(Updated July 15, 2025)
This Author Quote Archive collects pertinent quotes from the Ecclesiastical Writer, Pope John II.
Next to each quote are the Topic Quote Archives in which they are included.
This Quote Archive is being continuously updated as research continues. Quotes marked with “***” have not yet been organized into their respective Topic Quote Archives.
Letters
Pope John II, Letter to Emperor Justinian I (534)1
John, bishop of the city of Rome, to Justinian Augustus, his most glorious and most clement son.
Amid the bright praises of your Gentleness’ wisdom, most Christian of emperors, a certain constellation (so to speak) shines with purer light, because you, taught by ecclesiastical disciplines, through love for the 1149 | 1150 faith and through zeal for love preserve reverence for the Roman see and to it you subject all things and you bring all things to its unity, to whose founder, that is, the first of the apostles [St. Peter], was given the command, when the Lord spoke, “Feed my sheep” (John 21:17). And that this see is truly the head of all the churches both the fathers’ regulations and the emperors’ statues declare and your Piety’s most reverent addresses testify. Therefore it is obvious that in you will be fulfilled what the Scriptures speak: “Through me kings reign and the mighty draft justice” (Prov. 8:15). For there is naught which shines with brighter light than right Faith in an emperor; there is naught which is so unable to be subject to downfall as true religion…For it is this which strengthens your sovereignty; this which preserves your rule. For the Church’s peace, religion’s unity, guards with self-grateful tranquility the sponsor of the deed who has been raised to the heights. For no little vicissitude is granted by Divine Power to him through whom the Church, divided by no wrinkles, is separated and is changed by no imported stains…
Accordingly your Serenity’s letter we have received…by whose report also we have learned that to your faithful peoples you have proclaimed an edict through love for the faith for the intention of the heretics to be removed, according to apostolic doctrine, by the intervening consent o four brethren and fellow-bishops. And this, because it agrees with apostolic doctrine, by our authority we confirm.
Moreover, the text of the letter is as follows [Quotes letter of Emperor Justinian I, quoted below under his section]… 1150 | 1153
Therefore, most glorious emperor, it is clear—as the tenor of the reading and your legates’ report reveals—that you are desirous for apostolic instructions, when about the Catholic religion’s faith you understand these things, you have written these things, which—as we have said—both the apostolic see teaches and the fathers’ venerable authority has decreed and we have confirmed in all points.
Therefore it is fitting for the faithful to write these things in the tables of the heart, to keep these things as the pupils of the eyes, for there is not anyone, in whom Christ’s love burns, who can be an opponent to the faith of your so right, so true confession, since in damning the impiety of Nestorius and of Eutyches obviously and of all heretics you preserve unshakenly and inviolably and with a mind pious and devoted to God the one, true, Catholic faith of our Lord and God, instituted by the Savior Jesus Christ’s instruction and diffused everywhere by prophetic and apostolic preachings and strengthened by the saints’ confessions throughout the whole world, unified by the fathers’ and the teachers’ opinions and consistent with our teaching…
This, therefore, is your true faith, this the sure religion, this all the fathers of blessed memory and the Roman Church’s heads, whom in all things we follow, this the apostolic see has proclaimed hitherto and indestructibly has guarded: whoever has existed as a contradictor to this confession, to this faith, he himself has judged himself to be alien from the Holy Communion, alien from the Catholic Church… 1153 | 1154
Moreover the first of the apostles [St. Peter] through us to them not believing [heretics] speaks the words of the Prophet Isaiah: “Walk in the light of your fire and of the flame, which you have kindled” (Isa. 50:11), but their heart was hardened, as it is written, that they might not understand and the sheep, which were not mine, wished not to hear the shepherd’s voice [cf. Mark 4:10; John 10:26-27]. And since in these matters they maintained the things which have been ordained by their pontiff, we have not at all received them in our communion and we have ordered them to be alien from every Catholic church, unless, since their error has been damned, they shall have signified, after a canonical profession has been made, that they will follow our teaching as speedily as possible. Surely it is fair that those who do not adapt at all their obedience to our ordinances should be considered banished from the churches. But because the Church never closes her bosom to returners, I beg your Clemency that if, when their previous error has been discarded and when their wicked intention has been removed, they shall have wished to return to the Church’s unity, you would remove the stings of your indignation from them, when received in our communion, and grant the pardon of a kindly spirit to us making intercession.
Moreover we beseech God and our Savior Jesus Christ that he should deign to guard you for long and peaceful times in this true religion and unity and veneration for the apostolic see, whose preeminence you, as most Christian and pious, preserve in all matters…
And by another hand: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be always with you, most pious son.
Likewise the subscription: May Almighty God guard your rule and safety with perpetual protection, most glorious and most clement son, Emperor Augustus.
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