Roman Council, 860 and 863

Chap. 5. If anyone condemns dogmas, mandates, interdicts, sanctions or decrees, promulgated by the one presiding in the Apostolic See, for the Catholic faith, for the correction of the faithful, for the emendation of criminals, either by an interdict of threatening or of future ills, let him be anathema. *

Chap. 7. Truly indeed we must believe and in every way profess that our Lord Jesus Christ, God arid Son of God, suffered the passion of the Cross only according to the flesh; in the Godhead however, he remained impassible, as the apostolic authority teaches and the doctrine of the Holy Fathers most clearly shows.

Chap. 8. Let these however be anathema, who say that our Redeemer Jesus Christ and Son of God sustained the passion of the Cross according to His Godhead, since it is impious and detestable to Catholic minds.

Chap. 9. For all those who say that these who believing in the most holy font of baptism are reborn in the Father, in the Son, and in the Holy Spirit, are not equally cleansed from original sin, let it be anathema.

[From epistle (8) "Proposueramus quidem" to Michael the Emperor, 865]

. . . Neither by Augustus, nor by all the clergy, nor by religious, nor by the people will the judge be judged * . . . The first seat will not be judged by anyone" * [see n. 352 ff.]

. . . . Where have you ever read that your former rulers were present in synodal meetings, unless perchance in those in which (matters) concerning faith were discussed, which is universal, which is common to all, which pertains not only to the clergy but even to the laity and certainly to all Christians? . . . The greater the complaint which is brought to the judgment of a more powerful authority, so much the higher authority must be sought, until gradually it comes to this See, whose cause either from itself, as the merits of the matters demand, is changed for the better or is left without question to the will of God alone.

Furthermore if you have not heard us, it remains for you to be with us of necessity, such as our Lord Jesus Christ has commanded those to be considered, who disdained to hear the Church of God, especially since the privileges of the Roman Church, built on Blessed Peter by the word of Christ, deposited in the Church herself, observed in ancient times and celebrated by the sacred universal Synods, and venerated jointly by the entire Church, can by no means be diminished, by no means infringed upon, by no means changed; for the foundation which God has established, no human effort has the power to destroy and what God has determined, remains firm and strong. . . . Thus the privileges granted to this holy Church by Christ, not given by the Synod, but now only celebrated and venerated. . . .

Since, according to the canons, where there is a greater authority, the judgment of the inferiors must be brought to it to be annulled, or to be substantiated, certainly it is evident that the judgment of the Apostolic See, of whose authority there is none greater, is to be refused by no one. If indeed they wish the canon to be appealed to any part of the world; from it, however, no one may be permitted* to appeal. . . . We do not deny that the opinion of this See can be changed for the better, when either something shall have been stealthily snatched from it, or by the very consideration of age or time, or by a dispensation of grave necessity, it shall have decided to regulate something. We beseech you, however, never question the judgment of the Church of God; that indeed bears no prejudgment on your power, since it begs eternal divinity for its own stability, and it beseeches in constant prayer for your well being and eternal salvation. Do not usurp the things that belong to it; do not wish to snatch away that which has been intrusted to it alone, knowing that without doubt every administrator of mundane affairs ought to be removed from sacred affairs, just as it is proper that no one from the group of clergy and those militant for God be implicated in any secular affairs. Finally, we are completely without knowledge of how those to whom it has been intrusted only to be in charge of human affairs presume to judge concerning those through whom divine affairs are ministered. These 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" [ 1 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.

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

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.

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

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" [1 Cor 3:7] is heard; and not man.

Chap. 104. You assert that in your fatherland many have been baptized by a certain Jew, you do not know whether Christian or pagan, and you consult us as to what should be done about them. If indeed they have been baptized in the name of the Holy Trinity or only in the name of Christ, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles [cf.Acts 2:38;19:5], (surely it is one and the same, as Saint Ambrose * sets forth) it is established that they should not be baptized again.