Letter 3012: For the firmness of a divine promise, let what you first granted stand as your "Yes, yes!

Bishop Avitus to Bishop Viventiolus. For the firmness of a divine promise, let what you earlier granted be your "Yes, yes!" and what you afterward repeated be your "No, no!" [Matthew 5:37]. For if the character of our present occupation is rightly weighed, the agreement made between us—even if it ought not to have been inserted then—would now in particular be fitting to be fulfilled. Bishop Avitus to Bishop Constantius. I received Your Holiness's letter at Easter indeed, but it was not a paschal one, displaying nothing at all of charity or solicitude. You were ordering that our brother and fellow priest Candidianus, whom I had commended as though he were my own special charge, I should send not only to the hearing of the clergy but also to the hearing of the laity—the very people by whom, it is established, his deacon was handed over to servile custody for a civil cause. And therefore, if you judge that everything concerning your clergy is to be believed on the testimony of laymen, write back. It will follow that we should then seek the cognizance of secular persons in all matters that come into rumor. This, however, as one who loves you, I take it upon myself to suggest and to admonish: that not even laymen—I will not say clergy—should be deprived of holy communion on account of trifling causes that pertain not to God but to the world; for he knows not of what dignity that communion itself is, who does not suspend it only with all animosity laid aside and with great grief, and restore it with the greatest haste. Bishop Apollinaris to Bishop Avitus. Reflecting and pondering with what retribution I might strike your discourtesy, I judged nothing more worthy than that I should pursue the injury averted no less indolently. By no means, therefore, should you fear for the future, you who see the present offense at once expiated.

Avitus episcopus Viventiolo episcopo. Ad firmitatem promissionis divinae sit, quod antea concessistis Est est! quod postea repetistis Non non! quia, si bene occupatione praesentium qualitas pertracta- tur, condicionem inter nos habitam, etiam si tunc non debuisset interseri, modo spe- cialiter deceret impleri. Avitus episcopus. Constantio episcopo. Litteras sanctitatis tuae in pascha quidem, sed non paschales accepi, nihil utique de caritate aut sollicitudine praeferentes: Iubebas, ut fratrem et consacerdotem nostrum Candidianum, quem ego quasi peculiarem commendaveram, non solum ad clericorum, verum etiam ad laicorum audientiam destinarem, a quibus constat diaconum eius pro civili causa servili custodiae mancipatum. Et ideo, si censetis omnia de clericis vestris laicorum testimonio credenda, rescribite. Consequens erit, ut tum saecularium noti- tiam ex omnibus, quae in rumorem veniunt, consulamus. Illud tamen quasi amator tuus suggerere ac monere praesumo, ne propter leves causas et non ad deum, sed ad sae- culum pertinentes ne laici quidem, non dicam clerici, sancta communione priventur, quia nescit, cuius dignitatis ipsa communio sit, qui non eam omni animositate seposita et cum magno dolore suspendit et cum maxima festinatione restituit. Apollinaris episcopus Avito episcopo. Cogitans atque pertractans, inofficiositatem vestram qua ultione percellerem, nil dignius iudicavi, quam si declinatam iniuriam nihil segnius intentarem. Nequaquam igitur in posterum vereamini, qui cernitis praesentem noxam protinus expiari.