Theotimus the Younger, Bishop of Tomis

(which I do not believe dwells in your mind, having been blotted out from your mind, you endeavor to offer to God the Savior a pure thought, as is fitting, a true sanctification, and an uncorrupted faith. For it is consistent for this to be done by him who has determined to be considered worthy of the incorruptible rewards of eternal life. May God protect you, beloved brother.) ^A

ANNO DOMINI DLVII.

THEOTIMUS JUNIOR

TOMITANUS EPISCOPUS.

NOTITIA.

(Mich. Lequien., Oriens Christ. t. I, p. 1215.)

Leo Augustus wrote to all the metropolitans of the East regarding the murder of Proterius of Alexandria, and likewise to the most reverend Theotimus, Bishop of Tomis. His responsive epistle to him exists with this inscription: To the most pious Lord, etc.

THEOTIMUS’S EPISTLE TO THE EMPEROR LEO.

(Mansi, Conc., t. VII, 545.)

To the most pious and most Christian emperor, our lord Leo, Theotimus, the humble bishop of the region of Scythia.

It is fitting for your piety, venerable Emperor Augustus, to rejoice in the tranquility of the Churches, and to transfer the tribulations and tempests of the disturbed people to the laws of peace through your most tranquil addresses. For indeed God has protected you from heaven by His divine will, so that you may always guard what is sound, whole and safe, by imperial power; and that you may cure with the medicine of your piety those things which are vexed and corrupted. Nothing therefore is more pleasing to God, nothing more acceptable, than that you should understand those things which you have learned from the wisdom of God the Father; and that you should teach those things in which you were most salubriously instructed from the very cradles of your faith. And since you have admonished us through your most sacred letters that we should report to the knowledge of your piety what we believe concerning the holy Council of Chalcedon; may your Serenity know that we believe or consent to nothing more and nothing less than what was wholly and perfectly defined by the holy Fathers in the Chalcedonian Council. For we do not think it right to know anything beyond that which the Holy Spirit has taught through the definitions of so many Fathers. Hence, most ^B mild emperor, both I and the whole Church of God think according to this, and in our consensus we confirm the definitions of the holy Fathers with faith and devout confession. Regarding Timothy, truly, we think thus: because, contrary to the power of prayer, while the bishop is still alive, he was ordained with impudent intent by those who are excommunicated, and the ecclesiastical rule decrees him to be excommunicated: nor does it permit the laying on of hands by those bishops in the holy Church to have any validity, who, violating the faith of Christ, have lost the ordination imposed upon themselves. Now, therefore, making the word of our confession manifest to your most salutary ears, we ask that our Lord Jesus Christ may deign to keep your empire always untouched by any suspicion of wars, strengthened by the vigor of the catholic faith and fortified by the power of the cross. We desire that your tranquility may always be safe by divine Providence, and may the Divinity deign to grant us your imperial crown uncorrupted and undefiled for many years, most holy and venerable lord emperor.

ANNO DOMINI DLVIII.

AMMONIUS PRESBYTER ALEXANDRINUS.

NOTITIA.

(Fabric. Bibl. Græc. edit. Harless, V, 722.) ^AAmmonius, presbyter and oeconomus of the Church of Alexandria; in the year of Christ 458, he subscribed to the epistle of the bishops of Egypt to Emperor Leo for the defense of the Council of Chalcedon. This is the Ammonius the presbyter regarding whom Allatius, in *De libris ecclesiasticis Græcorum*, page 325, brings forward the following from the 56th epistle of Michael Glycas: "These things are confirmed also by the presbyter Ammonius, saying that when Christ descended into Hades, all souls, even that of Judas, were released from their bonds." He appears to be the same person to whom Francis Combefis refers in his *Bibliotheca Concionatoria*, many excerpts of whom appear in the Catenae on the New Testament (especially on John), in which he seems to have drawn from Cyril and Chrysostom. Compare also Richard Simon, *Histoire critique du Nouveau Testament*, book III, p. 410. In Anastasius Sinaita’s *Hodege*, p. 278, he is called "Ammonius the Alexandrian, the most experienced of all the expositors." That he also wrote against Julian of Halicarnassus, the standard-bearer of the Eutychian heresy, is known from p. 266. And on p. 284, before the words *ἔστι γοῦν τὸ παρ' αὐτοῖς τοῖς τῆς συνόδου Χαλκηδόνος ἐπιμεμψαμένοις*, it is read in the MS. Cæsareus CCCVI, according to Nesselius (1): "Ammonius, presbyter of Alexandria, from the work against the heresy of Eutyches and Dioscorus." The most learned Cave thinks he is the same person who is cited in Nicetas’ *Catena* on the Psalms under the name of Ammonius the Younger (2), and of whose *Interpretation of the Acts* a MS fragment is mentioned by Lambecius, book V, p. 154. [p. 325, edit. Kollar. Also in the Medicean-Laurentian codex, cod. IV, plut. 5, no. 2, according to Bandinius I, p. 98.] The Commentary of this Ammonius, a most approved expositor of the Church of Alexandria, on the Hexaemeron, compiled principally from the writings of the holy Fathers and Cyril, is praised by the same Anastasius in the Preface to his Anagogical Contemplations on the Hexaemeron.

AMMONII ALEXANDRINI COMMENTARIORUM IN VETUS ET NOVUM TESTAMENTUM QUÆ SUPERSUNT.

FRAGMENTA IN PSALMOS.

^Aδ'. «Σὺ δὲ Κύριε, ἀντιλήπτωρ μου εἶ, δόξα μου, PSAL. III, VERS. 4. «Tu autem, Domine, susceptor καὶ ὑψῶν τὴν κεφαλήν μου.» meus es, gloria mea, et exaltans caput meum.»