Letter 10: concerning the church ANTIOCHENA.

Bishop Simplicius to Zeno Augustus. Concerning the Church of Antioch. With joy we received the ever-venerable letters of your piety, in which, by the zeal for the catholic religion innate in you, we found that, after the defense of the faith which keeps you preserved, the audacity of impiety and the crimes perpetrated at Antioch have been restrained; and we exult that there dwells in you the spirit of a most faithful priest and prince, so that the imperial authority, joined to Christian devotion, might become more acceptable to God, and its integrity might appear, when those who took part in the sacrilegious slaughter, in the murder of bishops, are ordered to perish by fitting punishments. In this you will provide both for the peace of the Church and for your empire, since when an insult to God is avenged it is a grace of the avenger, and the help of divine favor is secured for those whose care has not left a sacrilege unpunished. But that I may speak with confidence to a Christian prince: if the sequence of my earlier letters had been kept, which I remember I wrote some time ago to my brother and fellow-bishop Acacius concerning the name of Peter and others, it could not have come to this, which now has rightly deserved to be punished. For I had given instructions that, a representation having been made to your piety, the aforesaid man, and the others also who under the occasion of the tyrannical domination had invaded the churches of God, should be driven beyond the bounds of your empire, lest with a sacrilegious mouth he should pour the poison of his pestilential thinking into certain simpler folk, and with impious words wound the more innocent souls against the orthodox faith. But, as far as appears, since these matters are less attended to and are believed to be of little weight, it has come about that, as you report, no longer among the altars the common people through their persuasions, but the very prelates and preachers of the faith, the priests, perished by deadly swords. Wherefore, if any remnants of such men are found under your empire, order that even now they be driven out into outlying lands, lest henceforth there be any necessity and cause for their punishment in respect of them; because it is better to have barred the entrance than to have exacted the penalty of sin. And since you judged that the seditions of Antioch were to be quieted, with most religious purpose, in no other way than that, setting aside the prejudice of that venerable council of Nicaea, a bishop should be ordained at Constantinople at the request of those same men, which you have recalled to have been undertaken in his person only, so that henceforth, according to the definitions of the Fathers, the creation of the pontiff of Antioch should be reserved to the Eastern synod; and since you do not wish that to be reckoned as an injury which was done for the sake of removing dissension; the blessed apostle Peter holds this pledge of your piety, and that the mind of the most Christian and most faithful prince has sworn in these words: that hereafter, the ancient custom being preserved, in the city of Antioch a bishop shall be ordained by his fellow-provincials, lest what now, at your command, my brother and fellow-bishop Acacius has carried out should come into the practice of posterity and confound the statutes of the Fathers, which above all you maintain inviolate. Therefore, what has been ordained by you in holy and religious fashion out of love of peace we cannot reject, lest the status of the Church of Antioch should seem ambiguous under our doubt, especially since he who is read to have been ordained is supported by the testimony of your clemency with so great a commendation, that in him both the grief of past wounds may be suppressed and the church which obtained him may glory. These things, in return, I have taken care to answer in the discharge of speech and reverence, that you may order such great frauds and crimes of the heretics, to be prosecuted by divine and secular laws, which you have very often proved to be so harmful, to be removed from the memory and intercourse of men, whose impiety, as far as you see, can be checked by no authority. Given on the tenth day before the Kalends of July, after the consulship of Illus, most distinguished man.

SIMPLICIUS EPISCOPUS ZENONI AUGUSTO. DE ECCLESIA ANTIO- CHENA. Uenerandos mihi semper uestrae pietatis apices gauisus accepi, quibus ingenito uobis studio catholicae reli- gionis post defensionem fidei, quae uos seruata custodit, im- pietatis audaciam et facinora apud Antiochiam perpetrata cohercita reperimus, exultantes uobis inesse animum fidelis- simi sacerdotis et principis, ut imperialis auctoritas iuncta Christianae deuotioni aeceptabilior deo fieret et appareret integritas, cum hi, qui in episcoporum nece sacrilega caede uersati sunt, dignis iubentur perire suppliciis. in quo et quieti ecclesiasticae et uestro consuletis imperio, quia uindicata dei contumelia ulciscentis est gratia et conciliatur his diuini fauoris auxilium, quorum cura sacrilegium non reliquerit im- punitum. — sed ut loquar fiducialiter principi Christiano, 81 praeteritarum litterarum, quas de Petri aliorumque nomine iamdudum ad fratrem et coepiscopum meum Acacium scerip- sisse me memini, ordo teneretur, ad hoc non potuit perueniri, quod iure nune meruit uindicari. mandaueram namque, ut 10* 148 Simplicii papae epistulae facta suggestione pietati uestrae praedictus, ut et ceteri qui per occasionem tyrannicae dominationis inuaserant ecclesias dei, extra metas uestri pelleretur imperii, ne pestiferi sensus quibusquam simplicioribus ore sacrilego uirus infunderet et uerbis impiis contra fidem orthodoxam innocentiores animas sauciaret. , sed, quantum apparet, cum minus ista curantur et leuia esse creduntur, actum est, ut, quemadmodum per- hibetis, inter altaria non iam plebs persuasionibus eorum, sed ipsi quoque praesules et praedicatores fidei perirent funestis gladiis sacerdotes. unde si quae talium reliquiae sub uestro reperiuntur imperio, eas uel nunc in exteriores terras iubete propellh, ne qua deinceps in eos sit necessitas et causa sub- pliciij quia melius est aditum obstruxisse quam poenam exegisse peccati. οὗ quoniam seditiones Ántiochenas religio- sissimo proposito sedandas non aliter aestimastis, nisi praeter praeiudicium uenerandi illius concilii Nicaeni apud Constanti- nopolim isdem petentibus ordinaretur antistes, quod in eius tantummodo persona sic memorastis adsumptum, ut deinceps secundum definitiones patrum Orientali synodo creatio An- tiocheni pontificis reseruetur, nec haberi loco uultis iniuriae, quod dissensionis gratia factum est auferendae, tenet hane pietatis uestrae beatus Petrus apostolus sponsionem et Christia. nissimi fidelissimique principis mentem in haec uerba iurasse, 1 factam suggestionem pietatis B ut om. B Z2inserant B 8 ex- trenetas B pelleretur V: pulsarentur B, pellerentur cod, Amgelic, pestiferi ez pestifera corr. V — 4 symplicioribus V uisus B infun- deret scripsi: infunderent VB 6 sauciarent B sed om. V | "* cre- duntur V: reddantur B quemammodum B 8 tam Bar. pleps V, plenbs B peruasionibus Bar. 9 ipso B fidei om. B funetis B 10 qua et alium VB, correzi ^ uestro ex uestrorum corr. V — 11 rep- periuntur VB exterioores Β 19 qua om. B 18 penà V 14 enxi- gisse B peccati ex peccata corr. V atyochenas V religisimo V, religiosissime B 15 estimasti (sc!) sedandas trsp. B — 16 uenerabilius concilii neceni B 17 hisdem VB antstes B 18 tantummodum personam B 20 reserbetur V: reseruaretur B 21 dissensiones B factu V — 22 ypianisimi V, wltima i ez e corr. 428 fidelissimi quae B mente V, corr. man. 2 ' Epist. LXVI 3 — LXVII 1. 149 quod posthae in Antioehena urbe uetere more seruato a con- prouineialibus suis episcopus ordinetur, ne quod nune frater et coepiscopus meus Acacius uobis est iubentibus executus, in usum posteritatis ueniat et statuta patrum, quae praecipue praestatis inlaesa, confundat. unde, quae a uobis amore quietis sancte et religiose sunt ordinata, reprobare non pos- sumus, ne status Antiochenae eeclesiae sub nostra dubitatione uideatur ambiguus, praecipue cum is, qui legitur ordinatus, testimonio clementiae uestrae tanta sit praedicatione subnixus, ut in eo et praeteritorum uulnerum dolor possit opprimi et eeclesia, quae illum meruit, gloriari. haec repensi sermonis et uenerationis officio respondere curaui, ut tantas haereticorum fraudes et facinora diuinis et saecularibus legibus persequenda, quae saepius probastis esse tam noxia, de memoria et con- uersatione hominum iubeatis auferri, quorum impietas nulla. quantum uidetis, potest auctoritate compesci, Dat. X. Καὶ, Tul. post consulatum Illi u. c.