passionem? post Decii principatum, id est, post trecentos prope annos dominicae passionis. Quid ergo tunc? Prophetas secutus est ut Cataphryges, an Philomenem aliquam, ut Apelles; an ipse tantum auctoritatis accepit? Linguis locutus est? Prophetavit? Suscitare mortuos potuit? Horum enim aliquid habere debuerat, ut evangelium novi juris induceret. Et si contra clamet Apostolus; Licet nos, aut angelus de coelo evangelizaverit praeterquam quod evangelizavimus vobis, anathema sit. Novatianus sic intellexit, inquies: sed Christus hoc docuit. Ergo a Christi usque Decii principatum nullus intelligens? Post Decium denique omnis episcopus impatiens; omnes alii dissoluti qui se miscere perditis mallent, qui perire cum miseris, qui alieno vulnere vulnerari? Novatiano vindice, justitia liberatur; auctore, corrigitur quidquid erravit. ### English translation (Claude) The whole treatise of the Novatians, which you sent me with propositions gathered from every side, brother Sympronian, comes to this: that it is not permitted to repent after baptism; that the church cannot forgive mortal sin; indeed, that the church itself perishes by receiving sinners. A splendid honour, a singular authority, a great firmness: to reject the guilty, to flee the touch of sinners, to distrust its own innocence! Who claims this, brother: Moses, or Paul, or Christ? But Moses wishes to be blotted out of the book for the blasphemers; and Paul to be accursed for his brothers; and the Lord himself prefers to suffer for the unrighteous. “None of these,” you will say. Who then? “Novatian taught this.” Some spotless and pure man, then, who had not listened to Novatus, who never deserted the church, who was made bishop by bishops, who was consecrated by the regular law, who obtained a vacant chair in the church? “What is that to you?” you will say; “Novatian taught this.” But when, brother, or at what times? Immediately after the Lord’s passion? After the reign of Decius, that is, nearly three hundred years after the Lord’s passion. What then? Did he follow prophets, like the Cataphrygians, or some Philumene, like Apelles? Or did he himself receive so much authority? Did he speak in tongues? Did he prophesy? Could he raise the dead? For he would have had to have one of these, in order to bring in a gospel of new law. And yet the Apostle cries out against it: “Even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach a gospel besides what we have preached to you, let him be accursed.” “Novatian understood it so,” you will say, “but Christ taught it.” So from Christ until the reign of Decius no one understood? And after Decius, at last, every bishop was impatient, and all the others lax, who preferred to mingle with the lost, to perish with the wretched, to be wounded by another’s wound? With Novatian as champion righteousness is set free; with him as author whatever went wrong is corrected! ### Scripture references - Exod 32:32: allusion, high confidence - Rom 9:3: allusion, high confidence - 1 Pet 3:18: allusion, medium confidence - Gal 1:8: quotation, high confidence ### Translation notes - “Nearly three hundred years” is Pacian’s round figure; the Decian persecution was in 250–251. - Philumene was the prophetess whose visions Apelles followed. - The sentence beginning “Some spotless and pure man” is ironic: Pacian means that Novatian was none of these things. ### Citation (SBL) Pacian, Ep. Symp. 3.1 (PL 13:1063d–1064b; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/pacian-epistulae/3-1). ## Three Letters to Sympronianus 3.2 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/pacian-epistulae/3-1/#p-3-2 - Source: PL 13:1064c–1064d - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-10-23 Summary: Pacian accepts the Novatians’ definition of the church and adds the Scriptural images of the church that fit the Catholic view. ### Latin text Age, inquies, certemus exemplis et ratione pugnemus. At ego huc usque securus: ipsa Ecclesiae ferie, congregationis antiquae pace contentus: nulla discordiae studia didici, nulla certaminum argumenta quaesivi. Tu postquam a reliquo corpore segregatus es et a matre divisus; ut rationem facti tui redderes, totos librorum recessus assiduus scrutator inquiris: occulta quaeque sollicitas: quidquid exinde securum est, inquietas. Nostri nihil ultro disputavere majores: nuda est apud nos ipsa securitas: quid attuleris de tua parte munitum? Ego nescio quid Novatianus egerit, quid Novatus admiserit, quid Evaristus tumuerit, quid Nicostratus nuntiaverit: arma vestra dum despicio, non novi; vide si cum inermi veritate confligis. Exspectemus tamen quid objicias, quid loquaris. Poteratne vel nuda veritas, innocentiave imperita subsistere? Proponis, et recte quidem, Ecclesiam esse populum ex aqua et Spiritu sancto renovatum, sine negatione nominis Christi, templum et domum Dei, columnam et stabilimentum veritatis, virginem sanctam castissimis sensibus, sponsam Christi ex ossibus ejus et carne, non habentem maculam neque rugam, integra evangeliorum jura servantem. Quis hoc nostrum negat? Quin etiam addimus, Ecclesiam esse reginam in veste aurata et variegata, fecundam vitem in lateribus domus Domini; Matrem adolescentularum, quarum non est numerus; Unam speciosam columbam matris suae atque perfectam: Ipsam omnium matrem aedificatam in fundamentis Prophetarum et Apostolorum, et ipso angulari lapide Jesu Christo: Domum magnam vasorum omnium diversitate locupletatam. ### English translation (Claude) “Come,” you will say, “let us contend with examples and fight with reason.” But I have been free from care until now, content with the very order of the church and the peace of the ancient congregation; I have learned no zeal for discord and have sought out no arguments for contests. You, after you were separated from the rest of the body and divided from the mother, search through all the recesses of books as a diligent inquirer, in order to give an account of what you have done; you stir up every hidden thing; whatever has been at rest from then on, you disturb. Our forefathers disputed nothing of their own accord; with us security itself is unarmed. What fortified thing have you brought from your side? I do not know what Novatian did, what Novatus committed, how Evaristus swelled with pride, what Nicostratus announced: while I despise your weapons I do not know them; see whether you are fighting against an unarmed truth. Yet let us wait to see what you object, what you say. Could even naked truth or unskilled innocence hold its ground? You propose, and rightly, that the church is the people renewed by water and the Holy Spirit, without denial of the name of Christ, the temple and house of God, the pillar and support of the truth, a holy virgin with most chaste senses, the bride of Christ from his bones and flesh, having no spot or wrinkle, keeping the laws of the gospels intact. Which of us denies this? Indeed we add that the church is the queen in a golden and many-coloured robe, a fruitful vine on the sides of the Lord’s house, the mother of young maidens without number, the one beautiful dove of her mother and perfect, the very mother of all, built on the foundations of the prophets and apostles, with Jesus Christ himself the cornerstone, a great house enriched with every variety of vessels. ### Scripture references - John 3:5: allusion, high confidence - 1 Tim 3:15: allusion, high confidence - 2 Cor 11:2: allusion, high confidence - Eph 5:30: allusion, high confidence - Eph 5:27: allusion, high confidence - Ps 45:9 (44:10 Vulg.): allusion, high confidence - Ps 128:3 (127:3 Vulg.): allusion, high confidence - Song 6:8 (6:7 Vulg.): allusion, high confidence - Song 6:9 (6:8 Vulg.): allusion, high confidence - Eph 2:20: allusion, high confidence - 2 Tim 2:20: allusion, high confidence ### Translation notes - “The very order of the church” renders a doubtful reading (ipsa Ecclesiae ferie), perhaps for serie or fide; translated by sense. - Evaristus and Nicostratus were supporters of Novatian at Rome (Cyprian, Letters 50–52). - Migne’s reference “Cant. VI, 7)” was removed from the text. ### Citation (SBL) Pacian, Ep. Symp. 3.2 (PL 13:1064c–1064d; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/pacian-epistulae/3-2). ## Three Letters to Sympronianus 3.3 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/pacian-epistulae/3-1/#p-3-3 - Source: PL 13:1064d–1065d - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-10-23 Summary: Pacian argues that the Novatians, separated from the church, have neither its baptism nor its Spirit, and that receiving the lapsed did not make the whole church apostate, since each dies for his own sin. ### Latin text Sed haec nostra posterius; interim tua illa videamus. Ecclesia est populus ex aqua et Spiritu sancto renatus. Age. Quis fontem Dei clausit? Quis Spiritum rapuit? Quin immo apud nos aqua viva est, ipsa quae salit a Christo: tu, a fonte perpetuo separatus, unde generaris? Spiritus quoque sanctus a principali matre non abiit: ad te unde pervenit? nisi forte discordantem secutus est, tot sacerdotibus derelictis non consecrata sede contentus, detritum lacum adulterini fontis adamavit. Vestrae plebi unde Spiritum; quam non consignat unctus sacerdos? Unde aquam, quae a matrice discessit? Unde innovationem, quae cunabula pronubae pacis amisit? Ecclesia est populus sine negatione nominis Christi: nulli ne apud nos confessores, quos catenae, quos ignes, quos gladii probaverunt? Fuere, inquies, sed negatores recipiendo, perierunt. Taceo ne, haec quidem collegio, quod libellum de negatoribus vel lapsis recipiendis Novatianus vester, cum adhuc in Ecclesia degeret, et scripsit et suasit et legit? Interim, cui persuadere poteris, quod lapsis receptis Ecclesia tota conciderit? Quod admissis poenitentibus, admittentium populus negator effectus sit? Quod si et remissior plebs aliqua fuit, etiam caeterae quae non factum ejus probarint, sed consuetudinem et pacem secutae sint, Christianum ne nomen amiserunt? Accipe Hieremiae vocem: In diebus illis non dicent, Patres manducaverunt uvam acerbam, et dentes filiorum stupuerunt: sed unusquisque in suo peccato morietur. Nec apud Ezechielem tacet Dominus: Quomodo anima patris, ita et anima filii, meae sunt. Unusquisque in suo peccato morietur. Item infra: Filius non accipiet facinus patris, neque pater accipiet facinus filii: Justitia justi super eum erit. Ipse tu illud ponis exemplum: Et si fuerint tres hi in medio, Noe, Job et Daniel, non liberabunt filios neque filias: ipsi soli salvi erunt. Ecce salvi sunt ipsi qui in medio peccantium constituti sunt, qui alios liberare non possunt. Tu totum orbem paucorum vinculis alligas: tu totam Ecclesiam exiguae portionis infirmitate condemnas. Quid apud te sancti omnes, quos Novatus erudit, quos Evaristus elegit, quos Nicostratus docuit, quos Novatianus instituit? Tu spinas et tribulos refugisti: tu non habes in tua fruge zizania: tibi jam grana purgata sunt: ad te sine ventilabro purgator ille venturus est: tu solus ex omnibus paleas non habebis? ### English translation (Claude) But these points of ours later; meanwhile let us look at those of yours. The church is the people reborn of water and the Holy Spirit. Come: who has shut up the fountain of God? Who has snatched away the Spirit? On the contrary, with us is the living water, the very water that springs from Christ; you, separated from the everlasting fountain, from where are you born? The Holy Spirit too has not departed from the principal mother; from where did he come to you? Unless perhaps he followed one in discord, left so many priests behind, was content with an unconsecrated seat, and fell in love with the worn-out cistern of an adulterous fountain. From where does your people have the Spirit, which no anointed priest seals? From where the water, which has left the mother-source? From where the renewal, which has lost the cradle of the peace that brings to marriage? The church is the people without denial of the name of Christ: are there no confessors among us, whom chains, fires, and swords have proved? “There were,” you will say, “but they perished by receiving those who denied.” Shall I keep silent, then, about this too, that your Novatian, while he still lived in the church, wrote, urged, and read out a booklet on receiving those who had denied, that is, the lapsed? Meanwhile, whom will you be able to persuade that the whole church fell because the lapsed were received? That because penitents were admitted, the people of those who admitted them became deniers? And if some community was more lax, did the others too, which did not approve what it did but followed custom and peace, lose the name Christian? Hear the voice of Jeremiah: “In those days they will not say: The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children’s teeth are set on edge; but each will die in his own sin.” Nor is the Lord silent in Ezekiel: “As the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine. Each will die in his own sin.” And again below: “The son will not take on the crime of the father, nor will the father take on the crime of the son; the righteousness of the righteous will be upon him.” You yourself set down this example: “And if these three were in its midst, Noah, Job, and Daniel, they will not deliver sons or daughters; they alone will be saved.” See, those are saved who are set in the midst of sinners, who cannot deliver others. You bind the whole world with the chains of a few; you condemn the whole church for the weakness of a small portion. What are all the saints with you, whom Novatus trained, Evaristus chose, Nicostratus taught, Novatian instructed? Have you escaped thorns and thistles? Have you no tares in your crop? Have your grains already been cleansed? Will that Cleanser come to you without a winnowing fan? Will you alone of all have no chaff? ### Scripture references - John 4:14: allusion, medium confidence - Jer 2:13: allusion, medium confidence - Jer 31:29: quotation, high confidence - Jer 31:30: quotation, high confidence - Ezek 18:4: quotation, high confidence - Ezek 18:20: quotation, high confidence - Ezek 14:14: quotation, high confidence - Ezek 14:16: quotation, high confidence - Gen 3:18: allusion, low confidence - Matt 13:25: allusion, high confidence - Matt 3:12: allusion, high confidence ### Translation notes - “Shall I keep silent, then, about this too” renders a doubtful text (Taceo ne, haec quidem collegio), translated by sense; the reference is to the Roman clergy’s letter on the lapsed that Novatian drafted (Cyprian, Letter 30), as 3.5 shows. - “The peace that brings to marriage” renders pronubae pacis, the peace that brought the church to Christ as bride. - Pacian’s argument that the Novatian baptism lacks the Spirit is stated exactly; it reflects the African view of baptism outside the church. ### Citation (SBL) Pacian, Ep. Symp. 3.3 (PL 13:1064d–1065d; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/pacian-epistulae/3-3). ## Three Letters to Sympronianus 3.4 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/pacian-epistulae/3-1/#p-3-4 - Source: PL 13:1065d–1066c - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-10-23 Summary: Pacian interprets the images of the church as body, temple, virgin, and spotless bride to show that heretics, not repentant sinners, are the church’s spot and wrinkle. ### Latin text Age, dic reliqua: Ecclesia est corpus Christi. Corpus utique, non membrum: corpus multis in unum partibus membrisque collectum, sicut ait Apostolus: Nam et corpus non est unum membrum, sed multa. Ergo Ecclesia plenum est corpus, et corpus et solidum, et toto jam orbe diffusum. Sicut civitas, inquam, cujus partes in unum; non ut vos estis Novatiani, quaedam insolens portiuncula tuberque collectum, et reliquo corpore separatum. Ecclesia est templum Dei: templum certe amplificum, domus magna, habens quidem vasa aurea et argentea, sed et lignea et fictilia, quaedam in honorem, multa vero magnifica in multiplices usus variorum operum destinata. Ecclesia est virgo sancta, castissimis sensibus, sponsa Christi. Virgo; verum est: sed et mater. Sponsa; manifestum est: sed et uxor et conjux de viro suo sumpta: ideoque os de ossibus ejus, et caro de carne. Nam de hac David dixit: Uxor tua sicut vitis fecunda in lateribus domus tuae: filii tui sicut novellae olivarum in circuitu mensae tuae. Multus igitur huic virgini partus et proles innumera, qua totus orbis impletur, qua circumfluis semper alvearibus populosum fervet examen. Magna in filios cura matris istius, et mollis affectus: honorantur boni, castigantur superbi, curantur aegroti: nullus perit, nemo despicitur: securi fetus sub indulgentia matris retinentur. Ecclesia est non habens maculam neque rugam: hoc est, haereses non habens, non Valentinos, non Cataphrygas, non Novatianos. In his sunt enim quidam sinus maculosi atque rugosi, pretiosarum vestium ornatibus invidentes. Caeterum, peccator et poenitens, non est Ecclesiae macula; quia quamdiu peccat, et non poenitet, extra Ecclesiam constitutus est. Ubi desinit peccare, jam sanus est. Haereticus vero vestem Domini, Ecclesiam Christi, scindit, intercipit, vitiat, irrugat. Cum enim schismata, inquit, et contentiones in vobis sint, nonne carnales estis, et secundum hominem ambulatis? Sed et, sermo eorum quasi cancer serpit: haec est macula unitatis, haec ruga. Denique ubi super his Apostolus loquitur: de amore Christi et dilectione proponit. Sicut Christus, inquit, dilexit Ecclesiam, et se ipsum tradidit pro ea; ut haereticos summoveret, quia diligere non noverunt. Caeterum, cur haec misero poenitenti? quia et amare optat et amari. ### English translation (Claude) Come, tell the rest: the church is the body of Christ. A body, certainly, not a member; a body gathered into one out of many parts and members, as the Apostle says: “For the body too is not one member, but many.” So the church is a full body, both a body and solid, and now spread through the whole world. Like a city, I say, whose parts are joined into one; not as you Novatians are, an arrogant little portion and a swelling gathered up and separated from the rest of the body. The church is the temple of God: a spacious temple, surely, a great house, which has indeed vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and earthenware, some for honour, but many splendid ones destined for the manifold uses of various works. The church is a holy virgin with most chaste senses, the bride of Christ. A virgin, true; but also a mother. A bride, plainly; but also a wife and spouse taken from her husband, and therefore bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh. For of her David said: “Your wife like a fruitful vine on the sides of your house; your children like olive shoots around your table.” Many births, then, belong to this virgin, and offspring without number, with which the whole world is filled, with which a populous swarm ever seethes in hives overflowing on every side. Great is this mother’s care for her children, and tender her affection: the good are honoured, the proud are chastised, the sick are cared for; no one perishes, no one is despised; her young are kept safe under the mother’s indulgence. The church is one having no spot or wrinkle: that is, having no heresies, no Valentinians, no Cataphrygians, no Novatians. For in these there are certain spotted and wrinkled folds that envy the adornment of precious garments. But the sinner who repents is no spot on the church; for as long as he sins and does not repent, he is placed outside the church. When he ceases to sin, he is already healed. The heretic, however, tears the garment of the Lord, the church of Christ, cuts it off, spoils it, wrinkles it. “For when there are schisms,” he says, “and strife among you, are you not carnal, and do you not walk according to man?” And again: “Their speech creeps like a cancer.” This is the spot on unity, this the wrinkle. Indeed, where the Apostle speaks about these things, he sets out the love and charity of Christ: “As Christ,” he says, “loved the church and gave himself up for her”, so as to remove heretics, because they do not know how to love. But why apply this to the wretched penitent? For he wishes both to love and to be loved. ### Scripture references - 1 Cor 12:14: quotation, high confidence - 2 Tim 2:20: allusion, high confidence - 2 Cor 11:2: allusion, high confidence - Gen 2:23: allusion, high confidence - Ps 128:3 (127:3 Vulg.): quotation, high confidence - Eph 5:27: allusion, high confidence - 1 Cor 3:3: quotation, high confidence - 2 Tim 2:17: quotation, high confidence - Eph 5:25: quotation, high confidence ### Translation notes - “So as to remove heretics” is Pacian’s gloss on Eph 5:25–27, not part of the quotation. ### Citation (SBL) Pacian, Ep. Symp. 3.4 (PL 13:1065d–1066c; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/pacian-epistulae/3-4). ## Three Letters to Sympronianus 3.5 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/pacian-epistulae/3-1/#p-3-5 - Source: PL 13:1066c–1067c - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-10-23 Summary: Pacian shows from Cyprian’s letter to Antonianus that Novatian himself, before the schism, wrote the Roman letter allowing peace to dying lapsed Christians. ### Latin text Ecclesia est, integra Evangeliorum jura custodiens. Integra utique quia tota, quia plena. Ubi praemium fidelibus datur, ubi miseris lacrymae non negantur, ubi curantur aegroti, ubi nihil sibi vindicat insolens sanitas et superba justitia, ubi sollicita in omnibus charitas perseverat, omnia credens, omnia sperans, omnia sustinens Unde illud Apostoli: Quis infirmus est, et non ego infirmor. Quis scandalizatur, et ego non uror? Ubi onera sua sustinet tota fraternitas communiter dolens, mutua pietate secura. Cuncti invicem sustinentes in dilectione, satis agentes servare unitatem Spiritus in conjunctione pacis. Hoc erit Ecclesia, Symproniane frater; hoc erit populus ex aqua et Spiritu sancto renatus in Christo. Nescio, ais, an remitti peccatum ab episcopis possit, cum dixerit Dominus: Qui me negaverit coram hominibus, negabo eum coram Patre meo qui in coelis est. Cur igitur Novatianus tuus, ne falso quidem adhuc episcopatu sacerdos, longe ante quam Cornelius Romae episcopus fieret, ante quam sacerdotio illius invideret, haec suasit? Habes Cypriani testimonium; Cypriani quem nec vos umquam infamare potuistis. Nam quodam in loco, ad Antonianum hoc modo scripsit: Additum est etiam Novatiano tunc scribente; et quod scripserat, sua voce recitante; et Moyse, tunc confessore nunc jam martyre subscribente; ut lapsis infirmis et in exitu constitutis pax daretur: quae litterae per totum mundum missae sunt, et in notitiam ecclesiis omnibus perlatae sunt. Quid ais, Symproniane frater? Novatianus haec scripsit, et ut obsequium merae voluntatis adjungeret, etiam scripta recitavit. Testis est ejus dextera, testis quae scripsit, manus: testis lingua, quae legit. Adhuc Cornelius, pro quo omnis haec vestra erupit invidia, episcopus non erat. Longe posterius cum plurimis coepiscopis, cum plurimis confessoribus, statimque martyribus, ut idem Cyprianus scribit, assensus est senum consilio, licere dare pacem. Si poenitentiae negandus est aditus, Novatianus in crimine est, qui haec scripsit, suasit et legit. Ubi tunc impatiens rigor? ubi ferox illa censura? Si nemo vobis Cornelium praetulisset, maneret illa scribentis auctoritas. Nunc displicet tota sententia, nunc in nos tela jaciuntur, his ipsis subministrantibus quorum auctoritate convaluit causa telorum. ### English translation (Claude) The church is the one that keeps the laws of the gospels intact. Intact, certainly, because whole, because full: where reward is given to the faithful, where tears are not denied to the wretched, where the sick are cared for, where insolent health and proud righteousness claim nothing for themselves, where love persists, solicitous in all things, believing all things, hoping all things, enduring all things. Hence that saying of the Apostle: “Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I do not burn?” Where the whole brotherhood bears its burdens, grieving in common, secure in mutual devotion; all bearing with one another in love, eager to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. This will be the church, brother Sympronian; this will be the people reborn of water and the Holy Spirit in Christ. “I do not know,” you say, “whether sin can be forgiven by bishops, since the Lord said: Whoever denies me before men, I will deny him before my Father who is in heaven.” Why then did your Novatian, not yet a priest even by a false episcopate, long before Cornelius became bishop at Rome, before he envied his priesthood, urge these things? You have the testimony of Cyprian, of Cyprian whom even you have never been able to defame. For in one place he wrote to Antonianus in this way: “It was further added, with Novatian then writing and reading out with his own voice what he had written, and with Moses, then a confessor and now a martyr, subscribing, that peace should be given to the lapsed who were sick and at the point of death; and this letter was sent through the whole world and brought to the knowledge of all the churches.” What do you say, brother Sympronian? Novatian wrote this, and, to add the service of his own free will, he also read out what was written. His right hand is a witness, the hand that wrote is a witness, the tongue that read is a witness. Cornelius, against whom all this envy of yours broke out, was not yet bishop. Much later, with very many fellow bishops, with very many confessors and soon martyrs, as the same Cyprian writes, Cornelius agreed to the counsel of the elders that it was permitted to give peace. If the approach to penance is to be denied, Novatian is guilty, who wrote, urged, and read these things. Where was that impatient rigour then? Where that fierce censure? If no one had preferred Cornelius to you, that authority of the writer would have remained. Now the whole judgment displeases; now darts are hurled at us, by the very men on whose authority the cause of the darts grew strong. ### Scripture references - 1 Cor 13:7: quotation, high confidence - 2 Cor 11:29: quotation, high confidence - Gal 6:2: allusion, high confidence - Eph 4:2: quotation, high confidence - Eph 4:3: quotation, high confidence - John 3:5: allusion, high confidence - Matt 10:33: quotation, high confidence ### Extrabiblical texts - Cyprian, Ep. 55.5 (Letters): quotation, high confidence ### Translation notes - The quotation is from Cyprian, Letter 55.5 (Hartel), to Antonianus; Pacian quotes it closely. - “Priest” (sacerdos) means bishop: Novatian was then a presbyter. - “To give peace” means to readmit to communion. ### Citation (SBL) Pacian, Ep. Symp. 3.5 (PL 13:1066c–1067c; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/pacian-epistulae/3-5). ## Three Letters to Sympronianus 3.6 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/pacian-epistulae/3-1/#p-3-6 - Source: PL 13:1067c–1068a - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-10-23 Summary: Pacian tells how Novatus, fleeing trial at Carthage, urged the disappointed Novatian at Rome to set himself up as a rival bishop to Cornelius. ### Latin text At in hanc ipsam haeresim, Novatiani quando coeperunt? Audite, quaeso, et totum ordinem vestri erroris advertite. Cornelius jam Romae episcopus a sedecim episcopis factus, locum cathedrae vacantis acceperat, et in illa qua fuit praeditus castimonia virginali, crebras persecutiones irati principis sustinebat. Tum forte quidam presbyter Novatus ex Africa, fraudatis in Carthaginiensi ecclesia viduis, spoliatis pupillis, pecunia ecclesiae denegata, projecto extra domum patre, et eodem fame mortuo nec sepulto, uxoris gravidae utero calce percusso partuque ejus effuso, Romam venit. Et cum apud Carthaginem, urgentibus in ecclesia fratribus, dies cognitionis ipsius immineret, et hic latitavit. Nec multo post, Novatianum istum episcopatu Cornelii anxium (nam sibi speraverat) cum aliquantis, ut in tali re solet, ex sua parte fautoribus nutantem impellit, dubitantem fovet; ut magnum aliquid speret, hortatur. Invenit aliquos ex eorum numero qui tempestatem persecutionis illius evaserunt; apud quos hanc ipsam de lapsis receptis, Cornelio conflaret invidiam. Dat eorum epistolas ad Novatianum. Ille ex auctoritate epistolarum, sedente jam Romae episcopo, adversum fas sacerdotii singularis, alterius episcopi sibi nomen assumit: Cornelium lapsis communicasse arguit: se vindicat innocentem. Contra hunc mihi reddenda ratio est, contra hunc asserendus pudor, contra hunc vita purganda. ### English translation (Claude) But when did the Novatians begin this very heresy? Hear, I beg you, and attend to the whole course of your error. Cornelius, already made bishop of Rome by sixteen bishops, had received the place of the vacant chair, and in the virginal chastity with which he was endowed he was enduring frequent persecutions from the angry emperor. Then it happened that a certain presbyter Novatus came to Rome from Africa, after he had defrauded the widows in the church of Carthage, robbed the orphans, withheld the church’s money, thrown his father out of the house, so that he died of hunger and was not buried, and struck the womb of his pregnant wife with his heel and caused her miscarriage. And when at Carthage, as the brothers in the church pressed the matter, the day of his trial was at hand, he went into hiding here as well. Not long afterwards he urged on this Novatian, who was troubled by the episcopate of Cornelius (for he had hoped for it himself), while he was wavering with some supporters of his own party, as usually happens in such a case; he encouraged him as he hesitated, and exhorted him to hope for something great. He found some of those who had escaped the storm of that persecution, among whom he could stir up this very resentment against Cornelius over the receiving of the lapsed. He gives their letters to Novatian. On the authority of the letters, while a bishop was already sitting at Rome, and against the law of the single priesthood, Novatian took to himself the name of another bishop; he charged Cornelius with having communicated with the lapsed, and claimed himself to be innocent. Is it against this man that I must give account? Against this man that modesty must be defended? Against this man that purity of life must be vindicated? ### Extrabiblical texts - Cyprian, Ep. 52.2 (Letters): allusion, high confidence ### Translation notes - The account follows Cyprian, Letters 52 and 55 (Hartel). - “The law of the single priesthood”: one bishop to a city. - The last sentences are taken as indignant questions. ### Citation (SBL) Pacian, Ep. Symp. 3.6 (PL 13:1067c–1068a; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/pacian-epistulae/3-6). ## Three Letters to Sympronianus 3.7 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/pacian-epistulae/3-1/#p-3-7 - Source: PL 13:1068b–1068c - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-10-23 Summary: Pacian answers that bishops who discipline penitents do not acknowledge deniers but correct them, and that it is God, through them, who forgives. ### Latin text Sed et vos, inquies, episcopi talia cur probatis? Dicat hoc alius: tu Novatianum defende. Inexcusabilis videatur haec caeteris causa, tibi licet grata sit. Tibi innocens sit, quisquis est pro te nocens. Ne accusaveris alium eo crimine, quo tu non potes liberari. Age, jam totum pudorem nos episcopi debeamus, quia et apostolorum nomen accepimus, quia Christi appellatione signamur. Negantem, inquis, Dominus negat: tu, negantem nolo fatearis. Quis eum negantem confitetur? qui ad poenitentiam cogit, objurgat, crimen ostendit, vulnera aperit, supplicia aeterna commemorat, interitu carnis emendat? Hoc castigare est, non fateri. Ait nobis Dominus: Vos estis sal terrae. Recte ergo salimus ista dicendo, nec ad nihilum valebit quisquis audierit. Vides non proculcari a nobis sententiam Domini, sed probari; non abjici severitatem, sed voluntatem ejus aperiri. Sed poenitenti, inquies, peccata dimittis; cum tantum in baptismate tibi liceat relaxare peccatum. Non mihi plane, sed Deo soli, qui et in baptismate donat admissum, et poenitentium lacrymas non repellit. Caeterum quod ego facio, id non meo jure, sed Domini: Dei sumus adjutores, inquit, Dei aedificatio est. Et iterum: Ego plantavi, Apollo irrigavit, sed Deus incrementum dedit: Ergo neque qui plantat est aliquid, neque qui rigat; sed qui incrementum dat, Deus. Quare sive baptizamus, sive ad poenitentiam cogimus, seu veniam poenitentibus relaxamus; Christo id auctore tractamus. Tibi videndum est, an Christus hoc possit, an Christus hoc fecerit. ### English translation (Claude) “But why do you bishops too approve such things?” you will say. Let someone else say this; you defend Novatian. Let this cause seem inexcusable to others, though it may be pleasing to you. Let whoever is guilty on your side be innocent to you. Do not accuse another of a crime from which you cannot be cleared. Come, must we bishops now owe all the shame, because we have received the name of the apostles too, because we are marked with the name of Christ? “The Lord,” you say, “denies the one who denies; you, I would not have you acknowledge one who denies.” Who acknowledges the one who denies? He who drives him to penance, rebukes him, shows him his crime, opens his wounds, reminds him of eternal punishments, corrects him by the destruction of the flesh? This is to chastise, not to acknowledge. The Lord says to us: “You are the salt of the earth.” Rightly then we salt by saying these things, and whoever has heard will not be good for nothing. You see that the Lord’s judgment is not trampled on by us, but approved; that his severity is not cast aside, but his will disclosed. “But you forgive the sins of the penitent,” you will say, “though you are permitted to remit sin only in baptism.” Not I at all, but God alone, who both forgives what was committed in baptism and does not reject the tears of penitents. Moreover, what I do, I do not by my own right, but by the Lord’s. “We are God’s helpers,” he says; “you are God’s building.” And again: “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the growth.” Therefore whether we baptize, or drive to penance, or grant pardon to penitents, we do it with Christ as the author. You must consider whether Christ can do this, whether Christ has done this. ### Scripture references - Matt 10:33: allusion, high confidence - 1 Cor 5:5: allusion, medium confidence - Matt 5:13: quotation, high confidence - 1 Cor 3:9: quotation, high confidence - 1 Cor 3:6: quotation, high confidence - 1 Cor 3:7: quotation, high confidence ### Translation notes - “Corrects him by the destruction of the flesh” recalls 1 Cor 5:5; in Pacian it refers to the austerities of penance. - “We are marked with the name of Christ”: the anointed (bishops) bear the name of Christ (“anointed”). ### Citation (SBL) Pacian, Ep. Symp. 3.7 (PL 13:1068b–1068c; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/pacian-epistulae/3-7). ## Three Letters to Sympronianus 3.8 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/pacian-epistulae/3-1/#p-3-8 - Source: PL 13:1068d–1069b - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-10-23 Summary: Pacian distinguishes baptism, a free gift, from penance, a labour of the few who fall, and argues that Scripture calls the baptized to repentance. ### Latin text Si poenitentibus remissio peccatorum dari potuit, ais, baptisma non fuit necessarium. Insulsissima comparatio! Baptismus enim, sacramentum est dominicae passionis: poenitentiae venia, meritum confitentis. Illud omnes adipisci possunt, quia gratiae Dei donum est; id est, gratuita donatio; labor vero iste, paucorum est qui post casum resurgunt, qui post vulnera convalescunt, qui lacrymosis vocibus adjuvantur, qui carnis interitu reviviscunt. Frustra me posuisse asseris illud exemplum quod Deus dixerit; Malo poenitentiam peccatoris quam mortem. Quid si adjecissem illud Esaiae: Cum conversus ingemueris, tunc salvaberis et scies ubi fueris? Quid si id Apocalypsis: Memento unde cecideris, et age poenitentiam, et fac priora opera? Haec, inquies, gentibus dicta sunt ante baptismum. Audi Apostolum: Scimus autem, quoniam quoecumque lex dicit, iis qui in lege sunt, dicit et loquitur. Ergo eos qui sine lege vixerunt, poenitendi conditio non tenebit. Qui et si poenituissent, libera id fide fecerant, non imposito per legem vinculo poenitendi. Ergo et vel Judaei, inquies, qui ante baptismum poenituerunt, post baptismum poenitere non possunt. Quis hoc te docuit, frater Symproniane? Quis suasit, ut qui ante poenituerit, postea poenitere non debeat? Sed posterius hoc videbimus. Interim, si Judaeis post baptismum praeclusa est poenitentia, quia illam ante persolverint; concede vel gentes quae poenitentiae legem ante nescierint, posterius poenitere debere. Sed et de Judaeis, nolo, fallaris. Illi enim propterea prius poenituerunt, quia vetus baptisma corruperant, et quasi post fidem fide prodita poenitebant. Audi Apostolum: Nolo enim ignorare vos, fratres, quia patres nostri omnes sub nube fuerunt, et omnes per mare transierunt, et omnes in Moyse baptizati sunt et in nube et in mari: et omnes eumdem cibum spiritalem ederunt, et omnes eumdem potum spiritalem biberunt. Bibebant autem de spiritali petra sequente: Petra autem erat Christus. Hoc ergo baptisma violaverant, et ideo poenitebant. ### English translation (Claude) “If forgiveness of sins could be given to penitents,” you say, “baptism was not necessary.” A most witless comparison! For baptism is the sacrament of the Lord’s passion; the pardon of penance is the merit of the one who confesses. The former all can obtain, because it is a gift of God’s grace, that is, a free giving; but this labour belongs to the few who rise again after a fall, who recover after wounds, who are helped by tearful cries, who come back to life by the destruction of the flesh. You assert that I set down in vain the example that God said: “I prefer the repentance of the sinner to his death.” What if I had added that saying of Isaiah: “When you turn and groan, then you will be saved and will know where you have been”? What if that of the Apocalypse: “Remember from where you have fallen, and repent, and do the former works”? “These things,” you will say, “were said to the Gentiles before baptism.” Hear the Apostle: “Now we know that whatever the law says, it says and speaks to those who are under the law.” So the condition of repentance will not bind those who lived without the law. And if they repented, they had done it by free faith, not by a bond of repentance imposed through the law. “So even the Jews,” you will say, “who repented before baptism, cannot repent after baptism.” Who taught you this, brother Sympronian? Who persuaded you that one who repented before should not repent afterwards? But we will look at this later. Meanwhile, if repentance after baptism is shut off for the Jews because they paid it in full beforehand, at least grant that the Gentiles, who did not know the law of repentance before, ought to repent afterwards. But I do not want you to be deceived about the Jews either. For they repented beforehand for this reason, that they had corrupted the old baptism, and they were repenting as it were after faith, the faith having been betrayed. Hear the Apostle: “For I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed; and the rock was Christ.” This baptism, then, they had violated, and that is why they were repenting. ### Scripture references - Ezek 33:11: quotation, high confidence - Isa 30:15: quotation, high confidence - Rev 2:5: quotation, high confidence - Rom 3:19: quotation, high confidence - 1 Cor 10:1: quotation, high confidence - 1 Cor 10:2: quotation, high confidence - 1 Cor 10:3: quotation, high confidence - 1 Cor 10:4: quotation, high confidence ### Translation notes - The saying “I prefer the repentance of the sinner to his death” paraphrases Ezek 33:11 (compare 18:23). - The Isaiah quotation follows the Septuagint of Isa 30:15 in an Old Latin form. ### Citation (SBL) Pacian, Ep. Symp. 3.8 (PL 13:1068d–1069b; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/pacian-epistulae/3-8). ## Three Letters to Sympronianus 3.9 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/pacian-epistulae/3-1/#p-3-9 - Source: PL 13:1069b–1070a - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-10-23 Summary: Pacian answers that offering penance does not encourage sin, since penance is hard, and that Christ who died for sinners remains their advocate after baptism. ### Latin text Videamus deinde quid dicas: Si Deus saepius jubet hominem poenitere, inquis, saepius peccare permittit. Quid ais? Ergo qui saepius remedium criminis monstrat, crimen ostendit? Et medicus ille cum curat assidue vulnerari docet? Deus nec peccare vult hominem semel, et tamen liberat a peccato. Nec utique cum liberat, peccatum docet; sicut nec qui ab incendio liberat, incendium monstrat; nec qui naufragum eripit scopulis, in saxa compellit. Aliud est de periculo liberari, aliud ad periculum cogi. Et fortasse paterer hoc credi, si poenitentia, deliciae putarentur; cujus labor tantus imponitur, cui carnis interitus imperatur, cui juges lacrymae, cui gemitus sempiterni. Volet ergo ille sanatus iterum se secari, rursus exuri? Volet peccare iterum, et iterum poenitere, cum scriptum sit: Noli adjicere peccatum, ne quid tibi deterius contingat? Et adhuc: Assidue peccanti non misereor. Quod si, ut ais, ad peccatum cogitur, cui poenitentiae medicina monstratur; quid tandem ille facturus est, cui poenitentia ipsa praecluditur; cui desperato remedio, totum vulnus operitur; cui prorsus ex integro, vitae aditus denegatur? In baptismo, inquies, semel morimur, sicut ait Apostolus: An nescitis quoniam quicumque baptizati estis in Christo Jesu, in morte ejus baptizati estis? Consepulti ergo estis ei per baptismum in mortem, ut sicut Christus resurrexit ex mortuis, sic et vos in novitate vitae ambuletis. Quid mirum? Docebat Apostolus quod essemus novi; ut nemo peccaret: sequebatur tamen ut qui peccaverat, poeniteret. Hic integer, ille curatus viveret: innocens coronam, poenitens veniam subiret: ille praemium, iste medicinam acciperet. Denique idem Apostolus dicit: Nam si cum adhuc peccatores essemus, Christus pro nobis mortuus est; multo magis justificati nunc in sanguine ejus, salvi erimus per eum ab ira. Ab ira utique, quae peccantibus debebatur. Quod si gentilem populum non passus est mori; multo magis redemptum non patietur exstingui. Nec abjiciet, quos magno redemit; nec enim levis illi est jactura famulorum. Non morietur quidem amplius qui resurgit, ut scriptum est. Sed ipse est advocatus apud Patrem; sed ipse interpellat pro peccatis nostris, haud despicabilis miserorum patronus, parumve idoneus deprecator. ### English translation (Claude) Next let us see what you say: “If God often commands a man to repent,” you say, “he often permits him to sin.” What are you saying? Does one who often shows the remedy for a crime point the way to the crime? And does a physician, when he heals, teach a man to be wounded constantly? God does not want man to sin even once, and yet he frees him from sin. Nor, surely, when he frees, does he teach sin; just as one who rescues from a fire does not point the way to the fire, nor does one who snatches a shipwrecked man from the reefs drive him onto the rocks. It is one thing to be freed from danger, another to be driven into danger. And perhaps I would allow this to be believed if penance were thought a pleasure; but so great a labour is laid upon it, the destruction of the flesh is ordered for it, constant tears, unending groans. Will the man who has been healed, then, want to be cut again, burned again? Will he want to sin again and repent again, when it is written: “Do not add sin, lest something worse befall you”? And further: “I do not have pity on one who sins constantly.” But if, as you say, the one to whom the medicine of penance is shown is driven to sin, what at last will the man do from whom penance itself is shut off, for whom, the remedy despaired of, the whole wound is covered over, to whom the approach to life is altogether denied from the beginning? “In baptism,” you will say, “we die once, as the Apostle says: Do you not know that all of you who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? So you were buried with him through baptism into death, so that as Christ rose from the dead, so you too might walk in newness of life.” What wonder? The Apostle was teaching that we were new, so that no one should sin; yet it followed that one who had sinned should repent. The one would live unharmed, the other healed; the innocent would receive the crown, the penitent pardon; the one would receive the reward, the other the medicine. Indeed the same Apostle says: “For if, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us, much more, now justified by his blood, we will be saved through him from wrath.” From wrath, surely, which was owed to sinners. But if he did not allow the Gentile people to die, much more will he not allow the redeemed to be destroyed. Nor will he cast away those whom he redeemed at a great price; for the loss of his servants is no light thing to him. He who rises indeed will die no more, as it is written. But he himself is the advocate with the Father; he himself intercedes for our sins, a patron of the wretched in no way to be despised, nor an unfit intercessor. ### Scripture references - John 5:14: quotation, high confidence - Rom 6:3: quotation, high confidence - Rom 6:4: quotation, high confidence - Rom 5:8: quotation, high confidence - Rom 5:9: quotation, high confidence - 1 Cor 6:20: allusion, medium confidence - Rom 6:9: allusion, high confidence - 1 John 2:1: allusion, high confidence - Rom 8:34: allusion, high confidence ### Extrabiblical texts - Sir 12:3 (Sirach): allusion, low confidence ### Translation notes - “I do not have pity on one who sins constantly” is perhaps a free form of Sir 12:3. - “The whole wound is covered over” (operitur): that is, it is left to fester without treatment; the reading is uncertain (aperitur would mean “laid open”). ### Citation (SBL) Pacian, Ep. Symp. 3.9 (PL 13:1069b–1070a; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/pacian-epistulae/3-9). ## Three Letters to Sympronianus 3.10 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/pacian-epistulae/3-1/#p-3-10 - Source: PL 13:1070b–1070c - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-10-23 Summary: Pacian cites Peter’s repentance after his denial and Thomas’s confession after his doubt as examples of believers restored by repentance. ### Latin text Responde, frater, an famulos Dei diabolus possit opprimere, an non possit Christus absolvere? Petri poenitentiam dicis ante Domini passionem fuisse. Hoc tibi nemo proposuit. Et tamen Petrus jam baptizatus erat: huic enim dixerat Dominus: Qui lotus est semel, non necesse habet iterum lavari. Accepit tamen postea remedium Christi, sed ante poenituit; et ante sanctus est habitus, quam ad remedium perveniret. Nec poenitentia ejus in memoriam scriberetur, ni profuisset aliquid poenitenti. Flevit, inquit, amarissime. Non vis facere fidelem, quod Petrus fecit? non vis prodesse nobis, quod Petro profuit? Age, Thomas meus nonne post Domini resurrectionem de resurrectione dubitavit? Nonne perfidiae reus notatur a Domino, cum illi clavorum notae, cum perfossae manus, cum lateris vulnus ostenditur, cum sic ad eum ait Dominus: Noli esse incredulus, sed fidelis? Quid ergo? erubuit poenitere? nonne humiliatus est? nonne Deum et Dominum suum illico confitetur? numquid non illum exomologesis ista commendat? ### English translation (Claude) Answer, brother: can the devil overpower the servants of God, and Christ not be able to release them? You say that Peter’s repentance was before the Lord’s passion. No one put this to you. And yet Peter had already been baptized; for the Lord had said to him: “He who has been washed once does not need to be washed again.” He received the remedy of Christ afterwards, yet he repented before; and he was held a saint before he came to the remedy. Nor would his repentance have been written for remembrance unless it had profited the penitent in some way. “He wept,” it says, “most bitterly.” Do you not want a believer to do what Peter did? Do you not want what profited Peter to profit us? Come, did not my Thomas doubt the resurrection after the Lord’s resurrection? Is he not marked by the Lord as guilty of unbelief, when the marks of the nails, the pierced hands, the wound in the side are shown to him, when the Lord says to him thus: “Do not be unbelieving, but believing”? What then? Was he ashamed to repent? Was he not humbled? Does he not at once confess him as his God and Lord? Does not that confession commend him? ### Scripture references - John 13:10: quotation, high confidence - Matt 26:75: quotation, high confidence - John 20:27: quotation, high confidence - John 20:28: allusion, high confidence ### Citation (SBL) Pacian, Ep. Symp. 3.10 (PL 13:1070b–1070c; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/pacian-epistulae/3-10). ## Three Letters to Sympronianus 3.11 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/pacian-epistulae/3-1/#p-3-11 - Source: PL 13:1070d–1071c - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-10-23 Summary: Pacian refutes the Novatian claim that the power to bind and loose applied only to catechumens, appealing to Matt 16 and 18. ### Latin text Jam quam argute caput illud absolvis, quod ego posui; datam episcopis potestatem, ut quae ligassent in terra, ligata essent et in coelis. Dicis, hoc non ad fideles, sed ad catechumenos pertinere; ut baptizandis adhuc scilicet populis, solvi liceret crimina, vel teneri. Duorum denique Evangelistarum capitula conjungis, ut unum esse videantur; et adjicis, quod Matthaeus minus integre prosecutus sit, complesse Joannem: ut quia apud Matthaeum dixerat Dominus; Ite et docete omnes gentes, baptizantes eas in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus sancti; apud Joannem impleverit dicens: Si cujus dimiseritis peccata, dimittentur illi; cujus retinueritis, et tenebuntur: ut hoc dimittere vel ligare ad gentes quae baptizandae erant, pertinuisse videatur, quia prior Evangelista de gentibus praelocutus sit; de solvendo autem et ligando posterior impleverit. Quid ais? Evangelistae duo dimidiatos invicem sensus, et semi integros retulerunt? Verba his invicem, ratiove defuerat; aut non in omnibus totum Spiritus sanctus implebat, propositos perferens sensus, et ad plenum dicta definiens? Hominis confirmatum testamentum nemo superordinat: Dei tabulam, tabula diversa mutabit? Quaenam in vobis haec vincendi cupido est, ut tale aliquid audeatis? Quid quod apud Matthaeum ipsum ante passionem suam dixerat Dominus: Quaecumque ligaveritis in terra, erunt ligata et in coelo et quaecumque solveritis in terra, erunt soluta et in coelo? Apud Matthaeum hoc praedixerat Dominus, et nullam ibi gentium fecerat mentionem: cur ergo illi capitulum Joannis adjungis, ubi suum posuit, et ita posuit ut a gentibus separaret? quod utique si ad gentes pertinere voluisset, potuit ipse conjungere quod ipse ponebat. Totum ergo quod quaeris, apud Matthaeum habes. Cur non universa legisti, qui episcopum doces? Primum praecepti istius caput repete. Ipso referente Matthaeo, paulo superius ad Petrum locutus est Dominus; ad unum, ideo ut unitatem fundaret ex uno; mox id ipsum in commune praecipiens, qualiter tamen ad Petrum incipit: Et ego tibi dico, inquit, quia tu es Petrus, et super istam petram aedificabo Ecclesiam meam, et portae infernorum non convalescent adversus eam. Et tibi dabo claves regni coelorum: et quaecumque ligaveris super terram, ligata erunt et in coelis; et quaecumque solveris super terram, erunt soluta et in coelis. Dic frater; de solis gentibus hoc locutus est: Super hanc petram aedificabo, inquit, Ecclesiam meam? Ecclesiam, non baptizatas gentes vocat? homo necdum renatus, corpus est Christi? Quid solvo gentibus, quod non est ligatum? Nam si non reputatum est, nec ligatum. Quid alligo, quod nullo jure constringo? Gentilis homo, liber est Legi. Vide nunc e contrario, an in baptizatum utraque conveniant. Solvitur venia, quia peccato tenebatur; ligatur anathemate, quia solutus fuerat fide et per gratiam liberatus. Quod si ad gentes hanc solvendi licentiam vel ligandi spectasse concedam; multo magis ad baptizatos pertinuisse convincam. Nam si is solvi potuit vel ligari, qui non habuit vinculum; quanto magis ille quem fidei jura tenuerunt? ### English translation (Claude) Now how cleverly you dispose of the heading I set down: that power was given to bishops, so that what they bound on earth would be bound also in heaven. You say that this applies not to the faithful but to catechumens, so that it was permitted to loose or retain the crimes of peoples still to be baptized. Then you join the passages of two evangelists so that they seem to be one, and you add that what Matthew set out less completely, John completed: so that, since the Lord had said in Matthew, “Go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” he completed it in John, saying: “Whoever’s sins you forgive, they will be forgiven him; whoever’s you retain, they will be retained.” So this forgiving or binding seems to have applied to the nations who were to be baptized, because the first evangelist spoke beforehand about the nations, while the later one completed it about loosing and binding. What are you saying? Did the two evangelists report halved meanings to each other, half complete? Did they lack words or reasoning between them? Or did the Holy Spirit not fill everything wholly in all of them, carrying through the meanings set forth and defining what was said in full? No one adds to a man’s confirmed testament; shall a different tablet change God’s tablet? What is this desire for winning in you, that you dare such a thing? What of the fact that in Matthew himself, before his passion, the Lord had said: “Whatever you bind on earth will be bound also in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed also in heaven”? The Lord had said this beforehand in Matthew, and made no mention of the nations there. Why then do you join to it the passage of John, where he set down his own, and set it down so as to separate it from the nations? Surely, if he had wanted it to apply to the nations, he could himself have joined what he himself was setting down. So everything you seek, you have in Matthew. Why did you not read all of it, you who teach a bishop? Go back to the first heading of this command. As Matthew himself relates, a little earlier the Lord spoke to Peter; to one, so that he might found unity from one; soon giving the same command to all in common. Yet how does he begin with Peter? “And I tell you,” he says, “that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth will be bound also in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed also in heaven.” Tell me, brother: did he speak of the nations alone when he said, “On this rock I will build my church”? Does he call the unbaptized nations the church? Is a man not yet reborn the body of Christ? What do I loose for the nations that is not bound? For if it is not reckoned, neither is it bound. What do I bind that I constrain by no law? A Gentile is free of the law. See now, on the contrary, whether both apply to the baptized. He is loosed by pardon, because he was held by sin; he is bound by anathema, because he had been loosed by faith and set free through grace. But if I grant that this licence of loosing or binding looked to the nations, much more shall I prove that it applied to the baptized. For if one who had no bond could be loosed or bound, how much more he whom the laws of faith held? ### Scripture references - Matt 28:19: quotation, high confidence - John 20:23: quotation, high confidence - Gal 3:15: allusion, high confidence - Matt 18:18: quotation, high confidence - Matt 16:18: quotation, high confidence - Matt 16:19: quotation, high confidence ### Translation notes - “Yet how does he begin with Peter?” renders a sentence whose wording is uncertain in the digital text (a qualiter tamen ad Petrum incipit); the letter a is probably Migne’s footnote mark. - Pacian’s reading of Matt 16:18 (unity founded from one, Peter) is translated exactly. ### Citation (SBL) Pacian, Ep. Symp. 3.11 (PL 13:1070d–1071c; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/pacian-epistulae/3-11). ## Three Letters to Sympronianus 3.12 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/pacian-epistulae/3-1/#p-3-12 - Source: PL 13:1071c–1072a - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-10-23 Summary: Pacian distinguishes private forgiveness of a brother from the church’s power to loose any sin, arguing from Matt 18. ### Latin text Ais posuisse Matthaeum: Si peccaverit in te frater tuus, vade et corripe eum solus cum solo; ac statim subjunxisse Dominum: Quoecumque solveris in terra, soluta erunt et in coelis; ut ad fratris offensam pertinere videatur. Age, non vides quod supra dicit: Si in te peccaverit frater tuus: heic vero addit: Amen dico vobis, Quoecumque solveritis in terra, etc. Illud uni jussit, hoc pluribus relaxavit: illud ipse solvit in quem admittitur; hoc vero, Ecclesia: illud, sine sacerdote, sine fratribus; hoc ab omnibus impetratur. Quoecumque solveritis, inquit; omnino nihil excipit. Quoecumque, inquit: vel magna, vel modica. Attende quod ad Petrum dicat inferius id quod peccatur in hominem, septuagies et septies relaxandum; ut ostendat, alias vel semel posse. Tamen qui in Petrum peccat, Dominum laedit: sicut ad Samuel ipse significat: Non te nullius momenti fecerunt, sed me. Conceditur ergo vel semel Ecclesiae, quod nobis ipsis totiens imperatur. ### English translation (Claude) You say that Matthew set down: “If your brother sins against you, go and rebuke him alone with him alone,” and that the Lord immediately added: “Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed also in heaven,” so that it seems to refer to an offence against a brother. Come, do you not see that above he says: “If your brother sins against you,” but here he adds: “Truly I say to you, whatever you loose on earth” and so on? The one he commanded to one man, the other he granted to many; the one is loosed by the man against whom the wrong is committed, the other by the church; the one without a priest, without the brothers, the other is obtained from all. “Whatever you loose,” he says; he makes no exception at all. “Whatever,” he says: great or small. Notice that further on he tells Peter that a sin committed against a man is to be forgiven seventy times seven times, to show that elsewhere it can be forgiven at least once. Yet one who sins against Peter wounds the Lord, as he himself indicates to Samuel: “They have not set you at naught, but me.” So the church is granted at least once what we ourselves are commanded so many times. ### Scripture references - Matt 18:15: quotation, high confidence - Matt 18:18: quotation, high confidence - Matt 18:22: allusion, high confidence - 1 Sam 8:7: quotation, high confidence ### Citation (SBL) Pacian, Ep. Symp. 3.12 (PL 13:1071c–1072a; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/pacian-epistulae/3-12). ## Three Letters to Sympronianus 3.13 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/pacian-epistulae/3-1/#p-3-13 - Source: PL 13:1072a–1072c - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-10-23 Summary: Pacian argues that the parables of the lost sheep, coin, and son, though first spoken to tax collectors and sinners, apply to the whole church as their figure. ### Latin text Nunc ad erraticam ovem, drachmam illam, et adolescentiorem filium revertamur: quae ego exempla cum strictim scripto priore tetigissem, tu plena repetisti, edocens et ostendens drachmam et ovem et filium minorem ad publicanos et peccatores; hoc est, humilem populum, non ad Christianae plebis imaginem, nec ad formam fidelium pertinere. Gratulor me doceri; intellectum vero non esse, moleste fero. Nam quid asseram? Ea quoecumque lex dicat, his qui sub lege sunt, dicere; utique et hoc principaliter ad priores dictum esse consentio, sed in forma fidelium, sed in imagine futurorum, sicut Apostolus dicit: Haec autem in figura contingebant illis: scripta sunt autem ad correptionem nostram, in quos, fines saeculorum devenerunt. Et iterum: Quoe omnia illis umbrae erant futurorum bonorum. Certe ipse adnuis, ad publicanos et peccatores, hoc est, humilem populum, et ideo juniorem, illa dictata. Dic ergo: an populus Christianus ipse est junior? an in radicem cohaeserit? an illa membra compegerit? aedificatus, ut scriptum est, in fundamentis apostolorum et prophetarum, et ipso angulari lapide Christo Jesu. An Judaeorum Deus tantum? Nonne et gentium? Immo et gentium. Siquidem unus Deus, qui justificat impium ex fide, et per fidem. Certe ille humilis populus, quem Deus, drachmae, filio minori et oviculae conferebat, Ecclesia fuit: unde omnis turba credentium, unde populus Christianus. Huic corpori nostra etiam membra conjuncta sunt, et totae credentium portiones, ut in bonam olivam ex oleastro gentium convenirent, sicut Apostolus dicit: Participes pinguedinis ejus effectae? atque ita unum omnes essemus in Christo, Judaeus et Graecus, servus et liber. Si ergo cum illis humilibus unum corpus sumus, dicta sunt et ad nos quae veterum humiles audierunt: atque ita omni corpori nuntiatum est, quidquid de corporis parte praedicatum est. ### English translation (Claude) Now let us return to the straying sheep, that drachma, and the younger son. I had touched on these examples briefly in my former letter, but you repeated them in full, teaching and showing that the drachma, the sheep, and the younger son refer to the tax collectors and sinners, that is, the humble people, and not to the image of the Christian people or the pattern of the faithful. I am glad to be taught; but I am sorry that you have not understood. For what shall I assert? That whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law; certainly I agree that this too was said principally to those before, but as a pattern for the faithful, as an image of things to come, as the Apostle says: “These things happened to them in a figure; but they were written for our correction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.” And again: “All of which were shadows to them of the good things to come.” Certainly you yourself grant that those things were spoken to the tax collectors and sinners, that is, to the humble people, and therefore the younger. Tell me then: is not the Christian people itself the younger? Has it not clung to the root? Has it not joined those members together? Built, as it is written, on the foundations of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself the cornerstone. Is he the God of the Jews only? Is he not of the Gentiles too? Yes, of the Gentiles too. Since God is one, who justifies the ungodly by faith and through faith. Certainly that humble people, which God compared to the drachma, the younger son, and the little sheep, was the church: from which came the whole crowd of believers, from which the Christian people. To this body our members too have been joined, and whole portions of believers, so that from the wild olive of the Gentiles they might come together into the good olive, as the Apostle says, “made sharers of its richness”; and so that we might all be one in Christ, Jew and Greek, slave and free. If then we are one body with those humble ones, what the humble of old heard has been said to us too; and so whatever was preached about a part of the body has been announced to the whole body. ### Scripture references - Luke 15:4: allusion, high confidence - Luke 15:8: allusion, high confidence - Luke 15:11: allusion, high confidence - Rom 3:19: allusion, high confidence - 1 Cor 10:11: quotation, high confidence - Heb 10:1: allusion, medium confidence - Col 2:17: allusion, medium confidence - Eph 2:20: quotation, high confidence - Rom 3:29: quotation, high confidence - Rom 3:30: quotation, high confidence - Rom 11:17: quotation, high confidence - Gal 3:28: allusion, high confidence ### Translation notes - The question marks follow the sense of the argument; the digital text punctuates some of these sentences as questions and some not. - “All of which were shadows” combines Col 2:17 and Heb 10:1. ### Citation (SBL) Pacian, Ep. Symp. 3.13 (PL 13:1072a–1072c; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/pacian-epistulae/3-13). ## Three Letters to Sympronianus 3.14 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/pacian-epistulae/3-1/#p-3-14 - Source: PL 13:1072d–1073a - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-10-23 Summary: Pacian applies the figures of the parables to the church: the lost sheep, coin, and son stand for the sinner who repents. ### Latin text Dicam planius: ille posterior populus, ille pauper, ille mediocris, imago Ecclesiae fuit, anima humilis et modesta, anima liberata per Christum. Hanc venit Dominus salvam facere, hanc apud inferos non reliquit: haec est ovis illa quae humeris reportatur: id est, nisu et vigore patientiae. Haec est drachma, quae quaeritur: et vicinis, inventa monstratur. Vides formam ejus similitudini poenitentium convenire? Vides misericordiam usque ad hoc tempus extendi? Vides quaecumque Ecclesia nascenti dicta sunt, ad plenitudinem Ecclesiae pertinere? Inde ibi Dominus adjecit: Sic erit gaudium in coelo super unum peccatorem poenitentiam agentem, quam super nonaginta novem justos, quibus non fuit opus poenitentia. Nam si omnia illi ad commonendos nos scripta sunt; cui tandem populus ille peccator humilis comparabitur, nisi populo poenitenti? Ac si figuris in ordinem recurrentibus, nonaginta novem sanae, omnis Ecclesia est; una vero erratica, delinquentium portiuncula est: ac drachma quae periit, miser ille peccator est: rediens post mala sua filius, redempto illi similis aestimatur. Jam recte a me positum vides, cum de poenitentium curatione tractarem, dixisse Dominum: Non est opus sanis medico, sed male habentibus. Recte et illud: Beati lugentes, quoniam ipsi consolabuntur. Quidquid de publicanis et peccatoribus dictum est, ad aegros omnes et omnes miseros pertinebit. ### English translation (Claude) I will say it more plainly: that later people, that poor and lowly people, was an image of the church, the humble and modest soul, the soul set free through Christ. This the Lord came to save; this he did not leave in the underworld; this is the sheep that is carried back on his shoulders, that is, by the effort and strength of patience. This is the drachma that is sought, and when found is shown to the neighbours. Do you see that its pattern fits the likeness of penitents? Do you see that the mercy extends up to this time? Do you see that whatever was said to the church at its birth pertains to the fullness of the church? Hence the Lord added there: “So there will be joy in heaven over one sinner doing penance more than over ninety-nine righteous who had no need of penance.” For if all things were written for them to admonish us, to whom at last will that humble sinful people be compared, if not to the penitent people? And if the figures are run through in order, the ninety-nine healthy are the whole church; the one straying is the small portion of offenders; the drachma that was lost is the wretched sinner; the son returning after his evils is reckoned like the redeemed man. Now you see that I rightly set down, when I was treating the cure of penitents, that the Lord said: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are ill.” Rightly also that saying: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” Whatever was said about tax collectors and sinners will apply to all the sick and all the wretched. ### Scripture references - Luke 19:10: allusion, medium confidence - Luke 15:5: allusion, high confidence - Luke 15:9: allusion, high confidence - Luke 15:7: quotation, high confidence - 1 Cor 10:11: allusion, medium confidence - Matt 9:12: quotation, high confidence - Matt 5:4: quotation, high confidence - Ps 16:10: echo, low confidence ### Citation (SBL) Pacian, Ep. Symp. 3.14 (PL 13:1072d–1073a; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/pacian-epistulae/3-14). ## Three Letters to Sympronianus 3.15 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/pacian-epistulae/3-15/#p-3-15 - Source: PL 13:1073a–1074a - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-10-23 Summary: Pacian answers that mourning for sin is not limited to martyrs and that the unforgivable sin is ascribing the Spirit’s works to the devil, so every other sin may be forgiven the penitent. ### Latin text De solis, ais scriptum esse martyribus: Beati lugentes. Nemo ergo praeter illos, peccata sua plangit? Non David clamat: Lavabo per singulas noctes lectum meum. Et iterum: Quoniam cinerem, sicut panem edi; et potum meum cum fletu miscebam. Non Jacob dicit: Anni vitae meae durissimi. Non Apostolus ad Timotheum: Desiderans te videre, memor lacrymarum tuarum? Nec tamen hoc de martyre loquebatur. Quid nunc? Miseri poenitentes siccos habent oculos? Et qui peccasse se dolent, flere non norunt? ipsi communicantes, ipsi fideles, lacrymas non habemus? Quempiam nostrum, gaudente mundo, gaudere delectat? Vos Novatiani, jam satiati estis, divites facti estis, sine nobis regnare coepistis. Non ergo quisque miserabilis est, ita incipit esse miserandus. Post haec proponis, et dicis scriptum esse per Dominum: Omne peccatum et blasphemia remittetur hominibus; Qui autem in Spiritum sanctum peccaverit, non dimittetur ei neque hic, neque in futuro. Aut ego fallor, aut istud exemplum contra te valet. Nam si omne peccatum et blasphemia relaxabitur, vides veniam poenitentibus non negari. Ergo omne peccatum, ergo ipsa quoque blasphemia. Habes additum secundum Lucam: Et in filium hominis peccaverit remittetur ei. Quid hoc amplius de misericordia Dei, de clementia judicantis? An non invidet oculus tuus, quia bonus est paterfamilias? Non licet illi facere, quod vult? Quin immo, tu quis es qui judicas servum? Domino suo stat, aut cadit: Potens est autem Deus statuere illum. Sed qui in Spiritu sancto blasphemaverit, ais, non remittetur ei. Soles, totas percurrere lectiones: cur hic non legisti, quid sit istud, In Spiritu? Habes supra scriptum, cum Dominus daemonia verbo fugaret, et virtutes multas speciali vigore compleret, dixisse Pharisaeos: Hic non expellit doemonia nisi in Beelzebub principe doemoniorum: hoc est, in Spiritum sanctum deliquisse, in ea blasphemasse quae per sanctum Spiritum gerebantur. In caeteris quippe peccatis, aut errore labimur, aut metu frangimur, aut carnis infirmitate superamur. Haec caecitas est non videre quod videas, et sancti Spiritus opera diabolo deputare, eamque gloriam Domini qua diabolus ipse superatur, diaboli appellare virtutem. Hoc est ergo quod non dimittetur: reliqua bonis poenitentibus, frater Symproniane, donantur. ### English translation (Claude) You say that “Blessed are those who mourn” was written of martyrs alone. Does no one else, then, lament his sins? Does not David cry out: “Every night I will wash my bed”? And again: “For I ate ashes like bread, and mingled my drink with weeping.” Does not Jacob say: “The years of my life have been very hard”? Does not the Apostle say to Timothy: “Longing to see you, remembering your tears”? Yet he was not speaking of a martyr. What now? Do wretched penitents have dry eyes? Do those who grieve that they have sinned not know how to weep? Do we ourselves, communicants, the faithful, have no tears? Does it delight any of us to rejoice while the world rejoices? You Novatians are already filled, you have already become rich, you have begun to reign without us. So is it not true that as each is wretched, so he begins to deserve pity? After this you propose, and say that it was written by the Lord: “Every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men; but whoever sins against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, neither here nor in the world to come.” Either I am mistaken, or this example tells against you. For if every sin and blasphemy will be remitted, you see that pardon is not denied to penitents. So every sin; so blasphemy itself too. You have it added in Luke: “And whoever sins against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him.” What could be more than this about the mercy of God, about the clemency of the judge? Or is your eye envious because the householder is good? Is he not permitted to do what he wishes? Indeed, who are you to judge a servant? He stands or falls to his own master; and God is able to make him stand. “But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit,” you say, “will not be forgiven.” You usually run through whole readings: why did you not read here what this “against the Spirit” is? You have it written above that, when the Lord was putting demons to flight by a word and performing many mighty works with a singular power, the Pharisees said: “This man does not cast out demons except by Beelzebul, the prince of demons.” That is to have sinned against the Holy Spirit: to have blasphemed against the things that were done through the Holy Spirit. For in other sins we either slip through error, or are broken by fear, or are overcome by the weakness of the flesh. This is blindness: not to see what you see, and to ascribe the works of the Holy Spirit to the devil, and to call the devil’s power that glory of the Lord by which the devil himself is overcome. This, then, is what will not be forgiven; the rest is granted to good penitents, brother Sympronian. ### Scripture references - Matt 5:4: quotation, high confidence - Ps 6:6 (6:7 Vulg.): quotation, high confidence - Ps 102:9 (101:10 Vulg.): quotation, high confidence - Gen 47:9: quotation, high confidence - 2 Tim 1:4: quotation, high confidence - 1 Cor 4:8: quotation, high confidence - Matt 12:31: quotation, high confidence - Matt 12:32: quotation, high confidence - Luke 12:10: quotation, high confidence - Matt 20:15: allusion, high confidence - Rom 14:4: quotation, high confidence - Matt 12:24: quotation, high confidence ### Translation notes - “So is it not true that as each is wretched, so he begins to deserve pity?” renders a doubtful text (Non ergo a quisque miserabilis est, ita incipit esse miserandus), translated by sense; the a is probably Migne’s footnote mark. - The Psalm references follow the Latin Psalter (Ps 6:7; 101:10 Vulgate). ### Citation (SBL) Pacian, Ep. Symp. 3.15 (PL 13:1073a–1074a; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/pacian-epistulae/3-15). ## Three Letters to Sympronianus 3.16 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/pacian-epistulae/3-15/#p-3-16 - Source: PL 13:1074a–1074d - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-10-23 Summary: Pacian answers the texts on the barren branch, Eli’s saying, and the “sin unto death” by arguing that they concern unrepented sins, and that God changes his sentence for those who repent. ### Latin text Posthaec, de sarmentis et vite proponis sic: Ait Dominus apud Joannem: Ego sum vitis vera, et Pater meus agricultor est. Omne sarmentum in me quod non affert fructum, tollet illud; et omne fructiferum, purgabit illud. Vides igitur in sarmentis fructum requiri, id est bona opera poenitentiae, sicut Joannes ait: Facite ergo fructum dignum poenitentiae. Vides sarmenta purgari, quae sunt detrimenta carnis, damna laetitiae, damna patrimonii, vitae labores; qui actus proprie poenitentium sunt. Vides etiam agriculturam Domini, qui ipsa etiam sarmenta non perdat, sed purget et colligat, aliqua plane in ignem, aliqua novellandis pastinandisque vineis. Eli sacerdos, ais, loquitur et dicit: Si vir in virum peccaverit, orabunt pro eo; si autem in Deum peccaverit quis orabit pro eo? Joannes itidem: Si quis scit peccare fratrem suum peccatum non utique ad mortem, postulabit pro eo, et dabit illi vitam Deus. Est autem peccatum quod ad mortem ducit, non pro illo dico ut depreceris. Vides hoc totum ad peccata manentia pertinere, non ad eos qui aliquando peccaverint, et coeperint poenitere, ante quam quisquam pro illis roget. Longum est, ut exempla replicemus. Attende universa peccata quibus Dominus comminatur: jam videbis esse praesentia. Quod si non proderit justo in tempore iniquitatis suae praeterita justitia; non oberit impio in tempore justitiae suae iniquitas derelicta, cum scriptum sit: Relinquat impius vias suas, et vir facinorosus cogitationes suas; et convertatur ad Deum et misericordiam consequetur. Quod si Deus etiam peccata praeterita punivit, deque transactis et praetermissis poenam suppliciumque constituit; age, non habet in sua potestate mutare sententiam? Non Rahab, non Nabuchodonosor regem, non Gabaonitas, non Ninivitas, non Segor a praedicto interitu liberavit? Non per ipsum, Joel vates haec intulit: Convertimini ad Dominum Deum vestrum, simulque jejunio, et fletu, et planctu; quia misericors est, patiens, et longanimus, et multae miserationis, et poenitens in malitiis. Et quis scit si reversus poenitebitur, et relinquet post se benedictionem? Quare sicubi constitutam peccantibus poenam probaveris, hoc tenebis, aut peccatis perseverantibus constitutam, aut libertatem Deo relictam mutandae, si poeniteas, ad meliora sententiae. ### English translation (Claude) After this you propose the passage about the branches and the vine thus: The Lord says in John: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he will take away; and every fruitful one he will prune.” You see then that fruit is required in the branches, that is, the good works of penance, as John says: “Bear therefore fruit worthy of repentance.” You see that the branches are pruned: these are the losses of the flesh, the losses of joy, the losses of patrimony, the labours of life; which are properly the acts of penitents. You see also the husbandry of the Lord, who does not destroy even the branches themselves, but prunes and gathers them, some indeed for the fire, some for renewing and replanting vineyards. Eli the priest, you say, speaks and says: “If a man sins against a man, they will pray for him; but if anyone sins against God, who will pray for him?” John likewise: “If anyone knows that his brother is sinning a sin not unto death, he will ask for him, and God will give him life. But there is a sin that leads to death; I do not say that you should pray for that.” You see that all this applies to sins that persist, not to those who once sinned and began to repent before anyone asks for them. It would be long to unroll the examples. Attend to all the sins that the Lord threatens: you will see that they are present ones. And if his past righteousness will not profit the righteous man in the time of his wickedness, the wickedness he has abandoned will not harm the wicked man in the time of his righteousness, since it is written: “Let the wicked forsake his ways, and the criminal his thoughts; and let him turn to God, and he will obtain mercy.” And if God has punished even past sins, and appointed penalty and punishment for things done and passed over, come, does he not have it in his power to change the sentence? Did he not free Rahab, King Nebuchadnezzar, the Gibeonites, the Ninevites, and Zoar from the destruction foretold? Did not the prophet Joel bring this in by him: “Turn to the Lord your God, together with fasting and weeping and mourning; for he is merciful, patient, long-suffering, and of great compassion, and relenting over evils. And who knows whether he will turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him?” So wherever you prove that a penalty has been appointed for sinners, you will hold this: either it was appointed for sins that persist, or liberty was left to God to change the sentence for the better, if you repent. ### Scripture references - John 15:1: quotation, high confidence - John 15:2: quotation, high confidence - Matt 3:8: quotation, high confidence - Luke 3:8: allusion, medium confidence - 1 Sam 2:25: quotation, high confidence - 1 John 5:16: quotation, high confidence - Ezek 33:12: allusion, high confidence - Isa 55:7: quotation, high confidence - Josh 6:25: allusion, high confidence - Dan 4:34: allusion, medium confidence - Josh 9:15: allusion, high confidence - Jonah 3:10: allusion, high confidence - Gen 19:21: allusion, high confidence - Joel 2:12: quotation, high confidence - Joel 2:13: quotation, high confidence - Joel 2:14: quotation, high confidence ### Translation notes - “Present ones”: sins still being committed, not past sins repented of. - The Joel quotation follows an Old Latin form of Joel 2:13–14. ### Citation (SBL) Pacian, Ep. Symp. 3.16 (PL 13:1074a–1074d; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/pacian-epistulae/3-16). ## Three Letters to Sympronianus 3.17 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/pacian-epistulae/3-15/#p-3-17 - Source: PL 13:1075a–1075c - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-10-23 Summary: Pacian argues that the commands to cut off the offending hand and to remove the evil person concern those who persist in sin and lead others astray, not penitents. ### Latin text Ais adhuc, scriptum: Quod si manus tua vel pes tuus scandalizaverit te, abjice eum abs te. Quid sit hoc, Moyses, Deuteronomio testificante, praedixit: Si autem precatus fuerit te frater tuus (hi sunt enim oculi et manus nostrae) aut filia tua, aut uxor tua quae est in sinu tuo, aut aequalis animae tuae, dicens: Eamus et serviamus diis quos non noveras. Deinde adjecit inferius: Deferes eum, et manus tua erit super ipsum ad occidendum eum. Vides ergo, non de poenitentibus dictum, sed de his qui non solum ipsi in facinore perseverant, verum etiam nos scandalizare non desinunt. Hi quamlibet chari sint, relinquendi: quamlibet utiles deserendi sunt. Proponis adhuc dixisse apostolum Paulum: Auferte malum ex vobis ipsis: malum utique, perseverans. Caeterum, poenitentia malum non est, cum David dicat: Bonum est exomologesim facere Deo. Nec tamen mecum est ille quem poenitet, nec parte sanctorum, nec pace conjungitur. Sed dicit Apostolus: Si quis frater nominatur, et sit aut fornicator, aut simulacris serviens, aut avarus, aut maledicus, aut ebrius, aut rapax, cum ejusmodi nec cibum sumere. Vides non sine causa esse positum, et sit, id est, qui necdum poeniteat, qui necdum improbus esse desierit. Et certe de avaris, et ebriosis, et maledicis, simul dictum est. Responde, frater, an nullus ejusmodi, vestra pace teneatur. Ergo inde est, et quod per Esaiam Deus clamat: Simul iniqui et peccatores peribunt; non poenitentes, non misericordiae opera procurantes, quibus apud eumdem rursus Esaiam Deus dicit: Et si fuerint peccata vestra ut phoenicium, ut nivem dealbabo: et si ut coccum, ut lanam candidam efficiam. ### English translation (Claude) You say further that it is written: “If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cast it from you.” What this means Moses foretold, as Deuteronomy testifies: “But if your brother entreats you (for these are our eyes and hands), or your daughter, or your wife who is in your bosom, or one equal to your own soul, saying: Let us go and serve gods whom you have not known.” Then he added below: “You shall denounce him, and your hand shall be upon him to kill him.” You see, then, that it was said not of penitents but of those who not only persist in crime themselves but also do not cease to cause us to stumble. These, however dear they are, must be left; however useful, they must be deserted. You propose further that the apostle Paul said: “Remove the evil from among yourselves”: the evil, surely, that persists. But penance is not an evil, since David says: “It is good to make confession to God.” Yet the one who repents is not yet with me, nor joined to the portion or peace of the saints. But the Apostle says: “If anyone who is called a brother is a fornicator, or an idolater, or greedy, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a robber, do not even eat with such a one.” You see that “is” was not put there without reason: that is, one who does not yet repent, who has not yet ceased to be wicked. And certainly he spoke of the greedy, the drunken, and the revilers at the same time. Answer, brother: is no one of that kind held in your communion? So it is from this too that God cries out through Isaiah: “The wicked and sinners will perish together”: not the penitent, not those who undertake works of mercy, to whom God says again through the same Isaiah: “And if your sins are like scarlet, I will make them white as snow; and if like crimson, I will make them like white wool.” ### Scripture references - Matt 18:8: quotation, high confidence - Deut 13:6: quotation, high confidence - Deut 13:9: quotation, high confidence - 1 Cor 5:13: quotation, high confidence - Ps 92:1 (91:2 Vulg.): quotation, high confidence - 1 Cor 5:11: quotation, high confidence - Isa 1:28: quotation, high confidence - Isa 1:18: quotation, high confidence ### Translation notes - “It is good to make confession to God” follows the Latin of Ps 91:2 (Vulgate; Ps 92:1), where confiteri means “to give thanks”; Pacian reads it of confession. - “Fornicator” renders fornicator (1 Cor 5:11). ### Citation (SBL) Pacian, Ep. Symp. 3.17 (PL 13:1075a–1075c; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/pacian-epistulae/3-17). ## Three Letters to Sympronianus 3.18 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/pacian-epistulae/3-15/#p-3-18 - Source: PL 13:1075c–1076a - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-10-23 Summary: Pacian argues that Paul’s handing over of the incestuous man to Satan was for his amendment, excluded only him, and was followed by his forgiveness in 2 Corinthians. ### Latin text Attamen, ut ais, Apostolus condemnavit errantem. Nam ad Corinthios prima ita dicit: Ipse ego quidem absens corpore, praesens autem spiritu, jam judicavi eum qui tale facinus admisit: in nomine Domini nostri Jesu Christi, congregatis vobis omnibus in virtute Dei; tradere ejusmodi satanae, in interitum carnis, ut spiritus salvus sit in die Domini. Nota, frater, primum, quod non damnat eos cum quibus iste communicat: solus ipse qui tale facinus admiserat, satanae traditur, solus excluditur, salva pace sanctorum. Vos, omnes ecclesias pro uno peccatore damnatis? Deinde vides, quod hic ipse peccator incestus, non morti traditur, sed satanae, ad emendandum, ad colaphizandum, ad poenitendum. Denique ait, Ad interitum carnis, non tamen animae, non etiam spiritus: sed ad solius carnis interitum, tentationes scilicet, carnis angustias, detrimenta membrorum, sicut alibi de intemperantibus dicit: Tribulationem autem carnis patientur ejusmodi. Vis hoc scire? in secunda Corinthiorum, hunc ipsum impium idem Paulus absolvit. Nam de ipso ait: Sufficit illi qui ejusmodi est, objurgatio en quae fit a pluribus; ut e contrario magis donetis et consolemini, ne forte majore tristitia absorbeatur, qui ejusmodi est: Propter quod obsecro vos, ut constituatis in eum charitatem. Item infra: Si cui autem aliquid donastis, et ego: nam et ego quod donavi, propter vos in persona Christi, ut non possideatur a satana. Vides Apostoli indulgentiam, proprias etiam sententias temperantem? Vides mitissimam lenitatem longe a vestro supercilio separatam? longe a Novatiani fronte dissimilem, communi vero vitae ac saluti omnium consulentem? ### English translation (Claude) “And yet,” as you say, “the Apostle condemned the one who went astray.” For in the first letter to the Corinthians he says this: “I indeed, absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged him who committed such a crime: in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are all gathered together in the power of God, to hand such a one over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.” Note first, brother, that he does not condemn those with whom this man communicates: he alone who had committed such a crime is handed over to Satan, he alone is excluded, the peace of the saints remaining intact. Do you condemn all the churches for one sinner? Next you see that this incestuous sinner himself is handed over not to death but to Satan, for amendment, for buffeting, for repentance. Finally he says, “for the destruction of the flesh,” not of the soul, not of the spirit too, but for the destruction of the flesh alone, that is, temptations, the distresses of the flesh, the harm to the members, as he says elsewhere of the intemperate: “Such will suffer tribulation of the flesh.” Do you wish to know this? In Second Corinthians the same Paul absolves this very ungodly man. For he says of him: “For such a one this rebuke by the many is enough, so that you should rather forgive and comfort him, lest such a one be swallowed up by excessive sorrow. Therefore I beg you to confirm your love toward him.” And again below: “If you have forgiven anyone anything, I have too; for what I have forgiven I have forgiven for your sake in the person of Christ, so that he may not be possessed by Satan.” Do you see the indulgence of the Apostle, tempering even his own judgments? Do you see the gentlest mildness, far removed from your haughtiness, far unlike the face of Novatian, but taking thought for the common life and salvation of all? ### Scripture references - 1 Cor 5:3: quotation, high confidence - 1 Cor 5:4: quotation, high confidence - 1 Cor 5:5: quotation, high confidence - 1 Cor 7:28: quotation, high confidence - 2 Cor 2:6: quotation, high confidence - 2 Cor 2:7: quotation, high confidence - 2 Cor 2:8: quotation, high confidence - 2 Cor 2:10: quotation, high confidence - 2 Cor 2:11: quotation, high confidence - 2 Cor 12:7: allusion, low confidence ### Translation notes - Pacian identifies the man forgiven in 2 Cor 2 with the incestuous man of 1 Cor 5, a common early reading. ### Citation (SBL) Pacian, Ep. Symp. 3.18 (PL 13:1075c–1076a; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/pacian-epistulae/3-18). ## Three Letters to Sympronianus 3.19 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/pacian-epistulae/3-15/#p-3-19 - Source: PL 13:1076b–1076c - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-10-23 Summary: Pacian turns the Novatian charges of laxity back on them, pointing to the disreputable men they received, and reads “lay hands hastily on no one” as allowing reconciliation after penance. ### Latin text At etiam in nos severus censor inveheris. Dicis, ex lege coelesti unum ex mandatis solvere non licere, nec communicare lupis agnos, et quod omnis consensus in crimine sit; et ideo qui picem tetigerit, inquinetur; nec sit ulla societas luci ad tenebras, aut templo Dei cum idolis, aut conventio Christi ad Belial. Ideoque David dicit: Furem videbas, et currebas cum eo, et cum adulteris portionem tuam ponebas. Ais tandem, quia nos Domini mandata rescindimus. Nos unum apicem Legis inflectimus; an potius Novatiani, qui tota Ecclesiae, tota concordia: jura violarunt, qui post tot pacis annos, tot foedera sanctitatis, novas sibi leges, nova instituta, novos ritus pepererunt, arcanum justitiae inexorabili fronte simulantes? Nos in Ecclesiam lupos recepimus, qui haereticorum ora vitamus; an potius Novatiani, qui cum ipsi sint rapaces lupi, paulo miseriores oviculas reformidant? Nos consentimus malis, nos picem tangimus, nos tenebris cohaeremus, nos idolo et Belial jungimur; an illi qui Evaristum, qui Nicostratum receperunt, caeterosque ab Ecclesia recedentes, lingua, manu, moribus inquinatos? Nos cum adulteris et furibus convenimus; an illi qui Novatum, vitae suae et capiti praetulerunt; post interceptum pecuniam pupillorum atque viduarum; miseri parentis et partus uxoris parricidam, non modo non poenitentem, verum etiam gloriantem? Verum Paulus Apostolus dixit: Manus cito nemini imponas. Docet idem; vel tarde, vel post poenitentiam non negandas. ### English translation (Claude) But you also inveigh against us as a severe censor. You say that by the heavenly law it is not permitted to loosen one of the commandments, nor to bring lambs into communion with wolves, and that every consent shares in the crime; and that therefore whoever touches pitch is defiled; and that there is no fellowship of light with darkness, or of the temple of God with idols, or agreement of Christ with Belial. And that is why David says: “If you saw a thief, you ran with him, and you put your portion with adulterers.” At last you say that we cut away the Lord’s commandments. Do we bend one stroke of the law, or rather the Novatians, who have violated all the laws of the church and of concord, who after so many years of peace, so many covenants of holiness, have brought forth for themselves new laws, new institutions, new rites, feigning a secret righteousness with an inexorable face? Have we received wolves into the church, we who shun the mouths of heretics; or rather the Novatians, who, though they themselves are ravening wolves, dread the little sheep who are a little more wretched? Do we consent to the wicked, do we touch pitch, do we cling to darkness, are we joined to an idol and to Belial; or rather those who received Evaristus, who received Nicostratus, and the others who departed from the church, defiled in tongue, hand, and conduct? Do we meet with adulterers and thieves; or rather those who preferred Novatus to their own life and head, after he had seized the money of orphans and widows, the parricide of his wretched father and of his wife’s child, not only not repentant but even boasting? But the apostle Paul said: “Lay hands hastily on no one.” He teaches the same thing: that hands are not to be denied, at least late, or after penance. ### Scripture references - Matt 5:19: allusion, high confidence - Matt 10:16: allusion, low confidence - 2 Cor 6:14: allusion, high confidence - 2 Cor 6:15: allusion, high confidence - 2 Cor 6:16: allusion, high confidence - Ps 50:18 (49:18 Vulg.): quotation, high confidence - Matt 5:18: allusion, medium confidence - Matt 7:15: allusion, high confidence - 1 Tim 5:22: quotation, high confidence ### Extrabiblical texts - Sir 13:1 (Sirach): allusion, high confidence - Cyprian, Ep. 52.2 (Letters): allusion, medium confidence ### Translation notes - “Whoever touches pitch is defiled” is Sir 13:1. - The text of “the laws of the church and of concord” (tota Ecclesiae, tota concordia jura) is slightly garbled; translated by sense. - On Novatus’s crimes see Cyprian, Letter 52.2 (Hartel). ### Citation (SBL) Pacian, Ep. Symp. 3.19 (PL 13:1076b–1076c; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/pacian-epistulae/3-19). ## Three Letters to Sympronianus 3.20 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/pacian-epistulae/3-15/#p-3-20 - Source: PL 13:1076d–1077b - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-10-23 Summary: Pacian answers the example of Achar by asking whether the Novatians would revive the whole Mosaic penal law, and cites Christ’s mercy to sinners and Paul’s teaching on bearing one another’s burdens. ### Latin text Sed perdita Hiericho, Achar filius Charmi propter furtum vestis occisus est. Age; vos, totos fures interficite pecuniarum nostrarum atque librorum; et in Novati ossa saevite. Jugum illud rursus accipite, quod neque nos, neque patres nostri portare potuerunt. Quid cessatis, Novatiani, oculum pro oculo, dentem pro dente deposcere, animam postulare, Circumcisionis et Sabbati redintegrare commercium? Necate fures, lapidate petulantes. Nolite in Evangelio legere quod pepercerit Dominus etiam adulterae confitenti, quam nemo damnarat: quod peccatricem quae lacrymis pedes ejus lavabat, absolverit: quod Rahab apud ipsam Hiericho urbem Phoenicum liberavit: quod Thamarem a sententia patriarchae absolverit: quod, Sodomis quoque pereuntibus, Loti filias non exstinxerit; liberaturus et generos, si futurum excidium credidissent. Age; non tenes dicere apud David Dominum: Cum his qui oderunt pacem, eram pacificus? Salomonis quoque sententiam non lacere; frater fratrem adjuvans, exaltabitur? Quid Apostolus? Fratres, et si proeoccupatus fuerit homo in aliquo delicto; vos qui spirituales estis, instruite hujusmodi in spiritu mansuetudinis, considerantes vosmetipsos ne tentemini. Invicem onera vestra portate, et sic adimplebitis legem Christi. Et illud quod ante jam retuli: Opto enim anathema esse in Christo pro fratribus meis cognatis secundum carnem. Et iterum: Omnibus omnia factus sum, ut omnes lucrifacerem: hoc est, cum vulneratis, gemitus; cum aegrotantibus, laborem; mortem cum moriente partiri, casum fratrum cum statu suo posse miscere, aliquid de sua sanitate decidere, et deficientibus adhibere medicinam. ### English translation (Claude) “But after the destruction of Jericho, Achar the son of Carmi was put to death for the theft of a garment.” Come then: you kill all the thieves of our money and books, and rage against the bones of Novatus. Take up again that yoke which neither we nor our fathers were able to bear. Why do you hold back, Novatians, from demanding eye for eye, tooth for tooth, from requiring life, from restoring the commerce of circumcision and the Sabbath? Kill thieves, stone the insolent. Do not read in the Gospel that the Lord spared even the adulteress who confessed, whom no one had condemned; that he absolved the sinful woman who washed his feet with tears; that he freed Rahab in the very city of Jericho of the Phoenicians; that he acquitted Tamar of the patriarch’s sentence; that, when Sodom too was perishing, he did not destroy Lot’s daughters, and would have freed his sons-in-law as well, if they had believed in the coming destruction. Come, do you not hold that the Lord says in David: “With those who hated peace I was peaceable”? And the saying of Solomon too: “A brother helping a brother will be exalted”? What of the Apostle? “Brothers, even if a man is overtaken in any fault, you who are spiritual, instruct such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourselves, lest you be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and so you will fulfil the law of Christ.” And what I have already mentioned before: “For I could wish to be accursed in Christ for my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.” And again: “I have become all things to all, that I might win all”: that is, to share groans with the wounded, labour with the sick, death with the dying; to be able to mingle the fall of brothers with one’s own standing; to give up something of one’s own health and to apply medicine to the failing. ### Scripture references - Josh 7:24: allusion, high confidence - Acts 15:10: quotation, high confidence - Exod 21:24: allusion, high confidence - Matt 5:38: allusion, medium confidence - John 8:11: allusion, high confidence - Luke 7:38: allusion, high confidence - Josh 6:25: allusion, high confidence - Gen 38:26: allusion, high confidence - Gen 19:14: allusion, high confidence - Ps 120:7 (119:7 Vulg.): quotation, high confidence - Prov 18:19: quotation, medium confidence - Gal 6:1: quotation, high confidence - Gal 6:2: quotation, high confidence - Rom 9:3: quotation, high confidence - 1 Cor 9:22: quotation, high confidence ### Translation notes - “Achar” is Achan (Josh 7). - The adulteress is the woman of John 8:3–11; “who confessed” is Pacian’s own word. - “The saying of Solomon too” follows a doubtful text (sententiam non lacere), translated by sense; the saying is Prov 18:19 in an Old Latin form. - “The city of Jericho of the Phoenicians”: Pacian’s description, perhaps meaning Canaanites. ### Citation (SBL) Pacian, Ep. Symp. 3.20 (PL 13:1076d–1077b; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/pacian-epistulae/3-20). ## Three Letters to Sympronianus 3.21 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/pacian-epistulae/3-15/#p-3-21 - Source: PL 13:1077c–1078b - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-10-23 Summary: Pacian mocks the Novatians’ claim to sinlessness, describes the church as a gentle dove and a mixed ark, and applies Paul’s words about Jannes and Mambres to them. ### Latin text Quid vobis prodest superba et aspera fronte durari, altis regere cervicibus, vultus torquere a miseris, auditus oculosque praecludere? Numquam (vos oro) cecidistis? Nulla in vestris mentibus macula est? Nulla in oculis (oro) festuca? Quis gloriabitur castum se habere cor, aut mundum se esse a peccatis? Credo; vos justi, benevoli, temperantes, quibus membra omnia sana sunt, quibus omne corpus intactum, quibus medicus necessarius non est, nec medicina languorum. Intrate jam coelum; paradisi aditus, romphaea cedente, penetrate; tot nostrorum populis, Deum unicum confitentibus, dona vestra praecludite. Quae si se longe aliter habent quam implacabilis immanitas b rigor rerum, et immanitas vestra mentitur; jam intelligitis Novatiani, Deum posse misereri; jam miseris fratribus de praeterito confitentibus, vel seram patere medicinam; jam vulneratum illum a Levita et sacerdote praeteritum, per Christum posse curari; jam Ecclesiae preces humilibus non negandas; jam manus sacerdotum miserandis fratribus exhibendas. Nos autem intelligimus, ut exprobras, Ecclesiam Dei, columbam non felle amaram, non unguium laceratione violentam, parvulis quoque plumis exiguisque. Scimus etiam puteum aquae vivae fontemque signatum, nulla haeretici gurgitis labe sordere, hortumque conclusum plenum oleribus magnis pariter et parvulis, vilibus atque pretiosis. Octo quoque animas ex arca, sed inter quas et Cham fuerit: et millia illa volucrum atque ferarum bina atque septena, munda pariter et immunda: fontes vero siccos, et nebulas turbinibus excitatas, haereticorum sterilitatem et insanarum vocum impetus arbitramur. Nec promittimus libertatem, cum ipsi servi simus poenae; sed crimina nostra confessi, reliquos etiam ut fateantur hortamur, credantque in eum qui justificat impium ex fide, qui reflectit sententiam, adversus malitiam irrogatam. Attendimus quoque a falsis prophetis et lupis rapacibus, cum cavemus a vobis. Jannem vero et Mambrem sic restitisse Moysi, sicut vos catholicis, arbitramur. Inde sic ponit Apostolus: Quia sicut Jannes et Mambres restiterunt Moysi, ita et hi resistunt veritati: homines mente corrupti et a Deo reprobi; sed ultra non proficient: insipientia enim eorum manifesta erit omnibus, sicut illorum fuit. Quod in vos dictum esse manifestum est, qui neque proficere amplius, neque insipientiam vestram celare potuistis. ### English translation (Claude) What does it profit you to harden yourselves with a proud and harsh face, to hold your necks high, to turn your faces away from the wretched, to shut your ears and eyes? Have you never fallen, I ask you? Is there no stain in your minds? No speck, I ask, in your eyes? Who will boast that he has a chaste heart, or that he is clean from sins? I believe it: you are righteous, kindly, temperate; all your members are sound, your whole body untouched; you need no physician, nor medicine for diseases. Enter heaven now; pass through the entrance of paradise, the flaming sword giving way; shut off your gifts from so many peoples of ours who confess the one God. But if these things are far otherwise than your implacable cruelty and rigour falsely claim, then you understand, Novatians, that God can have mercy; that medicine, even late, lies open to wretched brothers who confess the past; that the man wounded and passed by the Levite and the priest can be healed through Christ; that the church’s prayers must not be denied to the humble; that the hands of the priests must be held out to pitiable brothers. We, however, understand the church of God, as you reproach us, as a dove not bitter with gall, not violent with tearing claws, with little and small feathers too. We know also that the well of living water and the sealed fountain are not fouled by any stain from a heretical whirlpool, and that the enclosed garden is full of herbs both great and small, cheap and precious. We hold too that there were eight souls from the ark, yet among them was Ham; and those thousands of birds and beasts, by twos and by sevens, clean and unclean alike; but the dry springs and the mists driven by whirlwinds we take to be the barrenness of the heretics and the onrush of insane voices. Nor do we promise freedom, since we ourselves are slaves of punishment; but having confessed our own crimes, we urge the rest also to confess, and to believe in him who justifies the ungodly by faith, who turns back the sentence pronounced against wickedness. We also beware of false prophets and ravening wolves when we guard ourselves against you. And we think that Jannes and Mambres resisted Moses just as you resist the Catholics. Hence the Apostle puts it so: “For as Jannes and Mambres resisted Moses, so these also resist the truth: men corrupt in mind and reprobate before God; but they will not make further progress, for their folly will be plain to all, as theirs was.” It is plain that this was said against you, who have been able neither to make further progress nor to hide your folly. ### Scripture references - Matt 7:3: allusion, high confidence - Prov 20:9: quotation, high confidence - Matt 9:12: allusion, medium confidence - Gen 3:24: allusion, high confidence - Luke 10:31: allusion, high confidence - Song 4:12: allusion, high confidence - Song 4:15: allusion, high confidence - 1 Pet 3:20: allusion, high confidence - Gen 7:2: allusion, high confidence - 2 Pet 2:17: allusion, high confidence - 2 Pet 2:19: allusion, medium confidence - Rom 4:5: allusion, high confidence - Joel 2:13: allusion, medium confidence - Matt 7:15: allusion, high confidence - 2 Tim 3:8: quotation, high confidence - 2 Tim 3:9: quotation, high confidence ### Extrabiblical texts - Jan. Jam. (Jannes and Jambres): allusion, low confidence ### Translation notes - “Than your implacable cruelty and rigour falsely claim” renders a garbled text (quam implacabilis immanitas b rigor rerum, et immanitas vestra mentitur), translated by sense. - “As you reproach us”: Sympronian had evidently mocked the Catholic church as a soft dove; Pacian accepts the image. - Jannes and Mambres are the magicians of Pharaoh named in later Jewish tradition (2 Tim 3:8). ### Citation (SBL) Pacian, Ep. Symp. 3.21 (PL 13:1077c–1078b; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/pacian-epistulae/3-21). ## Three Letters to Sympronianus 3.22 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/pacian-epistulae/3-15/#p-3-22 - Source: PL 13:1078b–1079a - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-10-23 Summary: Pacian calls the heretical congregation the adulterous woman and shows that Cyprian’s On the Lapsed, cited by Sympronian, concerns those who refuse to repent. ### Latin text Qui baptizatur a mortuo, nihil proficit; utique qui haeretico fonte dilutus, sic et qui peccatoris oleo ungitur, id est, qui spiritu satiatur immundo. Ergo et filii sanguinum vos eritis. Non enim pacem fratrum, sed sanguinem concupiscitis. Fides falsa, est vestra credulitas. Adultera mulier, haeretica congregatio est: Catholica enim, ab initio, de viri sui thoro et thalamo non recessit, nec alienos amatores aut extraneos concupivit. Vos exsulem formam novo colore pinxistis; vos thorum vestrum a conjugio separastis antiquo; vos a matris unicubae corpore recessitis, novo placendi genere, novis corruptelarum illecebris expoliti. Nam quod Cyprianum beatissimum mihi pro contrario teste proponis, quia in Epistola quae de Lapsis est, Moysen et Danielem et Job orasse pro peccatoribus dicat, nec impetrasse, dicente Domino: Et si tres in medio eorum fuerint Noe, Job et Daniel, non liberabunt filios neque filias, sed ipsi soli salvi erunt. Utinam, utinam Cypriano teste nitaris, utinam tam salubribus sententiis acquiescas. Ille enim, cum lapsos ad poenitentiam cogeret qui poenitere nolebant, dicentes a confessoribus sive martyribus accepisse se pacem, docuit et ostendit, quod nec patriarchae illi pro non poenitentibus impetrarent. Etenim quis liberare possit invitum? quis pro superbis humiliari? quis pro non poenitentibus impetrare? Quod utique cum diceret, ad poenitentiae cogebat remedia. Nec contra se locutus est aliquid vir illius gravitatis et meriti, sed fundendas a peccatoribus preces docuit, et exomologesim diligendam. Ipsa tamen Cypriani exempla te permovent, quibus et Moysen et caeteros sanctos non impetrasse commemorat, qui pro peccatoribus postulabant. ### English translation (Claude) He who is baptized by a dead man gains nothing: that is, one washed in a heretical font; so too one who is anointed with the oil of a sinner, that is, who is filled with an unclean spirit. So you too will be sons of blood. For you desire not the peace of your brothers but their blood. Your credulity is a false faith. The adulterous woman is the heretical congregation; for the Catholic church from the beginning has not left the bed and chamber of her husband, nor desired other lovers or strangers. You have painted an exile’s form with a new colour; you have separated your bed from the ancient marriage; you have departed from the body of the mother who has known one bed, polished with a new kind of pleasing and new allurements of corruption. As for your setting before me the most blessed Cyprian as a witness on the other side, because in his letter On the Lapsed he says that Moses and Daniel and Job prayed for sinners and did not obtain it, since the Lord says: “Even if three were in their midst, Noah, Job, and Daniel, they will not deliver sons or daughters, but they alone will be saved”: would, would that you relied on Cyprian as witness; would that you assented to such wholesome judgments! For when he was driving to penance the lapsed who did not wish to repent, saying that they had received peace from the confessors or martyrs, he taught and showed that not even those patriarchs obtained anything for those who did not repent. For who can free a man against his will? Who can be humbled for the proud? Who can obtain anything for those who do not repent? And when he said this, he was certainly driving them to the remedies of penance. Nor did a man of such gravity and merit say anything against himself; but he taught that prayers must be poured out by sinners and confession must be loved. Yet the very examples of Cyprian move you, in which he records that Moses and the other saints who interceded for sinners did not obtain it. ### Scripture references - Ps 141:5 (140:5 Vulg.): allusion, medium confidence - Ezek 14:14: quotation, high confidence - Ezek 14:16: quotation, high confidence - Exod 32:32: allusion, medium confidence ### Extrabiblical texts - Sir 34:30 (Sirach): allusion, medium confidence - Cyprian, Laps. 19 (On the Lapsed): allusion, high confidence ### Translation notes - “He who is baptized by a dead man gains nothing” adapts Sir 34:30 (34:25 Vulgate), “one who washes after touching a dead body”; Pacian applies it to heretical baptism. - “The oil of a sinner” alludes to Ps 141:5 (140:5 Vulgate) in the Latin Psalter. - “Sons of blood” perhaps echoes Ps 5:7 or 26:9 (“men of blood”). - “Who has known one bed” renders unicubae. - The passage of Cyprian is On the Lapsed 19–20, citing Ezek 14:14. The text reads “Moses and Daniel and Job”, though the quotation that follows names Noah; compare 3.23. ### Citation (SBL) Pacian, Ep. Symp. 3.22 (PL 13:1078b–1079a; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/pacian-epistulae/3-22). ## Three Letters to Sympronianus 3.23 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/pacian-epistulae/3-15/#p-3-23 - Source: PL 13:1079a–1079b - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-10-23 Summary: Pacian answers that Moses did obtain mercy for Israel after the golden calf, since God relented at his prayer, though the people had not yet repented. ### Latin text Ain? Non vides Moysen pro quibus non impetraverit? Reversus ad populum, quid audit in castris? Voces ebriorum et cantus idolothyti personabant. Adhuc perseverabat in nequitia populus, adhuc in ipso crimine permanebat, ac poenitere non noverat. Attamen quis tibi nostrum dixit, quod Moyses non impetraverit? Dixerat quidem illi Deus; Deliquit ante me, delebo eum de libro. Dixerat tamen auctoritate judicis et Domini potestate; sed vide quam cito reflexerit sententiam, adversus populi malitiam irrogatam. Ausculta. Propheta statim, ibidem: Et precatus est, inquit, Moyses in conspectu Domini Dei sui; Quare, Domine, irasceris ita in populum tuum? et reliqua. Item infra: Et propitius factus est Dominus de malignitate quam dixerat facere populo suo. Vides lenitam esse iram Dei? Vides offensam esse placatam? Et pro populo non rogavit, a nec quod fecerat poenitenti. ### English translation (Claude) Really? Do you not see for whom Moses did not obtain it? When he returned to the people, what does he hear in the camp? The voices of drunkards and songs to an idol were resounding. The people were still persisting in wickedness, still remaining in the very crime, and did not know how to repent. And yet who of us told you that Moses did not obtain it? God had indeed said to him: “He has sinned before me; I will blot him out of the book.” He had said it with the authority of a judge and the power of the Lord; but see how quickly he turned back the sentence pronounced against the people’s wickedness. Listen. The prophet at once, in the same place: “And Moses prayed,” it says, “in the presence of the Lord his God: Why, Lord, are you so angry with your people?” and the rest. And again below: “And the Lord was appeased concerning the evil that he had said he would do to his people.” Do you see that the wrath of God was softened? Do you see that the offence was appeased? And this for a people that did not ask, nor repent of what it had done! ### Scripture references - Exod 32:17: allusion, high confidence - Exod 32:18: allusion, high confidence - Exod 32:33: quotation, high confidence - Exod 32:11: quotation, high confidence - Exod 32:14: quotation, high confidence ### Translation notes - The last sentence renders a doubtful text (Et pro populo non rogavit, a nec quod fecerat poenitenti), translated by sense as if non rogante; the a is probably Migne’s footnote mark. Taken literally the words would mean “and he did not pray for the people”, which does not fit the argument. ### Citation (SBL) Pacian, Ep. Symp. 3.23 (PL 13:1079a–1079b; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/pacian-epistulae/3-23). ## Three Letters to Sympronianus 3.24 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/pacian-epistulae/3-15/#p-3-24 - Source: PL 13:1079c–1079d - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-10-23 Summary: Pacian argues that the saints’ intercession fails only for the unrepentant, cites Noah, Job, Daniel, Lot, and Paul, and appeals to Cyprian and to Tertullian’s catholic writing on repentance. ### Latin text Sed Noe, inquis, et Daniel, et Job, filios et filias liberare non potuerunt. Et hoc tale est: si pro non rogantibus petant; si pro perseveranti in crimine deprecentur; si non singulos, si non paucos, sed millia multa defendant. Caeterum Noe domum suam a ruina publica liberavit; et Job recepit cuncta quae perdidit; et Daniel instantem illum sapientibus Babyloniae gladium oratione decussit. Lot certe pro salute oppidi, Paulus pro vectoribus navis orat. Sic absolvuntur a justis, qui poenitere noverunt. Postremo vel illud aspicio quod scriptum ait: Ipsi soli salvi erunt. Qui illi? Ipsi utique qui pro peccatoribus deprecantur, impune pro talibus postulabunt. Et cur Ecclesiam damnas? cur pro poenitentibus prohibes deprecari; si etiam pro his petere licet, quo quibus non licet impetrare? Lege igitur diligentius Cyprianum meum: lege totam de Lapsis epistolam: lege aliam quam ad Antonianum dedit; ubi exemplis omnibus Novatianus urgetur: jam scies quid de poenitentium curatione pronuntiet. Cyprianum loquor, vestra oppugnantem et catholica jura retinentem. Tertullianum post haeresim (nam multa inde sumpsistis) ipsum epistola sua, et ea ipsa quam catholicus edidit, audies confitentem, posse Ecclesiam peccata dimittere. ### English translation (Claude) “But Noah,” you say, “and Daniel and Job could not deliver sons and daughters.” And this is so: if they ask for those who do not ask; if they intercede for one who persists in crime; if they defend not individuals, not a few, but many thousands. But Noah freed his house from the common ruin; and Job received back all that he had lost; and Daniel by prayer struck down that sword which threatened the wise men of Babylon. Lot certainly prays for the safety of a town, Paul for the passengers of a ship. So those who know how to repent are set free by the righteous. Finally I look also at what it says is written: “They alone will be saved.” Who are they? Surely those who intercede for sinners will ask for such people without harm to themselves. Why then do you condemn the church? Why do you forbid intercession for penitents, if it is permitted to ask even for those for whom it is not permitted to obtain? Read my Cyprian more carefully, then: read the whole letter On the Lapsed; read the other that he sent to Antonianus, where Novatian is pressed with every example: then you will know what he declares about the healing of penitents. I speak of Cyprian, who attacks your positions and holds to the catholic laws. Tertullian, after his heresy (for you have taken much from there), you will hear confessing in his own letter, and in that very one which he published as a Catholic, that the church can forgive sins. ### Scripture references - Gen 7:1: allusion, high confidence - Job 42:10: allusion, high confidence - Dan 2:18: allusion, high confidence - Gen 19:20: allusion, high confidence - Acts 27:24: allusion, high confidence - Ezek 14:16: quotation, high confidence ### Extrabiblical texts - Cyprian, Laps. (On the Lapsed): allusion, high confidence - Cyprian, Ep. 55 (Letters): allusion, high confidence - Tertullian, Paen. (On Repentance): allusion, medium confidence ### Translation notes - The reference to Tertullian is to his On Repentance, written before he became a Montanist; “after his heresy” seems to mean “even though he later fell into heresy”. - “Paul for the passengers of a ship”: Acts 27:24. ### Citation (SBL) Pacian, Ep. Symp. 3.24 (PL 13:1079c–1079d; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/pacian-epistulae/3-24). ## Three Letters to Sympronianus 3.25 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/pacian-epistulae/3-15/#p-3-25 - Source: PL 13:1079d–1080b - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-10-23 Summary: Pacian develops the images of the queen’s many-coloured robe and the fruitful vine to describe the church’s diversity, and contrasts its multitude with the few Novatians. ### Latin text Vides ergo Ecclesiam esse reginam in veste aurata et variegata; multorum utique corporum, multorumque populorum varietate compositam. Non est coloris unius ista pictura, nec in uno habitu emicat tanta diversitas. Pars illa indumenti tegit, ista componit. Nonnulla pectori adhaeret, aliqua ultimo sinu trahitur, et inter vestigia ipsa sordescit. Quaedam, purpurae martyrum comparatur; aliqua, serico virginali; nonnulla, sinu plicante, subsuitur, aut acu inserente reparatur. Alius enim sic, alius autem sic; et tamen una, in omnibus, regina componitur. Ergo eadem fecunda vitis et locuples, plures habens ramos, multo palmitum crine distentior; nihil ne ex istis hiberno frigore laboravit? nihil asperas grandines pertulit? nihil torridas incusavit aestates? Asperior est haec gemma palmitibus, ista fortior, illa sincerior; haec se diffundit in fructus, haec in solas exuberat frondes. Vitis tamen ubique formosa. Mater haec adolescentularum, quarum non est numerus. Calculare denique si potes catholicos greges, et duc in digitos nostrae plebis examina. Nec illa modo quae toto orbe diffusa sunt cunctis plena regionibus; sed haec, frater Symproniane, quae tecum in proximis finibus et vicina urbe consistunt. Contemplare, quot nostros unus aspicias, quot meorum populis solus occurras. Nonne ut stillicidia, fontibus magnis? nonne, ut ab oceano quaedam gutta, sorberis? Dic, dic an istae adolescentulae ex vestra plebe generentur, an tu solus has parias. Nostra est, inquam, ista regina electa matri suae atque perfecta. Nihil quippe electum, nisi melius et majus ex alio; nihil perfectum potest esse, nisi plenum. ### English translation (Claude) You see then that the church is the queen in a golden and many-coloured robe; made up, surely, of the variety of many bodies and many peoples. This embroidery is not of one colour, nor does so great a diversity shine out in a single garment. One part of the dress covers, another arranges. Some clings to the breast, some trails in the last fold and is soiled among the very footsteps. One part is compared to the purple of the martyrs, another to the silk of virgins; some is stitched underneath with a folding seam, or repaired by the inserting needle. For one has this gift, another that; and yet in all one queen is adorned. So too this fruitful and rich vine, having many branches, spread out the more with a great mane of shoots: has none of them suffered from the winter cold? Has none endured harsh hail? Has none complained of scorching summers? This bud is rougher on its shoots, that one stronger, another purer; this one spreads itself into fruit, that one abounds only in leaves. Yet the vine is everywhere beautiful. She is the mother of young maidens without number. Count the catholic flocks, then, if you can, and reckon on your fingers the swarms of our people. Not only those spread through the whole world, filling every region, but these, brother Sympronian, that live with you in the nearest territories and the neighbouring city. Consider how many of ours you alone see, how many peoples of mine you alone meet. Are you not swallowed up like drops by great springs, like a drop by the ocean? Tell me, tell me whether these young maidens are born of your people, or whether you alone bear them. Ours, I say, is this queen, chosen by her mother and perfect. For nothing is chosen unless it is better and greater than another; nothing can be perfect unless it is full. ### Scripture references - Ps 45:9 (44:10 Vulg.): allusion, high confidence - 1 Cor 7:7: quotation, high confidence - Ps 128:3 (127:3 Vulg.): allusion, high confidence - Song 6:8 (6:7 Vulg.): allusion, high confidence - Song 6:9 (6:8 Vulg.): allusion, high confidence ### Translation notes - “For one has this gift, another that” renders alius enim sic, alius autem sic (1 Cor 7:7). ### Citation (SBL) Pacian, Ep. Symp. 3.25 (PL 13:1079d–1080b; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/pacian-epistulae/3-25). ## Three Letters to Sympronianus 3.26 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/pacian-epistulae/3-15/#p-3-26 - Source: PL 13:1080b–1080d - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-10-23 Summary: Pacian argues that the Catholic church, not the Novatians, has kept to the apostolic foundation, and that the great house of God keeps humble vessels as Christ keeps sinners. ### Latin text Jam et illud attendite, an haec potissimum aedificata sit: In fundamentis prophetarum et apostolorum ex ipso angulari lapide Jesu Christo. Si ante te coepit, si ante te credidit, si a fundamentis prioribus non recessit, si non illa migravit, si non a reliquo corpore separata suos sibi magistros et propria instrumenta constituit, si quid insolitum argumentata est, si quid novi juris invenit, si corpori suo repudium pacis indixit: plane tunc a Christo recessisse videatur, tunc extra prophetas et apostolos constitisse. Haec igitur erit domus magna, locuples omnium diversitate vasorum, in qua purum refulget aurum, in qua ductile lucet argentum; verum, quae etiam lignea sicut scriptum est, et fictilia vasa dignatur. Magna enim domus multos movet usus, opera diversa sollicitat. Non solum quaerit argentum, nec aureo tantum delectatur ornatu. Subinde plus decet magna, contemptas; et inter nobiles ambitus, exigua quoque jocunda sunt. Nullus artifex opera sua despicit, nec vilia sibi putat esse quae fecit. Et unde pro peccatoribus passum putas Christum, nisi quod perdere noluit quidquid ipse formavit? Unde illum putas hodieque interpellare pro miseris, nisi quod modicum, eumque et despectissimum, non repellit; neminem, ex his quos acceperit, perditurus; ligneo licet ac fictili comparentur, atque ita in domo sua omnia vasa componit? ### English translation (Claude) Now consider this too: whether she in particular has been built “on the foundations of the prophets and apostles, with Jesus Christ himself the cornerstone”: whether she began before you, whether she believed before you, whether she did not depart from the earlier foundations, did not move from them, did not separate from the rest of the body and set up her own teachers and her own documents. If she argued for something unusual, if she found some new law, if she declared a divorce from peace against her own body: then plainly she would seem to have departed from Christ, then to have stood outside the prophets and apostles. This, then, will be the great house, rich in every variety of vessels, in which pure gold shines, in which ductile silver gleams; but which also, as it is written, thinks wooden and earthenware vessels worthy. For a great house sets many uses in motion and calls for diverse works. It does not seek only silver, nor delight only in golden ornament. Often despised things suit the great better; and amid noble display even small things are pleasant. No craftsman despises his own works, nor thinks cheap what he has made. And why do you think Christ suffered for sinners, if not because he did not wish to lose whatever he himself had formed? Why do you think he intercedes even today for the wretched, if not because he does not reject what is small, even the most despised, intending to lose none of those whom he has received, though they be compared to wood and earthenware; and so he arranges all the vessels in his house? ### Scripture references - Eph 2:20: quotation, high confidence - 2 Tim 2:20: allusion, high confidence - John 6:39: allusion, medium confidence - Rom 8:34: allusion, medium confidence ### Translation notes - “Documents” renders instrumenta, perhaps the writings or rules of a sect. ### Citation (SBL) Pacian, Ep. Symp. 3.26 (PL 13:1080b–1080d; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/pacian-epistulae/3-26). ## Three Letters to Sympronianus 3.27 - URL: https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/pacian-epistulae/3-15/#p-3-27 - Source: PL 13:1080d–1082b - Translation: Claude (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-10-23 Summary: Pacian closes by urging Sympronian to join the worldwide Catholic church, citing Scripture on the multitude of God’s people, and promises a further letter. ### Latin text Tandem, frater Symproniane, non pigeat esse cum multis; tandem libeat reduvias Novatianorum, et praesegmina vestra contemnere; tandem catholicos greges et tam late patentes Ecclesiae populos intueri. Ubi unus, inquies, ibi et ego; et ubi duo, ibi Ecclesia: ubi unus tamen concors; ubi duo, pacifici. Ubi unus, et Ecclesia; quanto magis ubi plures? Meliores, inquit, duo quam unus: et spartum triplex non rumpitur. Audi David: Psallam nomini tuo in ecclesia multa. Et iterum: In populo gravi laudabo te. Et: Deus deorum locutus est, et vocavit terram ab ortu solis usque ad occasum. Quid semen Abrahae, secundum stellarum modos et numeros arenarum, vestra paupertate contentum? Benedicentur in te, inquit, omnes tribus terroe. Dic; Novatianus has impleat? Non tam parum, sanguine suo redemit Deus, nec tam pauper est Christus. Cognosce jam, frater, Ecclesiam Dei dilatantem tabernacula sua, et aulaeorum palos dextra sinistraque figentem: intellige, ab ortu solis usque ad occasum laudabile nomen Domini. Vide, vide, quaeso, Novatianis in verba luctantibus, catholicas agi toto orbe divitias. Super omnibus quibus a te sum consultus, instruxi. Nullum, ex propositis caput sententiamve praeterii. Ad ipsos apices et verba respondi. Si consulentis animo requisisti, amanter ostensum est: si lacessentis, haud segniter disputatum. Subjungam, cum vacuum erit, et aliam epistolam, in qua non vestra redarguam, sed nostra proponam: quam, si benigne et sine fastidio legeris, fortasse non laedet. Interim, in ista, peto ut singula quaeque percenseas. Omnia cito lecta praetereunt: si charismata meliora desideras, et bonae eruditionis animam geris, non facile tam vera contemnis. Dominus te in aeternum custodire et protegere dignetur, et Christianum vivere faciat ad concordiam spiritualem. Amen. ### English translation (Claude) At last, brother Sympronian, do not be reluctant to be with the many; at last be pleased to despise the hangnails of the Novatians and your own parings; at last look upon the catholic flocks and the peoples of the church spreading so widely. “Where one is,” you will say, “there am I too; and where two are, there is the church.” Yes, where one is, but in concord; where two, but peaceable. Where there is one, there is the church too; how much more where there are many? “Two,” it says, “are better than one,” and “a threefold cord is not broken.” Hear David: “I will sing to your name in the great assembly.” And again: “In a mighty people I will praise you.” And: “The God of gods has spoken and called the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting.” What of the seed of Abraham, according to the measure of the stars and the number of the sands: is it content with your poverty? “In you,” it says, “all the tribes of the earth will be blessed.” Tell me: does Novatian fill these? God has not redeemed so little with his blood, nor is Christ so poor. Recognize now, brother, the church of God enlarging her tents and fixing the stakes of her curtains to the right and to the left; understand that “from the rising of the sun to its setting the name of the Lord is to be praised.” See, see, I beg you, while the Novatians struggle over words, how the catholic riches are spread through the whole world. I have instructed you on all the points on which you consulted me. I have passed over no heading or opinion among those proposed. I have answered down to the very strokes and words. If you asked with the mind of one who consults, it has been shown you lovingly; if with the mind of one who provokes, it has been argued with no slackness. When there is leisure I shall add another letter too, in which I shall not refute your positions but set out ours; and if you read it kindly and without disdain, perhaps it will not hurt. Meanwhile, in this one, I ask you to examine each point. Everything read quickly passes by: if you desire the better gifts and have a soul of good learning, you will not easily despise things so true. May the Lord deign to keep and protect you for ever, and make you live as a Christian in spiritual concord. Amen. ### Scripture references - Matt 18:20: allusion, medium confidence - Eccl 4:9: quotation, high confidence - Eccl 4:12: quotation, high confidence - Ps 22:25 (21:26 Vulg.): allusion, medium confidence - Ps 35:18 (34:18 Vulg.): quotation, high confidence - Ps 50:1 (49:1 Vulg.): quotation, high confidence - Gen 22:17: allusion, high confidence - Gen 12:3: quotation, high confidence - Acts 20:28: allusion, medium confidence - Isa 54:2: allusion, high confidence - Ps 113:3 (112:3 Vulg.): quotation, high confidence - 1 Cor 12:31: allusion, high confidence ### Translation notes - The saying “Where one is, there am I too; and where two are, there is the church” is Sympronian’s, loosely from Matt 18:20; compare Tertullian, On Modesty 21 and On Baptism 6. - “Hangnails” (reduviae) and “parings” (praesegmina): scornful words for the small remnants of the sect. - Migne’s reference “(Ibid.)” was removed from the text. ### Citation (SBL) Pacian, Ep. Symp. 3.27 (PL 13:1080d–1082b; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/pacian-epistulae/3-27).