Letter 23: Simplicius urges Zeno to expel Peter Mongus from the city of Alexandria.

Letter of Pope Simplicius to the Emperor Zeno. [Heading:] That Zeno should bring it about that Peter the Fuller be banished from the city of Alexandria. Bishop Simplicius to Zeno Augustus. Recently indeed, when our brother and fellow bishop Timothy, primate of the city of Alexandria, had sent to the City [Constantinople] according to the renewed custom of the lowliness of my office, I learned of the victory of your faith in his restoration. For, supported by your piety with the help of the Divinity, both the tranquillity of the empire and the integrity of the catholic religion returned in its own splendor, now that the cloud of scandal had been dispersed. Of this I remember that I gave thanks, after God, to your clemency, and now too I have not been able to keep silent about the homage owed to your reign, lest in some way I should seem ungrateful if I were to cease praising before you, at every opportunity, so many triumphs whether of the empire or of the churches. Therefore, rendering the duty of due veneration, I pray that you may bestow the help of your protection more zealously upon all priests of the right faith, and most of all upon the bishop of Alexandria, of whose struggle you were both witnesses and judges, and that you may decree by most pious constitutions that Peter [the Fuller], the usurper of that very see, for whom not even in the diaconate could his own rank [...] [the text indicates: be established], be banished farther away from so distinguished a city, lest by chance he seduce any of those weaker in faith, and lest in that same church—which God forbid—he stir up again the scandals which you have lulled to rest. You have proven in your own person that He has given the protection of His right hand to him who, to the joy of the whole world and to the exultation of the universal Church, preserves the Roman empire in your clemency. Given on the sixteenth day before the Calends of November, in the consulship of that most distinguished man.

Simplicii papac ad Zeuoncm impcratorcm. 'nVxf Ul Petmm lonyhts tib Alexandrina civitate rclegari Zeno flccertiat. Simplicius episcopus Zenoni Augusto. Proxime quidem quiun ad urbem frater et coepiscopus medio- critatis meae Timotheus Alexandrinae ur))is autistes novato more misisset, viotoriam vestrae fidei in ejus restitutione cognovi. FMetate enim vestra fulta Divinitatis auxilio, et imperii tranquillitas et ca- tholit^^ae religionis splendorem suum, scaiuhdonuu nube discussa, revertit*) integritas. De quo nie gratias j)ost Deum clemeutiae vestrae egisse reminiscor, et nunc quoque cultum vestro reguo debitiun sUere non potui, ne quodammodo viderer ingratus, si vobis quahbet opportunitate vel imperii vel ecclesiarum hiudare desistereui tot triumphos. Exhibens ergo dcbitae venerationis officiuui precor, ut studii^sius circa universos rectae fidei sacerdotes et nuixime circa , Alexaudrinum episcopum, cujus certamiuis et testes fuistis et judices, protectionis impendatis auxilium, et decernatis j)iissiniis coustitutis, Petnim sedis ipsius pervasorem, cui nec in diacouatu suus j)otuit Evagijus H. £. III, 9 memorat. •j Hoc nomine non Petrum Mongum, qui Alexandrimim ecclesiam occui^arat, rcd Petrum Futlonem, qiii in Antioclienam invaserat, deuigniiri planum est ex Eva^io H. £. III, 5. c*) Ita G'; vulg. poatulantes^ o? postulantis. a. 478. ordo^) constere, longius a tam praeclara civitate relegari^ ne infir- mipris^) fidei aliquos forte seducat, et in eadem ecclesia^ quod abeit, quae sopistis scandala rursus exagitet, Probastis in corpore illiini vobis dexterae suae dedisse praesidium, qui ad totius orbis gaudium et iii Ecclesiae uniyersalis exsultationem iii vestra clementia Roma- num servat imperium. Data^) XVI Calendas Novembris Illo viro clarissimo consule.