Acesius the Novatian Summoned to the Council

It is said that the emperor, moved by an eager desire to see harmony restored among Christians, summoned Acesius, bishop of the church of the Novatians, to the council. He set before him the definition of the faith and of the feast, which had already been confirmed by the signatures of the bishops, and asked whether he could agree to it. Acesius answered that their statement laid down no new doctrine, that he was of the same opinion as the synod, and that from the beginning he had held these views about both the faith and the feast. Then the emperor said: “Why, then, do you keep yourself apart from communion with the others, if you are of one mind with them?” [a]

Acesius replied that the split had first broken out under Decius, between Novatian and Cornelius. He considered unworthy of communion those who, after baptism, had fallen into the sins that the Scriptures call sins leading to death; for the forgiveness of those sins, he thought, rested on the authority of God alone, and not on the priests. The emperor answered him: “Acesius, take a ladder and climb up to heaven alone.” I do not imagine the emperor meant by these words to praise Acesius, but rather to blame him, because, though he was only a man, he imagined himself free from sin.