The See of Peter

The Early Church and Peter's Primacy

Letter XX, from Ennodius of Pavia to Pope Symmachus

Synopsis: Ennodius of Pavia writes to Pope Symmachus to give thanks for the apostolic dignity by which the pope has promoted him, recalls a promise the pope had made on behalf of the heirs of the deceased Marius during Ennodius’s earlier visit to Rome, and asks the pope to complete that promise by his kind disposition — praising the dispensation of the saints which holds nothing back and which finds its proper merit by giving everything to those in need.

Ennodius to Pope Symmachus.

Ennodius Gives Thanks for His Apostolic Promotion and Recalls Symmachus’s Promise on Behalf of Marius’s Heirs

You have promoted me to the point of boldness by Your apostolic regard: the confidence granted has become the mother of audacity. But let him who thinks me ignorant of humility test me as obedient if he should consider what has been commanded. There is presumption if a servant does not follow his lords’ favors: I think obedience must be valued by what it furnishes, since equal things are not produced. Behold, I assert myself a writer of letters, since I am truthful, lest after the writing-care has been imposed I should silently spurn the precepts. To this is added that, in the case of venerable memory’s Marius, while I was at the City [of Rome], you gave hope to my prayers. Whose business has been settled with your holy church by lawful settlement; but the heirs lament that the fruits of his estate were taken from them through many years on account of debts owed.

Ennodius Praises the Liberality of the Roman Pontiff: The Dispensation of the Saints Reduces Everything to Merit by Reserving Nothing

For these things I come as the petitioner, conscious of you: because to him whose custom it is to do pious things continually, just things will not be despised; and he who bestows what is his does not subtract what is another’s. He errs who thinks that conscience approaches God when it invites detriments from sanctified will, [and he errs] who does not display kindness. You think those gains alone, which are born to you from liberality; you who, while bestowing riches, receive [them]. Avaricious is the dispensation of the saints, which by reserving nothing reduces all things to its own merit. Nothing is more powerful than the gains of liberality which come to you. Therefore, secure in matters that have been understood above, I have promised the loss of [my own] labor by your contemplation: complete my pledge by your kind disposition, and relieve them by [your] effect, and me by colloquy.

Source/Reference

Thiel 731

Notes / Historical Commentary

This third Ennodian letter in the Symmachus corpus illustrates the standard pattern of late-antique ecclesiastical patronage: a Western deacon presents a case at Rome, the pope makes a promise, and the deacon writes back later to ask that the promise be fulfilled. The case here concerns the heirs of one Marius, whose estate had been encumbered for many years by debts owed to (presumably) the Roman church, and who now sought relief from those debts. Ennodius had presented the matter during his earlier visit to Rome and had spoken in Symmachus’s name to the heirs, pledging Symmachus’s liberality on their behalf. The present letter asks Symmachus to fulfill what Ennodius had pledged, freeing both the heirs (by the substantive relief) and Ennodius himself (by the relief from anxiety about his own pledge).

The most striking primacy formulation in the letter is the praise of papal liberality in §2: Avara est dispensatio sanctorum, quae nil reservando, universa proprium reducit ad meritum — “The dispensation of the saints is avaricious — which by reserving nothing reduces all things to its own merit.” The line treats holy generosity as a structural feature of the office: the Roman pontiff’s stewardship is properly characterized by reserving nothing, because the merit of the office consists precisely in unreserved giving. The reader interested in how Roman primacy was understood by its Western correspondents will note the framing here: the pope’s authority is named not as power held but as goods given without reservation. Ennodius’s praise of papal liberality is not flattery; it is a theological claim about the structural disposition of the apostolic office.

The letter also illustrates a feature of the Roman Church’s legal-administrative function in this period that the corpus increasingly preserves: the Apostolic See is acting as a creditor (the Marian estate’s debts are owed to the Roman church) and as a forgiver of debts (the requested liberality consists in releasing or modifying the debts). The pattern is structural in the patrimonial church of late antiquity: the Roman church holds substantial estates, manages debts and obligations on those estates, and the pope’s pastoral office includes the discretion to forgive, modify, or arrange these obligations as part of his pastoral care. Ennodius’s request belongs to this routine ecclesiastical-administrative pattern.

For the reader who is following the corpus arc, this letter shows the Roman pontiff’s office in its routine pastoral aspect: not adjudicating ecumenical schisms or articulating universal jurisdiction, but receiving the petitions of Western deacons on behalf of grieving heirs, fulfilling promises made in his name, and exercising the patrimonial discretion of the Roman church for the relief of those in need. The reader will recognize the pattern of Roman authority that the corpus consistently witnesses: not aggrandizement or political maneuvering, but ordinary pastoral care exercised through the proper channels of episcopal correspondence.