A Source Book for Ancient Church History - Mirrors

631our action to remove the obstacle of the same heresy, warns usto set in order the ecclesiastical laws concerning church matters.Therefore let it be a matter of joy and gladness to you that thecanonical order is being brought back to the lines of the times ofour fathers, in the sight of God and to our glory.II. From the Statement of Faith.There is present here all the famous nation of the Goths, esteemedfor their real bravery by nearly all nations, who, however, bythe error of their teachers have been separated from the faith andunity of the Catholic Church; but now, agreeing as a whole withme in my assent to the faith, participate in the communion ofthat Church which receives in its maternal bosom a multitude ofdifferent nations and nourishes them with the breasts of charity.Concerning her the prophet foretelling said: “My house shall becalled the house of prayer for all nations.” For not only does theconversion of the Goths add to the amount of our reward, butalso an infinite multitude of the people of the Suevi, whom underthe protection of Heaven we have subjected to our kingdom, ledaway into heresy by the fault of an alien, 221 we have endeavoredto recall to the source of truth. Therefore, most holy Fathers, Ioffer as by your hands to the eternal God, as a holy and pleasing [577]offering, these most noble nations, who have been attached byus to the Lord's possessions. For it will be to me in the day of theretribution of the just an unfading crown and joy if these peoples,who now by our planning have returned to the unity of theChurch, remain founded and established in the same. For as bythe divine determination it has been a matter of our care to bringthese peoples to the unity of the Church of Christ, so it is a matterof your teaching to instruct them in the Catholic dogmas, bywhich they may be instructed in the full knowledge of the truth,221 In 465, under the influence of the Visigoths, the Suevi, formerly Catholic,had embraced Arianism.