Letter 3

From: Ferrandus, deacon of Carthage To: Deacons Pelagius and Anatolius (in Rome) Date: ~544 AD Context: Ferrandus writes to two Roman deacons (one of whom, Pelagius, would later become pope) opposing the Three Chapters edict of Emperor Justinian, which had condemned three deceased theologians associated with the Council of Chalcedon — a move Ferrandus regarded as an attack on Chalcedon itself. Ferrandus, deacon of Carthage, to the most holy deacons Pelagius and Anatolius of the Roman church, greetings in Christ. The edict of the Emperor condemning the Three Chapters [Justinian's condemnation of the writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret of Cyrrhus, and Ibas of Edessa, all associated with the Antiochene theological tradition and with the Council of Chalcedon] has produced a crisis of conscience here in Carthage that I want to communicate to you who are near the center of the church's decision-making. The theology of the Three Chapters is complex, and I will not pretend that every position taken by the condemned authors was correct. But the manner of the condemnation — of men who are dead, who cannot defend themselves, who were received into communion by the Council of Chalcedon and never formally condemned while alive — sets a precedent that I believe is dangerous to the Chalcedonian settlement itself. If the council's reception of a person can be overridden after his death by an imperial edict, then the council's authority is subordinate to imperial will. This is precisely the principle that the Chalcedonian settlement was meant to establish against: the principle that theological truth is determined by the emperor rather than by the church's conciliar discernment. I urge you to resist this edict with all the authority at your disposal. Ferrandus