Folio 166

Council of Rome, 860 and 863

printed p. 134 · pdf p. 166

things existed before the coming of Christ, so that some figuratively lived at one and the same time as kings and priests; this, sacred history shows how holy Melchisedech was, and this the devil imitated in his members, since he always hastens to assume for himself in a tyrannical spirit the things which are becoming to the divine culture, so that these pagan emperors were also called supreme pontiffs. But when it came to the same true king and pontiff, neither has He, the emperor, voluntarily taken to himself the rights of the pontiff, nor as pontiff has He usurped the name of the emperor. Since the same "mediator of God and man, the man Christ Jesus" [I Tim. 2:5] by His own acts and distinct dignities, has so decreed the duties of each power, wishing His own to be lifted up by His salutary humility, not to be submerged again by human pride, so that Christian rulers for eternal life may need pontiffs, and that pontiffs may use imperial laws only for the course of temporal affairs; because spiritual action differs from carnal efforts.

The Form of Matrimony1

[From the responses of Nicholas to the decrees of the Bulgars, Nov., 866]

334. Chap. 3 . . . According to the laws, let the consent alone of those suffice concerning whose union there is question; and if by chance this consent alone be lacking in the marriage, all other things, even when solemnized with intercourse itself, are in vain.

The Form and Minister of Baptism2

[From the responses to the decrees of the Bulgars, Nov., 866]

334a. Chap. 15. You ask whether those persons who received baptism from that man [who imagines himself a priest] are Christians or ought to be baptized again. If they have been baptized in the name of the highest and indivisible Trinity, they certainly are Christians; and it is not proper that they be baptized again, by whatever Christian they have been baptized. . . . An evil person by ministering blessings brings an accumulation of harm not upon others but upon himself, and by this it is certain that no portion of injury touched those whom that Greek baptized, because: "He it is that baptizeth" [John 1:33], that is Christ, and again: "God . . . giveth the increase" [I Cor. 3:7] is heard; and not man.

335. Chap. 104. You assert that in your fatherland many have been baptized

  1. Msi XV 403 B; Jf 2812 (c. Add); Hrd V 355 A; ML 119, 980 C; cf. Hfl IX 347. ↩

  2. Msi XV 408 f. 432 C; Jf 2812 (c. Add); Hrd V 360, 383 E; ML 119, 986 f. and 1014 D; Hfl IV 348 ff. ↩