The Second Roman Council, in which Misenus is absolved by Gelasius and fifty-five bishops, in the year of the Lord 495, on the third day before the Ides of May.

Convocation

With Pope Gelasius, a man worthy of veneration, presiding in the synod, together with Bonifacius, Maximinus, Epiphanius, Basilius, Vitalis, Clarus, Irenæus, Decius, Asellus, Euplus, Valentinus, Martinianus, Bassus, Benignus, Primitivus, Palladius, Vindemius, Constantius, Martyrius, Candidus, Laurentius, Deodatus, Mercurius, Stephanus, Dulcitius, Fortunatus, Paschasius, Sanctulus, Innocentius, Chrysogonus, Colonicus, Molensis, Maximianus, Valentinus, Constantius, Gaudentius, Felix, Vitalianus, Petrus, Serenus, Aucupius, Timotheus, Stephanus, Laurentius, and Probus as bishops; with Castinus, Laurentius, Canusius, Eugenius, Januarius, Martianus, Gordianus, Petrus, Urbicus, Paulinus, Valens, Petrus, Asterius, Smaragdus, Bonifacius, Maxentius, Epiphanius, Justinus, Felix, Redemptus, Projectitius, Callistus, Joannes, Valentinus, Sebastianus, Martinus, Epiphanius, Andreas, Servodei, Apellio, Petrus, Servandus, Agapitus, Abundantius, Marcellinus, Litorius, Laurentius, Agatho, Sebastianus, Valentinus, Anastasius, Genesius, Dionysius, Epiphanius, Acontius, Paulinus, Agapitus, Adeodatus, Benedictus, Dominicus, Redemptus, Severus, Julianus, Stephanus, Crescentianus, Septiminus, Cyprianus, and Epiphanius as presbyters, also residing; together with the illustrious Amandianus and the distinguished Diogenianus; the deacons likewise standing by; Gelasius, bishop of the Catholic Church of the city of Rome, said:1

Chapter I: First Reading of Misenus’s Libellus

“Your loving regard remembers that, in our previous gathering, the libellus offered to us by Misenus was read in your sight; if it pleases your loving regard, that same libellus is now to be reviewed again, so that our acta may contain it. And since he professes to have another petition also in hand, we may recognize what is contained in this one as well.” And he added: “Let Misenus’s libellus be read again.”

Anastasius the deacon read: “Given by your servant Misenus on the eighth day before the Ides of March, Viator, vir clarissimus, being consul.

“As far as the catastrophe of my misery is concerned, I determine that no sparing is to be granted to my error, however contracted: for I ought not to lack this very punishment, since I have deserved that the cause of my punishment, by whatever lot, should be carried through.

“But as for what concerns remedial relief, two things constrain me to come to implore this suppliantly: that I may not, by despair, be more deserving of being condemned to perpetual torments, after the example of the betrayer Judas; and because that ineffable clemency is so great that by apostolic power it can absolve every crime. This sole voice, then, in my matter, venerable Pope, I, miserable, pour forth: spare the prostrate, stretch forth thy hand to the fallen. I use no excuses of ignorance, I oppose no snares of circumvention, nor do I strive to transfer the danger of my calamity to anyone; for I, who beg to be clemently absolved, ought not to accuse others; for although I can offer nothing for my own defense, I am not in doubt that all these things are to be tried by your judgment. Only this I ask: that you, obeying the supreme Power who declares through the prophet, I do not will the death of him who is dying, until he turn back and live (Ezek. 33), rather weigh in benign consideration all that has been done in my person, and not deny the viaticum to an old man worn out by sickness and continual wasting away, lest I be snatched away without ecclesiastical communion — taking warning from another’s case, who could not, even when you were willing to confer aid, take hold of it. And show — by this very thing, that I have, while yet surviving, attained the grace of the Church’s reception — that I was, through ignorance, ensnared rather than implicated in this disaster.”

Chapter II: Misenus Enters; Both Petitions Are Read in His Presence

When this had been read, Bishop Gelasius said: “The acta will retain the petition.” And he added: “Let Misenus himself now come forward, and let the petition that he offered be reviewed in his presence.” And when Misenus had entered, prostrating himself upon the ground he offered another petition, and asked that it be received. And when it had been received, Bishop Gelasius said: “Let both the petitions which he has put forward be read with him also present.” Anastasius the deacon read again: “Given by your servant Misenus on the eighth day before the Ides of March, Flavius Viator, vir clarissimus, being consul.

“As far as the catastrophe of my misery is concerned, I determine that no sparing is to be granted to my error, however contracted: for I ought not to lack this very punishment, since I have deserved to be carried through to penal cause by whatever lot. But as for what concerns remedial relief, two things constrain me to come suppliantly to implore this: that I may not, by despair, be more deserving of being condemned to perpetual torments, after the example of the betrayer Judas — and the rest that is contained above.”

He read another petition: “Given by your servant Misenus on the third day before the Ides of March, Flavius Viator, vir clarissimus, being consul.

“When my petition was first offered, I begged for nothing else suppliantly than that the mercy of the Apostolic See should not be denied me forever; and since, by reason of the immense piety of God by which it is governed, I now feel that hope shining forth more and more, declaring my consciousness — into whose contagion of perfidious men I had unhappily rather than willfully fallen, ensnared by deception — to be free and purged, with my whole heart and mouth I protest, beneath the gaze of divine contemplation, that I refute with prone mind all heresies and whatever is hostile to the Catholic and apostolic faith and to sincere communion — and especially the Eutychian heresy with its very author Eutyches and his follower Dioscorus, or his successors and communicators Timothy Aelurus, Peter of Alexandria, Acacius of Constantinople, Peter of Antioch,2 with all their accomplices and communicators — and that I shall reject, condemn, and anathematize them perpetually, and shall horribly execrate all these and any of like kind; and I declare that I shall never have any consortium whatsoever with such men, but shall be wholly alien from all these in time to come.

Chapter III: The Profession Subscribed in the Sight of God, the Blessed Apostle Peter, and His Vicar

“Although I never received their depravity by my own will, yet because by the impulse of calamity I appear to have fallen in less cautiously, in the sight of God and of the blessed Apostle Peter and of his vicar, and of the whole Church,3 by my profession (as I have said) and voice I condemn, detest, and shudder at it — confirming that I shall remain forever in the Catholic and apostolic faith and communion alone. To this petition of mine I have subscribed by my own hand on the third day of the Ides of March, Viator, vir clarissimus, being consul. These things I believed must be offered to your beatitude in the gathering of the venerable bishops, by my own hands.”

And in another hand: “I, Misenus, have subscribed this my petition that I have offered, on the day and in the consulship written above.”

Chapter IV: The Synod Calls Upon the Pope to Do as Lord Peter Does

Bishop Gelasius said: “Let what has been read be transcribed.” And he added: “We desire to recognize, by participation in your counsel, what your fraternity judges should be decreed.”

All the bishops and presbyters rose, asking and saying:

“Hear, O Christ! Life to Gelasius!” — said twenty times.

“What God has given you in your power, fulfill!” — said twelve times.

“Do what Lord Peter does!”4 — said ten times.

“We pray you to indulge!” — said nine times.

Chapter V: The Apostolic See by Christ’s Delegation Holds the Primacy of the Whole Church; Felix’s Sentence Was Tempered by Mercy

When they had sat down again, Bishop Gelasius said: “The Apostolic See, which by the delegation of Christ the Lord holds the primacy of the whole Church5 — and which, in its general dispensation and care, always discharges this trust with necessary circumspection, whether for the Catholic faith or for the canons of the fathers and the rules of the elders — long ago, under my predecessor, the prelate of holy memory, sent Misenus and Vitalis, supported by the legation of its own power, to the East against the followers of the Eutychian pestilence and against those who had polluted themselves by communion with such men. And because they, declining the apostolic precepts, had in any way fallen back into the consortium of those against whom they had been sent — the matter having been openly examined by the discussion in the synodal acts — [the See] removed them, by merit and by right, from communion and from honor alike.

“Yet for these the See, mindful of supreme piety in its moderation, reserved a place of mercy: and while it set the condition of vengeance, it did not wish the hope of propitiation to be cut off; thus it tempered its sentence so that it might rather wish the pardon of these to come about together with the salvation of those by whose participation they had been deceived — that they should rather offer to those whom they had confirmed in their depravity by their consent both a salutary fear of correction and the consortium of an emendation to be imitated. So in the end the very words of its animadversion were weighed thus: that those latter should perceive themselves struck down along with these, and from their condition not despair of being able to be saved. In which case neither is the way of returning entirely closed off to them; and to these, if they should so wish, through the others a correction has been offered and a zeal extended, by which they might with better effort make up for past lapses — if they should turn the favor which they had offered to prevaricators by easy will rather toward the reformation of Catholic priests.

Chapter VI: The Conditional Clause and the Failure of the Eastern Recovery

“For it was said that those would be suspended for so long, until — God being author, and the Catholic princes and the Christian people striving — the Alexandrian Church should receive a Catholic priest. It was indeed believed cause for rejoicing, that the Greeks could in no way refuse what they saw to have been condemned by the Apostolic See, and that they could easily be moved by the punishment of these men, so that they might know what to avoid and what to consequently pursue, and were thought to wish, by repenting, to feel rather with the orthodox than to err continually with the perfidious. And it was long awaited, that, incited by these reasons, they would put aside their wicked contagion, consenting along with the Apostolic See, as had been hoped concerning their will; and that, exerting themselves toward the Catholic priests, they would rather furnish the zeal of recalling — that they themselves might return to orthodox unity, and to those who had been participants of their error they might administer the effect of the receptions appointed. Nor did the occasion fail by which it might have been done — that they, fittingly admonished and sufficiently instructed, might recognize the perils to be avoided, and observe that the door of apostolic communion lay open to them, if they sought it with sincere minds.

“But because matters have come to such a pass that, with the medicinal admonitions also given — though they had nothing in opposition — they have hitherto deferred to give their assent: we owe a certain paternal feeling of pious sorrow to their difficulties, beseeching the omnipotence of our God, who alone is able to convert deviating wills to the way of truth, that He may deign to infuse upon them, by the wonderful working of His propitiation, the spirit of repentance and the efficacy of correction. Until these things shall come about by divine appeasement (as we trust from His power), let us in the meantime not allow this man, who suppliantly desires it, to perish: that those whom the Easterns are not terrified into avoiding by the rejection — lest they persist in error — may at least be provoked by his cure to return to salvation; especially since the very tenor of the words attends the clemency of the Apostolic See’s dispensation, and the constitution put forth is not judged to repugn itself.

“For it has been determined (as already said above) that those of whom we treat are to be suspended only until — God being author, and with the aforesaid striving — the Alexandrian Church should receive a Catholic priest: it was not put forth abruptly and without exception, but the proposition was framed by such a reason that the sentence might not appear fixed indifferently, whether they strove or did not strive. Therefore by that same tenor by which the condition was weighed, when it does not exist, the necessity of his profession is dissolved. For what was pronounced to be done with the striving of the said ones plainly cannot be done when this same does not succeed; but when it is recorded that it must be done with their striving, it is sufficiently shown that without this it cannot be fulfilled. Therefore, although those whose striving is shown to be lacking must be pitied for their obstinacy, yet because [their striving] is lacking — and as without it that cannot be effected which it was presumed could be effected with it — so when the causes by which this article would come to its end fail, [the sentence] does not insolubly retain him bound.

“Wherefore the sentence given, since the things by which it could maintain its measure to its own conclusion no longer exist, will give freedom to those who advise and to those who were held bound. And the Apostolic See indeed (as is to be repeated often) — judging that the Easterns could in no way fail to refuse what the Apostolic See had refuted, and that they could prefer no person to their own salvation and to apostolic communion — had judged better of their minds. But what again must not be passed over in silence: lamentable ruin can no more accuse the Apostolic See’s well-thought opinion of the Easterns of being improvident than rather assign it to its own obstinacy, that the path of its own reintegration offered to it has not been followed. Nor for that reason ought it through its obstinacy to impede the medicinal capacity for others who desire it. For things were then said with confidence about the consensus of the Greeks, because they too were thought able to set the fellowship of blessed Peter before any persons whatsoever; and those who had previously been Catholic were thought ready to consent easily to the truth, and accordingly that no man’s affection could be set above the desires of apostolic communion.

“But since they have not yet undertaken those wills by which this order would have been fulfilled, what was presumed could be done by them is now seen to be undone; for when those are wanting who would accomplish it, no effect can come about; rather, when those very ones by whom it was judged to be done themselves resist that it be done — and if they should remain (which God forbid) in this obstinacy — the condition of that thing is dissolved which was confidently held to be fulfilled by their efforts.

“But if (as we rather hope) they should be turned to better things, lest meanwhile he who supplicates for mercy be intercepted, whether by age or by the disease which frequently impedes him, while these matters are being deliberated, lest no remedy can be substituted for one already deceased: since indeed it is said that whether they strove, or even were perchance unwilling — but rather with their effort — what had been promulgated could be confirmed: just as, then, when they were striving, it had nowhere remained fixed in peace, by this very tenor blessed Paul the apostle is not (which God forbid) to be considered to have failed, or to have been inconsistent with himself, because, when he had promised to go to the Spains, occupied by greater causes by divine disposition, he could not fulfill what he promised. For as much as it pertained to his own will, he pronounced this, which in truth he had wished to effect: as much as concerns the secrets of divine counsel — which as a man, though full of the Spirit, he could not entirely know — he was forestalled by superior disposition. Nor is blessed Peter the apostle, because for affection of divine reverence he answered the Lord himself, Thou shalt not wash my feet for ever (John 13), to be considered (which God forbid) to have failed, or to have stood little firm in his sentence, because he soon yielded to that same divine will: and what he said he would not do, being constrained by causes of human salvation, he asked with prone will should be done.

Chapter VII: The Petrine Power of Binding and Loosing as the Warrant of Apostolic Absolution

“Therefore, since that way is not approaching by which their reconciliation had been determined, although another may be tried by which assistance is given to those for whom it was decreed assistance must be given: especially since for Misenus, from any excess or any penalty of prevarication, what has been so treated may suffice — that by the sole supreme consideration of human deliberation it may be relaxed, and the punishment that has nothing further whereby to grow may be remitted. For when God omnipotent and merciful has not willed remedy to be denied, through ecclesiastical piety, to any soul that seeks, there is no doubt that it comes forth, with God himself as author and by divine compunction, that the matter of his reception is to be treated when this very necessity, no longer to be put off, compels it to be undertaken:

especially when our Savior delegated to the blessed Apostle Peter, above the rest:6 Whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, shall be bound also in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, shall be loosed also in heaven (Matt. 16): just as nothing is held to be excepted in these words, so through the office of apostolic dispensation everything may be generally bound, and everything consequently absolved. Especially since on this account the example of apostolic mercy ought rather to be afforded to all — that, when the condemned are absolved, if they all should repent and withdraw themselves from error and return to the sincere unity of apostolic communion, they may not doubt that they are to be stripped of the chains of that damnation which they had universally incurred as prevaricators.

Chapter VIII: The Living and the Dead; The Case of Vitalis

“For neither must we, who strive that those placed afar off may be brought back to the integral faith, refuse those who return as suppliants in the present: where it must carefully be guarded against, lest by denying [grace] we should fall into the matter of the extreme of sin (which God forbid), and the severity of the truth’s censure, persisting without end even against suppliants, pass over into a charge against us. Hence, as far as the Lord forewarns us, let us afford the remedies of human possibility to one who desires them, leaving everything beyond the measure of our faculty to divine judgment; nor will [men] be able to charge us with why we remit the offense of prevarication to the living: which, by God’s bounty, is possible for the Church. As for those who require us to grant pardon also to the dead — that this is not possible for us is manifest. For since it is said, Whatsoever ye shall have bound upon earth — those who, by what is now established, are no longer upon earth, the Lord reserved not to human, but to His own judgment: nor does the Church dare to claim for itself what it perceives was not granted even to the blessed apostles; for the cause of the surviving is one thing, that of the deceased another.

“Vitalis bore the lot of divine judgment, who — though we greatly wished it — could not be assisted: let it at least benefit this one, while the supply of the living one allows, in obtaining remedies, that the experiments of the other suddenly withdrawn may serve. And since we know it is written, One shall be taken, and one shall be left (Luke 17), the peril of him who has been intercepted exhorts us not to defer the supports for healing in the surviving one — who is shown by this very thing to be received divinely, when he is permitted to outlive him who could not arrive at this. And a certain examination of the celestial judgment shines forth from each of them, and is the more evidently shown to us in two: in which one was a cause without pardon, and in which is that which ought not to lack indulgence; and accordingly — what even Acacius himself, if surviving and seeking it duly, might have been able to obtain (he indeed of whom it was so set down that it would be insoluble, lest it should be said: Even if perchance he should correct himself) — much more must apostolic piety not be denied to this man, who is infected by his communion, when he tearfully implores it.

Chapter IX: Misenus Is Restored; The Synod Acclaims Gelasius Vicar of Christ; Notarial Subscription

“Misenus therefore, having professed regularly7 to detest all heresies — especially the Eutychian, with Eutyches, Dioscorus, Timothy Aelurus, Peter of Alexandria, Acacius of Constantinople, and Peter of Antioch, with all their successors, followers, and communicators — and to strike them with perpetual anathema, shall receive the dignity of apostolic communion and of the priestly grace which he received by Catholic tradition.“

All the bishops and presbyters, rising in the synod, acclaimed:

“Hear, O Christ! Life to Gelasius!” — said fifteen times.

“O Lord Peter, do thou keep him!” — said twelve times.

“Whose see and years!” — said seven times.

“We see thee Vicar of Christ!”8 — said six times.

“Whose see and years!” — said thirty-seven times.9

Sixtus, notary of the holy Roman Church, by the order of my lord, the most blessed Pope Gelasius, has issued [these acta] from the archive on the third day of the Ides of May, Flavius Viator, vir clarissimus, being consul (in the year of Christ 495).10