5.
Then at the close of the epistle they add the following words:--We have been compelled, therefore, to excommunicate this man, who thus opposeth God Himself, and refuses submission, and to appoint in his place another bishop for the Church Catholic, and that, as we trust, by the providence of God--namely, the son of Demetrianus, a man of blessed memory, and one who presided over the same Church with distinction in former times, Domnus by name, a man endowed with all the noble qualities which become a bishop. And this fact we have communicated to you in order that ye may write him, and receive letters of communion 1 from him. And that other may write to Artemas, if it please him; and those who think with Artemas may hold communion with him, if they are so minded.
koinonika grammata. On this Valesius gives the following note:--The Latins call these litterae communicatoriae, the use of which is of very ancient date in the Church. They called the same also formatae, as Augustine witnesses in Epistle 163. There were, moreover, two kinds of them. For there were some which were given to the clergy and laity when about to travel, that they might be admitted to communion by foreign bishops. And there were others which bishops were in the way of sending to other bishops, and which they in turn received from others, for the purpose of attesting their inter-communion; of which sort the Synod speaks here. These were usually sent by recently-ordained bishops soon after their ordination. Augustine, Epistle 162; Cyprian, in the Epistle to Cornelius, p. 320; and the Synodical Epistle of the Council of Sardica, appear to refer to these, though they may refer also to the formatae. [Vol. i. p. 12, n. 9.] ↩
