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| To Proculus and Cylinus
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Letter CCXIX.
(a.d. 436.)
To Proculus and Cylinus, Brethren
Most Beloved and Honourable, and Partners in the Sacerdotal Office,
Augustin, Florentius, and Secundinus Send Greeting in the
Lord.
1. When our son Leporius, whom for his
obstinacy in error you had justly and fitly rebuked, came to us
after he had been expelled by you, we received him as one afflicted
for his good, whom we should, if possible, deliver from error and
restore to spiritual health. For, as you obeyed in regard to him
the apostolic precept, “Warn the unruly,” so it was our part to
obey the precept immediately annexed, “Comfort the feeble-minded,
and support the weak.”2957
His error was indeed not
unimportant, seeing that he neither approved what is right nor
perceived what is true in some things relating to the only-begotten
Son of God, of whom it is written that, “In the beginning was the
Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” but that
when the fulness of time had come, “the Word was made flesh, and
dwelt among us;”2958
for he denied that God became man,
regarding it as a doctrine from which it must follow necessarily
that the divine substance in which He is equal to the Father
suffered some unworthy change or corruption, and not seeing that he
was thus introducing into the Trinity a fourth person, which is
utterly contrary to the sound doctrine of the Creed and of Catholic
truth. Since, however, dearly beloved and honourable brethren, he
had as a fallible man” been overtaken” in this error, we did
our utmost, the Lord helping us, to instruct him “in the spirit
of meekness,” especially remembering that when the “chosen
vessel “gave this command to which we refer, he added,
“Considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted,”—lest some,
perchance, should so rejoice in the measure of spiritual progress
as to imagine that they could no longer be tempted like other
men,—and joined with it the salutary and peace-promoting
sentence, “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law
of Christ. For if a man think himself to be something, when he is
nothing, he deceiveth himself.”2959
2. This restoration of Leporius we could
perhaps in nowise have accomplished, had you not previously
censured and punished those things in him which required
correction. So then the same Lord, our Divine Physician, using His
own instruments and servants, has by you wounded him when he was
proud, and by us healed him when he was penitent, according to his
own saying, “I wound, and I heal.”2960
The same Divine Ruler and Overseer
of His own house has by you thrown down what was defective in the
building, and has by us replaced with a well-ordered structure what
he had removed. The same Divine Husbandman has in His careful
diligence by you rooted up what was barren and noxious in His
field, and by us planted what is useful and fruitful. Let us not,
therefore, ascribe glory to ourselves, but to the mercy of Him in
whose hand both we and all our words are. And as we humbly praise
the work which you have done as His ministers in the case of our
son aforesaid, so do you rejoice with holy joy in the work
performed by us. Receive, then, with the love of fathers and of
brethren, him whom we have with merciful severity corrected. For
although one part of the work was done by you and another part by
us, both parts, being indispensable to our brother’s salvation,
were done by the same love. The same God was therefore working in
both, for “God is love.”2961
3. Wherefore, as he has been welcomed into
fellowship by us on the ground of his repentance, let him be
welcomed by you on the ground of his letter,2962
| 2962 A formal written retractation of his errors,
called elsewhere “emendations libellum.” | to which letter we have thought it
right to adhibit our signatures attesting its genuiness. We have
not the least doubt that you, in the exercise of Christian love,
will not only hear with pleasure of his amendment, but also make it
known to those to whom his error was a stumbling-block. For those
who came with him to us have also been corrected and restored along
with him, as is declared by their signatures, which have been
adhibited to the letter in our presence. It remains only that you,
being made joyful by the salvation of a brother, condescend to make
us joyful in our turn by sending a reply to our communication.
Farewell in the Lord, most beloved and honourable brethren; such is
our desire on your behalf: remember us.
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