Carthage, Canon 138: The Council’s Letter to Pope Celestine

Canon 138. Here begins the letter of the African synod to Pope Celestine, bishop of the City of Rome. [a] To our lord and most beloved and honored brother Celestine, from Aurelius, Palatinus, Antony, Totus, Servusdei, Terentius, Fortunatus, Martin, Januarius, Optatus, Ceticius, Donatus, Theasius, Vincent, Fortunatian and the rest of us gathered at Carthage in the General Council of Africa. [b]

In the letter you sent by our fellow presbyter Leo, your holiness told us of your pleasure at the arrival of Apiarius. We could wish that we too could send you this letter with pleasure at his being cleared. Then truly both our own satisfaction and yours of late would have better reason; and what you lately expressed about his hearing, both the one then still to come and the one already past, would not seem hasty and ill-considered. When our holy brother and fellow bishop Faustinus arrived, then, we assembled a council. We believed that he had been sent with that man so that, as Apiarius had earlier been restored to the presbyterate with his help, so now, by his efforts, he might be cleared of the very great crimes charged against him by the people of Tabraca. But the proper course of examination in our council uncovered in him crimes so great and so monstrous that they overbore even Faustinus, who acted as an advocate of the man rather than as a judge, and they prevailed against what was more the zeal of a defender than the justice of an inquirer. For first, Faustinus vehemently opposed the whole assembly and did us many injuries, on the pretext of asserting the privileges of the Roman church. He wanted Apiarius to be received into communion by us, on the ground that your holiness had restored him to communion, believing that he had appealed, though he was unable to prove it. But this we by no means allowed, as you will see better by reading the proceedings. After a most laborious inquiry, however, carried on for three days, during which we examined the various charges against him in the greatest distress, God, the just Judge, strong and patient, cut short with a sudden stroke both the delays of our fellow bishop Faustinus and the evasions of Apiarius himself, by which he was trying to veil his foul and enormous crimes. For his strong and shameless obstinacy was overcome, by which he had tried to cover the mire of his lusts with an impudent denial. God so worked upon his conscience, and so published even to the eyes of men the secret crimes that he was already condemning in that man’s heart, a very pigsty of wickedness, that after his false denial he suddenly burst out in a confession of all the crimes he was charged with. In the end he convicted himself of his own accord of infamous deeds beyond belief, and turned to groans even the hope we had held, for we believed and desired that he might be cleared of such shameful stains. Only this much relieved our sorrow: he had spared us the labor of a longer inquiry, and by confessing had applied some sort of remedy to his own wounds, though, lord and brother, it was done unwillingly and with a struggling conscience. [c]

Having first paid you the regards that are your due, then, we earnestly beg you that in the future you do not readily admit to a hearing those who come from here, and that you do not choose to receive into your communion those who have been excommunicated by us. For you, venerable sir, will readily see that this has been laid down even by the Nicene council. Though there it seems to be forbidden in the case of the lower clergy or the laity, how much more did the council intend this to be observed in the case of bishops, so that those who had been suspended from communion in their own province might not seem to be restored to communion by your holiness hastily or improperly. Let your holiness reject, as is worthy of you, this unprincipled running for shelter to you by presbyters as well, and by the lower clergy. For by no decree of the fathers has the church of Africa been deprived of this authority, and the Nicene decrees have most plainly committed not only the clergy of lower rank, but the bishops themselves, to their own metropolitans. For the fathers ordained, with great wisdom and justice, that all matters should be settled in the places where they arise. They did not think that the grace of the Holy Spirit would be lacking to any province, for the bishops of Christ wisely to discern what is right and firmly to maintain it; especially since anyone who thinks himself wronged by any judgment may appeal to the council of his province, or even to a general council of Africa. Unless, perhaps, someone imagines that God can inspire a single individual with justice and refuse it to a countless multitude of bishops assembled in council. And how will we be able to rely on a sentence passed across the sea, when it will not be possible to send the necessary witnesses there, whether because of the weakness of their sex, or old age, or some other hindrance? As for your holiness sending anyone from your side, we can find that laid down by no council of the fathers. For as to what you sent us by the same brother of ours, Bishop Faustinus, as being contained in the Nicene Council, we can find nothing of the kind in the more authentic copies of that council. These we received from our brother the holy Cyril, bishop of the Alexandrian church, and from the venerable Atticus, who presides over the church of Constantinople. We formerly sent them on to Boniface the bishop, your predecessor of venerable memory, by Innocent the presbyter and Marcellus the subdeacon, through whom we had received them. Moreover, if anyone asks you to send any of your clergy to carry out your orders, do not comply, lest it seem that we are bringing the pride of worldly rule into the church of Christ, which offers to all who desire to see God the light of simplicity and the day of humility. Now that the wretched Apiarius has been removed from the church of Christ for his horrible crimes, we feel confident about our brother Faustinus: that through the uprightness and moderation of your holiness, and without any breach of brotherly love, Africa will by no means have to put up with him any longer. Lord and brother, may our Lord long keep your holiness to pray for us.