BISHOP AGAPITUS TO THE AUGUSTUS JUSTINIAN

 

1. Although from the firstlings of my priesthood I am obliged by the gifts of the divine love to give thanks over and over again, having received, o venerable emperor, by our son, the venerable presbyter Heraclius, the words of Your Serenity which you have sent to us full of the fruits of aeternal richness, the joy of my prayers in the Lord has doubled because having united the advancements of Your Felicity, you have subjected the earthly kingdoms with such intent of the glorious mind that you simalarly conquer the celestial ones.

 

 

6. You also urged us with the same benevolent zeal on the case of regaining those whose Arian perfidy you indicated that you wanted to avoid. You think that the severity of the paternal tradition may decline, that is, that they can remain in the same honours they had had among the heretics, and even be promoted to other ones. It is good and most praiseworthy that you desire to gather all the people in the sheepfold of the Lord through true faith. But it is not allowed to us to make exceptions for those who try to enter unrighteously because we are admonished by the blessed Paul to "give no offence in anything, that the ministry be not blamed" [2 Cor 6:3]. 7. Lest it escape the notice of your Piety how great an offense to the constitutions of the fathers it is when such people, God forbid, are admitted [to the holy orders], we found it necessary to add also those rules which in particular provide that such reconciled person should never be promoted to the ecclesiastical order or desire further honours next to those which he has already, no doubt unjustly, acquired. From this, your Piety can decide more easily whether it is allowed in any circumstances to break such an open and synodal decision of the Apostolic See, [especially] that the Apostle's words shout: "But if I build up again the very things that I once tore down, then I demonstrate that I am a transgressor." [Gal 2:18]. And therefore with support of the words of the Apostle himself, I profess that I trust in you and the Lord that you are of the same opinion. And indeed, as the same teacher asserted, I am certain that you are so full of goodness and all knowledge that you could, in turn, instruct others. 8. If those whom you mentioned hasten to come to the right faith, they should not decline to obey the rules of our faith because the Lord said: "if someone wants to come after me, he should deny himself and follow me" (Luke 9:23). Because, if they are stirred by the reprehensible ambition of honour and they are afraid to suffer the loss of human glory for the gain of the holy faith, they do not show themselves to renounce faults and errors but rather to wish to implicate us in their excesses. The Apostle said about such people: "They make much of you, but for no good purpose; they want to exclude you, so that you may make much of them" (Gal 4:17). 9. Although this is the case, you believe in your holy zeal to strengthen the Catholic church that there is nothing dangerous in admitting such people to the clergy because the Apostle advises: "What if some were unfaithful? Will their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? By no means!" But although in the similar charitable zeal to multiply the faithful the very blessed Peter, the doorkeeper of the heavenly kingdom, because he wanted to acquire many Jews, deviated from the doctrine and departed from the regular course in not rejecting all Judaism. But his junior, Paul, bound by the Lord, opposed him saying: "But when I saw that they were not acting consistently with the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter before them all, If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?" (Gal 2:14)

(trans. M. Szada)