Simplicius, bishop, to Acacius, bishop of Constantinople.
Simplicius Commends Acacius for Refusing Timothy Aelurus Communion at Constantinople and Urges Continued Supplication to the Emperor in Rome’s Name
When Our sons — the illustrious man Latinus the patrician, and the distinguished Madusius — were being sent on a public legation, We could not neglect what We attend to with all Our intention. For recently, when the complaint of presbyters and monks concerning Timothy — long ago separated from the universal Church — had come [to Us], We wrote both to the most Christian prince and to Your Charity, that you might resist in every way, lest the audacity of heretics contrive anything against the Chalcedonian Council, dearest brother. And praising the constancy of Your Charity, We recorded that it greatly pleases Us — indeed, the Lord Himself — that you have not permitted a man condemned both in the matter of the faith and of parricide to enter any church at Constantinople.
This We now admonish you again: that when these same writings reach Your Charity — or even while they are on their way — you do not cease to act and make known, in supplication, before the most Christian prince in Our name as well, so that what has been so often and well established should not be violated by any deception. For the certain and singular foundation of his kingdom is this: to preserve unharmed, for the true and eternal King, the council of the priests gathered in the cause of the faith by the divine Spirit.
Footnotes
- ↩ Latinus and Madusius were envoys on a public legation from Italy to Constantinople, sent by Odoacer (who had ruled Italy since his deposition of Romulus Augustulus in 476) to the Emperor Zeno. The terms translated “illustrious man” and “distinguished” are vir illustris and spectabilis in the Latin — the highest and middle senatorial ranks respectively in the late Roman hierarchy. Simplicius is using the occasion of this official legation to send his own letters to Constantinople, availing himself of the diplomatic channel between Odoacer’s court and Zeno’s. Binius, identifying the historical setting, notes that Simplicius sent several letters of this type through the Odoacer–Zeno embassy.
- ↩ Simplicius names the two grounds of Timothy Aelurus’s condemnation: fidei (in the cause of the faith — i.e., heresy) and parricidii (in the cause of parricide — i.e., implication in the murder of Proterius of Alexandria during Holy Week 457). The doubled ground sharpens the commendation: Acacius has denied entry not only to a heretic but to a murderer of his bishop-father, and Rome’s approval attaches to both aspects of his refusal. Compare Letter IV, where Simplicius first calls Timothy “the parricide.” The refusal of communion at every Constantinople church — nullam Constantinopoli ecclesiam introire permiseris — is the concrete act Acacius has performed and that Simplicius here endorses: communion with the Roman see and communion with the Constantinople bishop together bar Timothy from the churches of the capital.
- ↩ The closing argument joins political theology to doctrinal claim. The emperor’s kingdom has a “certain and singular foundation” (certum et singulare firmamentum), and that foundation is his preservation of the Council of Chalcedon — here described as gathered “in the cause of the faith by the divine Spirit.” The preservation is owed not to the earthly kingdom’s stability but to the true and eternal King, Christ, for whose sake the emperor’s duty is to keep the council inviolate. The emperor’s throne is safe only insofar as he protects the faith the council defined. The characterization of Chalcedon as “gathered by the divine Spirit” (congregatorum… divino spiritu) is a strong claim about the council’s pneumatic authority, consistent with Leo’s descriptions of Chalcedon and Simplicius’s treatment of it throughout his correspondence as a settled and untouchable judgment.
Historical Commentary