The Tome of Pope Gelasius On the Bond of Anathema.1

That the Acts of the Council of Chalcedon are valid only to the extent that the Apostolic See has approved them; that the things established against Acacius are just; and that Peter of Alexandria could only have been absolved by the Apostolic See.2

Chapter I: That What the Apostolic See Has Approved at Chalcedon Stands; What It Has Refused Cannot Be Confirmed

Lest perhaps they say, as is their custom, that if the Synod of Chalcedon is admitted, all things that appear to have been brought forth there must equally stand3 — for either it is fitting that it be admitted in its entirety, or, if it is in part to be repudiated, it cannot stand firm in its entirety —

let them therefore acknowledge this: that according to the holy Scriptures and the tradition of the elders, according to the canons and rules of the Church, for the common faith and the Catholic and Apostolic truth, for which the Apostolic See delegated this [council] to be held, and confirmed it once held — [that this] is to be received without doubt by the whole Church; but that other things which were brought forth there by incompetent presumption, or rather agitated, which the Apostolic See in no way delegated to be conducted, were at once contradicted by the vicars of the Apostolic See, as is manifest; which the Apostolic See, even at the request of the prince Marcian, in no way approved; which the presider of the Church of Constantinople at that time, Anatolius, even confessed that he himself had not presumed, and did not deny had been placed within the power of the bishop of the Apostolic See;4 which therefore, as has been said, the Apostolic See did not receive, because it sustains by no reasoning what is shown to be contrary to the privileges of the universal Church.5

Chapter II: That Selective Reception Is the Apostolic Principle, as Scripture Itself Records the Errors of Holy Men and Heretical Books Contain Truths Worth Preserving

For what then? Because in the holy books, which indeed we venerate and follow — since the profanities of certain persons are also reported in them, and crimes committed are recounted — are these likewise to be venerated by us, or to be followed, because they are contained in those holy and venerable books?

Saint Peter, the first of the apostles, so reckoning the grace of the New Testament to be preached that he should not depart from the institutions of the old law, is read to have done certain things by dissimulation among Jews and Gentiles.6 Are those things therefore to be followed which his fellow-apostle deservedly rebuked as having been done, and which afterwards he himself consequently avoided — and are these to be received together with those things which (as the first of the apostles) he preached for salvation? Are we then to repudiate his right teaching together with those things which had happened to him by human weakness — or is that yet weak ignorance to be received together with his perfected doctrine?

And in the books of the heretics themselves, are not many things found written that pertain to the truth? Is the truth therefore to be refuted, because the books in which depravity is contained are refuted? Or are the depraved books to be received because the truth which is inserted there is not denied?

The Apostle says: Test all things; hold fast that which is good (1 Thess. 5:21). We know that the Apostle (Acts 17) cited certain things even from the books of the pagans.7 Are all those things therefore to be received which were brought forth together with these? The Apostle himself (Phil. 1) says that many preachers preach Christ in different ways — where, although it is fitting that Christ preached in any manner be admitted, yet for that reason He does not warn that the manner in which He has not been preached rightly is not to be avoided. He himself complains of evil workers (Phil. 3), of whom he teaches that some things are to be refuted and others are to be followed.8

These and similar examples teach us, and the divine testimonies confirm, that not all things said anywhere indiscriminately by anyone, or written in any place, are to be accepted indifferently — but that the good things are to be retained, while the things that may harm are to be refuted.9

Chapter III: That a Sentence Is Fixed Perpetually Against the Error Itself, and Binds Persons Only Insofar as They Persist in That Error

To the sinning man death was given as the penalty; and yet the death inflicted upon the man Jesus Christ made the devil guilty — because where there was no cause of death (that is, sin), there was not owed the penalty either.10

A sentence is fixed in advance, always against an error. The sentence fixed against this error shall never be dissolved. For just as the error itself, insofar as it is error, never ceases to be error, so it shall never be released from the sentence fixed against it — because the error which is acknowledged to have been condemned, so long as it remains error, remains bound. Therefore those who are in the error are bound by the sentence of the error; and so long as they remain in it, they are by no means absolved, just as the error itself in which they remain is not absolved. For the error itself never deserves pardon — but he who has truly been freed of it, and has departed from participation in it, is the one who is loosed. So long therefore as a person remains in the error, the error holds its condemnation and is never dissolved, because error always deserves the penalty.

The participants of the error, however, are either always bound, and partakers of its penalty if they do not cease to persist in it; or, if they have departed from it, just as they have been made foreign to the error and separated from participation in it, so they shall consequently be foreign to its penalty also. When a penalty is fixed against one who errs, then so long as he remains erring he is constrained by it — because one cannot be erring without bearing the penalty for the error. This penalty is perpetual, and never to be dissolved so long as he continues erring. But if he ceases to be erring, the penalty fixed perpetually against the erring, when applied to one who is not erring — that is, to one made other than the person against whom it was fixed — not only cannot be perpetual; it cannot any longer be a penalty at all. For he is not the same one against whom it was fixed. It was fixed against the erring, not against the not-erring.

What is fixed against the erring is perpetual, and constrains the erring perpetually; but it can no longer hold the not-erring. Let it be said to be perpetual against the erring; let it be said never to be dissolved against the erring. It remains altogether and truly fixed against him; nor can it be absolved at all, so long as it is owed to the one who remains erring. But to the not-erring there cannot be a penalty either, since to the not-erring no penalty is owed. Nor is that which is owed to the erring at all changed or dissolved. In its own tenor, therefore, the sentence is fixed — in its own right it cannot be dissolved at all; in a tenor not its own, where it cannot be, it is now seen to have been emptied — and to have no right at all there, where it has no cause of existing.11

The holy Scriptures are full of this form of justice. It is said: Let the sinners perish from the earth, so that they shall not be — that is, sinners, that they may cease to be sinners. In this let them perish, so that they may cease to be sinners (Ps. 103[104]:35).12 For if sinners, according to the prophet’s saying, were to perish substantially altogether — so that they would not subsist substantially — who could have been saved by Our Redeemer, who came not to call the just but sinners (Luke 5:32)? Or concerning whom does the Apostle say: Christ came into this world to save sinners, of whom I am the first (1 Tim. 1:15; Rom. 5:8); and: While we were yet sinners, God sent His Son (Gal. 4:4), and the rest of this kind?

Here indeed many also have perished substantially as sinners, remaining in their sins; and the sentence pronounced against them remained truly, and was never dissolved. Yet that same sentence, fixed against such persons, has remained perpetual against them — even as it has come to pass that, for those who do not remain altogether such (that is, who do not endure altogether in their sins), the sentence still remains fixed against the kind of person they had been. For they too perish — but, as has been said, not by way of penalty but by way of remedy. They too in a certain manner have perished; in a certain manner the sentence has remained against them, until — by remaining — it brought them to cease being sinners, or accomplished that sinners no longer be. The sentence is completed in them; and that sentence, with its tenor enacted against perishing sinners, brings it about that they should no longer be sinners. But the sentence could no longer remain among non-sinners, because in those upon whom it had not been inflicted it had no right of remaining at all. Thus the sentence in its own right and course has not been dissolved at all; and the same sentence, remaining against those upon whom it was inflicted, has been made wholly foreign to those who are now separated from its right. Nor would it have warrant of remaining (its own condition preserved) in those upon whom it had not been inflicted.

The Lord said that for those sinning against the Holy Spirit, [the sin] should be remitted neither here nor in the age to come (Matt. 12:32). Yet how many do we know to have offended against the Holy Spirit — heretics of various kinds, Arians, Eunomians, Macedonians13 — turning to the Catholic faith, who have both received remission of their blasphemy here and have taken up the hope of obtaining indulgence in the future? Nor for that reason is the Lord’s sentence not true, nor is it to be thought to have been dissolved in any way at all — since concerning such persons, if they remain such, [the sentence] remains never to be dissolved at all; but [as applied] to those made not such, it is not imposed.

So also is that consequent saying of the blessed apostle John: There is sin unto death; I do not say that one should pray for it. And there is sin not unto death; I say that one should pray for it (1 John 5:16–17). There is sin unto death — for those remaining in the same sin; there is sin not unto death — for those departing from the same sin. For there is no sin which the Church does not either ask to be remitted, or which, by the power divinely given to her, she cannot absolve from those who have departed from the same, or relax for those who repent — to whom it is said: Whatsoever you shall loose upon earth shall be loosed also in heaven; and whatsoever you shall bind upon earth shall be bound also in heaven (Matt. 18:18).14 In whomsoever all things are, however many they may be, and of whatever kind they may be: yet with the true sentence concerning them remaining, [the sentence] which is declared never to be dissolved — [it] consists in their tenor, not also remaining after they recede from this same.

Chapter IV: That Acacius’s “Never to Be Loosed” Was Just, Because He Chose to Remain the Kind of Person Bound; and That the Whole Matter Rests in the Power of the Apostolic See, Which Alone Rescinds What a Synod Has Presumed to Usurp

This same thing is also reasonably to be considered in the sentence of Acacius, in which, even though it was said to him “never to be loosed,” it was nevertheless not added: “even if you should come to your senses, even if you should depart from the error, even if you should cease to be a transgressor.” Wherefore it is openly said “never to be loosed” — but only as such a one, namely, as he is and bound; not as one made other than what he was bound to be, in which case he would have been shown to be absolved.15 For just as he would be free of obligation when the cause of obligation was absent, so he would stand absolved: as one made not such, no longer bound by the cause, he could not be held by the necessity of the sentence; and the sentence fixed against persons of his kind would in no way thereby have been rendered insoluble.

For did he not strive, did he not seek, did he not demand — and was he not rejected? And so he himself made the sentence to be insoluble in himself, who chose to remain such as could not truly be absolved; and he was unwilling to be made other — for had he done so, the sentence (which remains insoluble against persons of that kind) would no longer have remained against him, since against one who is no longer such it has no license of remaining.

By how much more, then, those who are constrained by the same tenor — admonished by example and by danger, as has been said — ought to make haste, that they not remain such as those against whom that sentence is fixed never to be loosed, and that they begin to be such as those for whom the sentence fixed against them can be dissolved. For when one is made not such — that is, no longer the kind of person against whom the sentence “never to be loosed” was fixed — the sentence can be dissolved with respect to him: just as for Acacius, unwilling to be made other and remaining such to the end, the sentence has remained absolute, so for us, unwilling to be made other than what we are, the sentence cannot be dissolved.

Did Acacius not have the example of so many bishops who, having lapsed into the brigandage at Ephesus, had in some manner relapsed into consent to depravity?16 Even if it had not been formally said, perpetual condemnation could have been inflicted upon those bishops; yet by coming to their senses, by being made other than they had been, they merited that the condemnation against them be dissolved — departing from the cause of perpetual condemnation, which those who persevered in it rendered insoluble against themselves.

Therefore there is no difference, no distinction, whether the words “never to be loosed” are said or not said: for an ecclesiastical sentence binds the guilty and the transgressors. Just as it cannot avail anyone that “never to be loosed” was not said — for if he persists in the error, the sentence remains insoluble in every way, and he cannot be absolved unless he is made other — so it cannot prejudice anyone that “never to be loosed” was said, when manifest reason shows that he is by no means to be loosed if he persists as he was bound, or rather, never to be loosed as the kind of person he is bound. And without the addition “even if he should come to his senses and correct himself,” let it be utterly clear and free from doubt that, when one is made not such as he is said never to be loosed, but such as he is not said never to be loosed — that is, corrected and amended — he can consequently be loosed.

It is to be noted that for those who blaspheme against the Holy Spirit in any manner whatsoever, if they come to their senses and correct themselves, the sin can be remitted to them both here and in the age to come; nor can the Lord’s sentence waver on this account — for that sentence was said to remain against such persons while they remain such, not against those who have been made other. So long as they remain in this state, they are such as those against whom it is fixed that there is to be no remission. But when they depart from this, they are made other than those against whom no remission was pronounced. And therefore, for those made other, the sin can be remitted both here and in the age to come. Otherwise (which God forbid!) it would seem in vain that the Church should receive the reconciliation of such persons. But because the Church cannot act in vain, by every manner of understanding, with the Lord’s sentence preserved, it must be preached — as far as it pertains to us — that reconciliation is altogether possible.

Such therefore was Acacius pronounced — bound, never to be loosed. Such he remained to the end; he did not cease to be such. Thus such he is today as he was pronounced. He cannot now be made not such; therefore, persisting as such, he is never to be loosed. For if he had ceased to be such — if he had not remained the kind of person against whom “never to be loosed” was said — he could have been absolved: as one made not such, he would have departed from the condition of “never to be loosed,” and so, that he might be loosed, he would have drawn near. But to such an absolution the Apostolic See did not consent, nor did the emperor impose it, nor did Anatolius usurp it.17 And the whole, as has been said, is placed in the power of the Apostolic See. Thus what the Apostolic See has confirmed in synod has obtained force; what it has refused could have no firmness; and the Apostolic See alone rescinds what the synodic gathering had thought fit to usurp beyond order — not as the promulgator of a new sentence, but, with the Apostolic See, as the executor of the ancient one.18

What has been said concerning one and the same man — whether persisting as such (in which case he has competently received the sentence), or made not such (in which case the sentence not pronounced against the not-such no longer holds) — is read to have been similarly fixed in each city, and brought forth against people and nation alike; for whatever is in the whole world is but a portion of the same. The same world is said to perish, and the word of God cannot fail; yet in this same world, the sentence is not enforced against those who recede from depraved intentions.

Thus Tyre and Berytus and Gaza (Jer. 47) and Egypt (Jer. 44) were pronounced [destined] to perish, which afterwards through the Gospel we know to have been saved (Luke 10).19 They perished, therefore, in a twofold manner: either by remaining in the condition in which they received such a sentence; or by defecting from what they had been and beginning to be what they had not been — for whom the sentence was fixed; so that consequently the sentence, never having been fixed against those who had ceased to be such, would no longer pertain to them.

So also concerning the nation of the Jews, by God through the prophet Isaiah it has been pronounced peremptorily, as it were: Close their eyes and stop up their ears; that seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not hear, lest they should at any time understand. And harden the heart of this people, that they may never be converted, and I should heal them (Isa. 6:10). Here too correction and amendment are shown to be forbidden, and even the hope of coming to one’s senses is altogether cut off. Yet from this people we know the apostles and the primitive Church to have proceeded, and thousands of men in one day to have been saved by baptism (Acts 2).

Behold also among those persisting [as] such, the sentence pronounced has remained, nor were they admitted to come to correction of soundness at all, but were judged to perish in their wickedness. And, with the divine sentence remaining, they were converted not by their own emendation, nor by their own understanding or motion, nor by their own virtue or possibility — that they might be healed — but they were healed by the grace of God, that they might be converted. Lest they be converted, He says, and I should heal them — lest by their own [will], lest by their own works, in which they were trusting, lest pursuing their own justice they should not be subjected to the justice of God; lest, trusting in their own strength, they should not subject themselves to divine mercy and illumination. And therefore the effect of proud presumption is forbidden to them: lest they be converted by their own intentions, by their own efforts, as they had thought; and I should heal them — lest, as if by their own merits coming from their own faculty, saving grace should be given, and so grace would no longer be grace, if it had not been given freely to the unmerited, but rendered as wages, as if to merits.20 Therefore not they themselves be converted, and I should heal them; but, healed by grace, let them recognize how to be converted to the humility of Christ.

Thus in both cases — that is, both in those remaining in that in which they received such a sentence, and in those saved from there — the Lord’s sentence has remained fixed; and yet those things remain. So in them by a marvelous manner soundness has been introduced, that the sentence might seem unchanged: but with the same enduring, soundness would come not by their confidence but by divine gift. But if they fear to hold these things, and acknowledge they do not pertain to the measure of their power — to whom only as much has been permitted as to judge concerning human affairs, not also to preside over divine ones — how do they presume to judge concerning these by whom divine things are administered?21

Chapter V: That Christ Distinguished the Two Powers, Willing Christian Emperors to Need Bishops for Eternal Life and Bishops to Use Imperial Dispositions for the Course of Temporal Things; and That a Bishop Can Neither Be Bound Nor Loosed by Secular Power

These things were before the coming of Christ, that certain persons figuratively — yet still established in carnal actions — should exist as both kings and priests, [as] sacred History records that holy Melchizedek was (Gen. 14).22 The devil also imitated this in his own [people] — for he is one who always strives to claim for himself with tyrannical spirit those things which befit divine worship — so that the pagan emperors were called both fideles [the faithful] and maximi pontifices [supreme pontiffs].23

But when it came to the true [King and Priest, that is, Christ], no longer did the emperor impose upon himself the name of pontiff, nor did the pontiff claim the royal eminence. For although the members of Him who is the true King and Priest are said, by participation in [His] nature, to have magnificently received both in their sacred lineage, so that they subsist as both royal race and priestly24 — nevertheless Christ, mindful of human fragility, tempering by magnificent dispensation what would befit the salvation of His own, so distinguished the offices of each power by their own actions and dignities, willing His own to be saved by medicinal humility, not again to be intercepted by human pride: so that both Christian emperors should need pontiffs for eternal life, and pontiffs should use imperial dispositions for the course of temporal things — to the end that spiritual action should stand apart from carnal incursions; and therefore he who serves God as a soldier should not entangle himself at all with secular affairs (2 Tim. 2:4); and conversely, he who is entangled with secular affairs should not seem to preside over divine things; so that both the modesty of each order might be cared for, neither extolled by being supported by both, and the appropriate profession should be specifically fitted to the qualities of [each] action.25

By all of these things rightly gathered, it is shown evidently enough that a pontiff can in no way be bound or loosed by secular power.26

Chapter VI: That Peter of Alexandria Could in No Way Have Been Absolved by Imperial Sentence Alone, and That Only the First See Could Have Loosed the Holder of the Second; for the Inferior Cannot Absolve the Superior

By which it is the more manifestly approved that Peter of Alexandria could in no way at all have been absolved by imperial sentence alone27 — where, if pontifical assent is also alleged to have joined [the imperial sentence], we ask whether it preceded or followed.

If it followed, nevertheless we return to this point: that an absolution prefaced and principally begun by secular power cannot have force; and the pontifical assent that followed was rather of flattery than of legitimate sanction.28

If it preceded, let it be shown by whom and where it was conducted: whether it was celebrated according to the rule of the Church, whether it proceeded from paternal tradition, whether it was brought forth in the manner of the elders, whether it was set forth by competent examination. Where doubtless it must be asked: whether it was celebrated by synodal congregation — which, in the reception of one condemned and the expulsion of a Catholic, since this is a new cause, it is most certain ought to have been done; whether it was referred to the First See, whose sentence it concerned, by which Peter was held bound, according to the rules of the Church; whether the same [authority] which had bound, also loosed; whether [the absolution] could have been dissolved while that [authority] which had bound did not dissolve [it] — nay rather, did not even know [of it].29 If these things have not been done, by what manner, by what rite, is Peter of Alexandria alleged to have been absolved? — since he could neither have been legitimately freed by bishops and by ecclesiastical laws, nor could he have been absolved at all by secular power apart from the path of the Church.

But it may perhaps be said: “The emperor did not absolve [him], but asked of the bishops that he be absolved.” All the more should it have been suggested by the bishops to the emperor making the request, that if he wished [Peter] to be legitimately absolved, the legitimate absolution of the ecclesiastical procedure should come about, and all those things which have been said above should be observed according to the path of the Church.30

Especially since it concerned the bishop of the Second See — [who] could not be absolved by any inferior whatsoever, but by the First See by right.31 For indeed the inferior cannot absolve the superior: only the superior, therefore, fittingly absolves the inferior.32

Accordingly, the bishops of inferior position, who knew that they could in no way at all loose the one superior to themselves without the First See — especially one whom they knew to be bound by its sentence — did not so much, by a transgressing absolution, strip him entirely [of the bond], but rather entangled themselves by their transgression.33

Thus the absolution of Peter does not stand from either source — because they could not have absolved a guilty man by a transgressing absolution, [being themselves] guilty; and with Catholic bishops everywhere driven out, and heretics put in their place, or those who were held polluted by the communion of heretics, also polluted by the insincerity of sacred religion — they were as unable to absolve their partner as they themselves remained unabsolved; and therefore as transgressors of the ecclesiastical rule, and as defilers of the integrity of sacrosanct communion by association with the perfidious, they could pronounce concerning a most similar guilty person whatever judgment they were able [to pronounce, which was none].34 For of the Catholic bishops throughout the whole East, whoever stood firm has been ejected; or [if] he remained, [it was because] he consented to the error and did not withdraw himself from the contagion of those erring.

Chapter VII: That Those Whose Conduct Has Confounded Catholic and Apostolic Purity Throughout the East Cannot Be the Judges of Anyone’s Error; and That If Catholic Bishops Were Being Expelled, Only Heretics Could Have Been the Ones Preserved

What judgment then could there have been from such persons concerning anyone’s error — who are shown never to have not erred,35 and who, with the confession of heretics and Catholics together commingled, [are shown] to have disturbed all the seats of true and sincere religion, and to have confounded Catholic and Apostolic purity?

Behold those who could absolve the guilty, who themselves are taught to have been made guilty before all others! Behold those with whom a synod was to have been entered upon for absolving the guilty!36

If the Catholic faith and communion were being preserved, why were Catholic bishops being expelled? If Catholic bishops were being expelled, how were heretics not the only ones being preserved?37