Letter 21: When Your Clemency's envoys returned some time ago, I replied to your letters and instructions — not covering...

Hormisdas to Anastasius Augustus, by the hands of the bishops Ennodius and Peregrinus. Some time ago, when the legates of Your Clemency were returning, I replied to your letter and instructions, not indeed treating everything fully, as the magnitude of the matter demanded, but nevertheless touching on certain points as the occasion allowed. But even if it had fallen to me to set forth everything sufficiently, surely, in pleading the cause of the faith before Your Clemency, could I be charged with importunity for my repeated entreaties? Let those fear the mark of this ingratitude whose concern it is to devote their zeal to worldly affairs! He does not fulfill the work of the Gospel who thinks that one may, without sin, leave off from preaching it. The watchfulness of shepherds must be unsleeping, and their loins girded without slackening. As good admonition is known to have a sweet fruit, so it is not fitting that it be met with disdain. And besides, why should anyone say that the frequency of my petition is troublesome to Your Clemency, when through those things that are done by my office, through the remedies of the faith, provision is made for your empire? For the care that burdens me relieves you; it lies upon me, but it will profit you; though the seed be diverse, the fruit of both is one. For just as it is a punishment neither to speak nor to do the things acceptable to God, so there is a sure reward both for him who has preached spiritual things and for him who has not spurned what he has heard. Your Clemency has indeed given, as it were a pledge of its purpose under the testimony of an imperial address, and has bound itself as though by a certain surety of good will; but it remains to add firmness to what has been begun. Let the foundations once laid take on their full beauty; let not the hands be relaxed that fight for the churches of God: the enemy of Israel fell as often as Moses did not lower his arms. The work accomplished, the end commends its beginnings; it profits not to have begun if one deserts, for perseverance alone gives the salvation of the faith. We bless God, by whose zeal your piety professes that it wishes to hate and persecute the impious transgressors Nestorius and Eutyches together with their wicked and sacrilegious doctrines. He proves that he hates the vices who condemns those that err, and he leaves himself no room for going astray who has not spared the transgressor. The first step of innocence is to hate the things that deserve blame; but it concerns the truth, lord son, and catholic discipline, that you should hate also the followers and partakers of those whose execrable leaders you condemn. Not in the condemned alone, that is, certain definite names, but in those also who follow the condemned, are the crimes to be persecuted. In vain does a man assert that he turns away from the many, if he has made an exception of one of those who are judged worthy of detestation; for it is not the number of erring men but the gravity of the errors that is considered. This I say for this reason, that Your Clemency may not lightly suppose that the person of Acacius is to be passed over. Is that not the same Acacius who, while he was joined to it, was plunged into the filth of the doctrine and communion of Peter Dioscorus and of Eutyches, men polluted, bearing in his condemnation the punishment of him whose fellowship he chose in communion? He who individually hates each of these men for their impieties must in them hate Acacius, and in Acacius will not love them all. From him the leaven of wicked error grew strong throughout the Eastern churches; thence the pride of Alexandrian perfidy was nourished to such a degree that it does not acquiesce, as you have written, in the salutary commands of him whose authority it serves, and in turning away from error does not follow the admonition of him whose power it finds useful for the conduct of its affairs. Wherefore men of this kind ought to be shunned with the greater detestation, because the things they ought to have taught they receive instructed by others, scorning in these matters the warnings of their ruler, in which they are bidden only not to fear his command, and, forgetful of devotion against the salvation of their soul, they who ought for the sake of salvation to have been defiant. These men, with their ruined minds, the communion of Acacius, joined with the perfidious, has emboldened and nourished, and therefore he must be reckoned in the place of an author, by whose example the graver sin is committed. For nothing fosters vices more than imitation, when those things are believed not to be condemned to which others too are seen to come. Frail and falling is our mortality; scarcely do wicked thoughts perish even while they are suppressed. Often the harmful seed lies under terror yet does not die away; he opens a wide entrance to offenders who joins his consent to depravity. Would that, most clement emperor, in the very beginnings of apostolic severity the Eastern churches had avoided the wicked contagion of Acacius! Not through many had that error spread its baleful poison; the necks of Alexandria itself, now perhaps raised up, would then have fallen, while it recognized its own stricken perfidy in the condemnation of its imitator and saw itself displease in its accomplices. But while errors ill-nourished are fostered, and the consent of the depraved, which ought to be corrected, is dissembled by a useless fairness, through the impunity of the followers it multiplied the evil doctrines of their authors. And you indeed, if you effectively command the things pleasing to God, fulfill both your own purpose and the one concerning another's error; but it must be considered, most clement emperor, whether it suffices before God for him to have blamed errors to whom he has given the power to correct them. The cure must not be deferred; let the physician's hands be applied to the deep wounds! Before Acacius, Alexandria alone was foul with the loathsomeness of its own perfidy: behold how many parts the neglected correction has now polluted! How long will you suffer, lord son, the church of God to mourn the division of its members? Let your benefits anticipate the sighs that would reach to God: take up the care of the faith, and raising the banner of salvation to remove the errors from Israel, rise up like a second Hezekiah. It is permitted you to equal, by the renown of new works, the titles of the ancients: he destroyed the high places, do you bow down the pride of upraised impiety; he ground the images to pieces, do you break the hard hearts of the unbelievers; he the memory of the bronze serpent, do you pour out the venom of the present one. Offer to God the right things which he has done, and hope for the gifts which he has merited. For the Lord is faithful, who renders to each according to their works. It is in the open how great is the expectation of the faithful, how great the trembling of the perfidious: the one party long to rejoice with the angels over those received back; the others fear lest, abandoned by those whom they had deceived, they remain to the punishments prepared. The anxious hearts of all are in suspense. From the furthest Gauls a legation directed to us, following the report, inquired whether our solicitude had advanced anything toward the restoration of unity. Nor is the work difficult for Your Clemency: God knows how to come to the aid of the labors of his own. It is according to use that subjects turn their hearts toward their princes. By way of example, the recent instance of Marcian, an emperor of religious memory, gives the greatest sign. What did the crowd or the people do then? There is no need to recall the well-known matter: this perfidy grew up through wayward men, was lulled to sleep through the just; imitate, in the integrity of your purpose, the religious man whom you have equaled in zeal for civil order. For the pleading of these things, with our tears and our prayers, we have directed in our stead our brothers and fellow bishops Ennodius and Peregrinus, also to render an honorable salutation, the burden of a second legation having been laid especially upon the man already designated, so that he who brought us the beginning of good hope may now, with God as helper, bring back its full accomplishment. Acquiesce, we beseech you, in the faithful warnings of him by whose institutions we have read that you were long delighted. Given on the third day before the Nones of April, in the consulship of Agapitus.

HOIUnSDA ANASTASIO AUGUSTO. PER ENNODIUM ET PEREGRINUM EPiscopos. Dudum legatis mansuetudinis uestrae remeantibus ad litteras uestras et mandata respondi, non quidem uniuersa plene, sicut magnitudo rei postulabat, expediens sed tamen pro tempore certa praestringens. uerum etsi sufficienter alle- gare me omnia contigisset. numquid agens apud clcmentiam uestram causam fidei poteram repetitis precibus importunitatis 2inces8i? timeant notam huius ingratitudinis, quibus cura est studium negotiis nauare mundanis ! opus non implet euangelii, qui a praedicatione eius uenialiter putat posse cessari. per- uigilem pastorum oportet esse custodiam et lumbos sine relaxatione praecinctos. bonae admonitionis sicut constat Sdulcem fructura, ita eius non decet esse fastidium. et alias, 11 loh. 14, 27 Epist. CXXV 12 — CXXVI 7. 541 cur postulationis meae molestam mansuetudini uestrae quis- quam dicat esse frequentiam, cum per ea, quae fiunt ex officio raeo, per remedia fidei uestro consulatur imperio? etenim quae me onerat cura, uos releuat; mihi incumbit, sed uobis pro- sficiet; licet ex diuerso semine unus fructus amborum est. nam sicnt poena est nec dicere deo accepta nec facere, ita certa remuneratio uel illi, qui spiritalia praedicauerit, uel illi, qui audita non spreuerit. dedit quidem clementia uestra 4 uelut obsidem propositi sui sub testimonio imperialis alloquii 10 et se quasi pignore quodam bonae uoluntatis adstrinxit, sed opus est coeptis <a>dicere firmitatem. sumant plenum decorem iacta fundamina, non remittantur propugnantes pro dei ecclesiis manus: totiens Israheliticus hostis intercidit, quotiens Moyses brachia non remisit. eifectus opera, finis commendat initia; 15 non prodest coepisse deserentem, quia sola perseuerantia fidei dat salutem. benedicimus deum, cuius zelo pietas uestra 5 transgressores impios Nestorium et Eutychen se uelle odisso persequique cum nefandis et sacrilegis dogmatibus profitetur probat odisse se uitia, qui condemnat errantes, nec relinquit M sibi locum deuiandi, qui non pepercerit excedenti. primus 6 innocentiae gradus est odisse culpanda, sed ueritatis interest, domine fili, et catholicae disciplinae, ut sectatores etiam eorum atque participes oderitis, quorum exsecrandos principes iudicatis. non in damnandis sola id est certa nomina, sed in 25 his etiam, qui damnatos sequuntur, sunt crimina persequenda. fnistra auersari se plures asserit, qui unum de his, qui dete- statione digni iudicantur, exceperit; non enim numerus erran- tium hominum sed meritum consideratur errorum. hoc ideo, 7 13 cf. Exod. 17, 11 15 cf. Matth. 10, 22 542 Hormisda Anastasio Augusto ne facile putet uestra cleraentia Acacii praetereundam esse personam. nonne ille est Acacius, qui caeno Petri Dioscori et Eutychetis dogmate et communione poUuti, dum copulatur, inmersus est, illius sustinens in condemnatione supplicium, cuius elegit in communione consortium? qui uiritim propter impietates suas horum singulos odit, et in illis Acacium Snecesse est oderit et omnes in Acacio non amabit. ab illo per Orientales ecclesias fermentum nefandi erroris inoleuit; inde Alexandrinae perfidiae eo usque nutrita superbia, ut non acquiescat, sicut scripsistis, eius mandatis salutaribus, cuius famulatur imperiis, et in erfore declinando non sequatur ad- monitionem, cuius in aigendis rebus experitur sibi utilem 9potestatem. unde et maiore huiusmodi homines conuenit de- testatione uitari, quia, quae docere debuerunt, nec^^um ab aliis instruuntur adsumunt, spementes in his imperantis monita, in quibus tantum non timeri iubentur imperia, et immemores deuotionis contra salutem animae, quos contumaces esse opor- lOtuit pro salute. hos mentibus perditis ansus nutriuit Acacii cum perfidis iuncta communio atque ideo aestimandus est auctoris loco, cuius grauius peccatur exemplo. nihil enim uitia magis quam imitatio fouet, dum creduntur non impro- banda esse, ad quae alii quoque uidentur accedere. fragilis est et caduca mortalitas; uix nefariae cogitationes dum com- primuntur intereunt. iacet saepe semen noxium sub terrore nec deficit; latum pandit delinquentibus aditum, qui iungit 11 cum prauitate consensum. utinam, clementissime imperator, inter ipsa apostolicae districtionis initia Orientales ecclesiae Acacii contagia nefanda uitassent! nou per multos error ille 16 cf. Matth. 10, 28 i amarit Bar, 8 nefudi V, corr. 9 perfidei F, corr. o 13 pote- state F, corr. o 22 ad quae o^: atque V fragili F, corr. o 24 ter- rore F uix recte: errorc Bar., torpore Hartel 26 prouitate F, corr. Thxel: improbitate o^ consensu F, corr. o clemeatissime scripsi: imperatissime F, inuictissime Car. EpUt. CXXVI 8—14. 543 DOiia ueDena diffuderat; ipsa quoque erecta nunc fortassis Aleiandriae tunc coUa cecidissent, dum perculsam perfidiam suam in damnatione imitatoris agnosceret et displicere in con- plicibus se uideret. sed dum male nutriti fouentur errores et b prauorum consensus inutili aequitate corrigendus dissimulatur, per impunitatem sequacium mala dogmata multiplicauit auc- tornm. et uos quidem, si placita deo efficaciter imperetis, 12 commendatis uestrum et de alieno erro<re> propositum; sed cogitandum est, clementissime imperator, si ei apud deum 10 sufQciat errata culpasse, cui dedit posse corrigere. non est differenda curatio ; aramoueantur medicae profundis uulneribus manus! sola ante Acacium Alexandria perfidiae suae foeditate sordebat: respicite, quantas iam partes emendatio neglecta polluerit! quousque patieris, domine fili, ecclesiam dei diui-13 ^ sionem suorum maerere membrorum ? anticipent beneficia tua ad deum peruentura suspiria: adsume fidei curam et uexillum salutis attollens ad errores ab Israhele remouendos uelut Ezechias alter exsurge. fas tibi laude nouorum operum titulos aequare priscorum : ille dissipauit excelsa, tu superbiam erectae ^impietatis inclina; ille simulacra contriuit, tu dura infidelium corda confringe; ille memoriam serpentis aerei, tu uirus prae- sentis effunde. offer deo recta, quae fecit, et spera dona, quae meruit. fidelis est enim dominus, qui reddit singulis secundum opera eorum. in aperto est, quanta sit expectatio fidelium, 14- qaanta trepidatio perfidorum : illi ambiunt gaudere cum angelis de receptis ; isti metuunt, ne ab his, quos deceperant, destituti . 19 sq. cf. Regn. IV 18, 4 23 cf. Matth. 16, 27 XXXV pftrs 2, 35 544 Horniisda Anastasio, Hormisda Timotheo Constantinop. poenis remaneant praeparatis. pendent anxia corda cunctorum. ab ultimis ad nos Galliis directa legatio, si quid de unitatis redintegratione sollicitudo nostra promouisset, famam secuta 15consuluit. nec difficile opus clementiae tuae: scit deus suorum laboribus subuenire. ex usu est ad principes suos conuertere s corda subiectos. dat specie maximum signum recens religiosae memoriae Marciani imperatoris exemplum. quid egit tunc uulgus aut populus? non opus nota reuoluere: adulta est perfidia ista per deuios, sopita per iustos; imitare religiosi 16integritate propositi, quem studio ciuilitatis aequasti. ad lo haec nostris lacrimis, nostris precibus alleganda Ennodium atque Peregrinum fratres et coepiscopos nostros uice nostra pro exhibenda etiam honorifica salutatione direximus, ideo maxime designato uiro fasce secundae legationis imposito, ut qui nobis spei bonae detulit initium, nunc adiutore deo plenum 13 reportet effectura. acquiescite, precamur, fidelibus monitis, cuius uos delectatos dudum legimus institutis. Data III. Non. April. Agapito cons.