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Edited from a variety of translations (mentioned in the preface) by H. R. Percival
THE ECUMENICAL COUNCILS Resources Online and in Print
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31 Pages
Page 28
The Decretal Epistle of Pope Vigilius in Confirmation of the Fifth Ecumenical Synod.
Historical Note.
(Fleury. Hist. Eccl., Liv. xxxiii. 52.)
At last the Pope Vigilius resigned himself to the advice of the Council, and six months afterwards wrote a letter to the Patriarch Eutychius, wherein he confesses that he has been wanting in charity in dividing from his brethren. He adds, that one ought not to be ashamed to retract, when one recognises the truth, and brings forward the example of Augustine. He says, that, after having better examined the matter of the Three Chapters, he finds them worthy of condemnation. "We recognize for our brethren and colleagues all those who have condemned them, and annul by this writing all that has been done by us or by others for the defence of the three chapters."
The Decretal Letter of Pope Vigilius.
(The manuscript from which this letter was printed was found in the Royal Library of Paris by Peter de Marca and by him first published, with a Latin translation and with a dissertation. Both of these with the Greek text are found in Labbe and Cossart's Concilia, Tom. V., col. 596 et seqq.; also in Migne's Patr. Lat., Tom. LXIX., col. 121 et seqq. Some doubts have been expressed about its genuineness and Harduin is of opinion that the learned Jesuit, Garnerius, in his notes on the Deacon Leberatus's Breviary, has proved its supposititious character. But the learned have not generally been of this mind but have accepted the letter as genuine.)
Vigilius to his beloved brother Eutychius.
No one is ignorant of the scandals which the enemy of the human race has stirred up in all the world: so that he made each one with a wicked object in view, striving in some way to fulfil his wish to destroy the Church of God spread over the whole world, not only in his own name but even in ours and in those of others to compose diverse things as well in words as in writing; in so much that he attempted to divide us who, together with our brethren and fellow bishops, are stopping in this royal city, and who defend with equal reverence the four synods, and sincerely persist in the one and the same faith of those four synods, by his sophistries and machinations he tried to part from them; so that we ourselves who were and are of the same opinion as they touching the faith, went apart into discord, brotherly love being despised. [321]
[321] In this sentence I have followed De Marca's Latin version, but I must confess that I am not at all satisfied with the construing of the long phrase beginning Houtos os.
Reference address : https://elpenor.org/ecumenical-councils/fifth.asp?pg=28
