OFFICIUM CAESARIS
We have consulted our archives.
Following our previous correspondence regarding your unsolicited golden statue dedication, several members of our administrative staff suggested we review the imperial records from the Decian persecution of 250 AD. We did so. We wish to share what we found.
In that year, Emperor Decius issued an edict requiring all citizens of the empire to publicly sacrifice to the gods and to the emperor. Those who complied received an official certificate — a libelli — documenting their loyalty.
Many Christians refused. They were imprisoned. Tortured. Executed.
Some, however, complied.
The church had a name for them.
The Lapsi. The fallen ones.
They were excommunicated. Disgraced. The ones who had bowed — even at sword point, even with lions in the next room — were considered to have betrayed something so fundamental that entire church councils were convened to debate whether they could ever be forgiven.
We are a pagan empire and even we found this rather severe.
But the standard was clear: capitulation under mortal threat was considered a profound spiritual failure. The church did not offer much grace to those who had traded their confession for a certificate.
We raise this not to lecture. We are, after all, the ones who built the arenas.
We raise this because we have now reviewed your case against that standard.
Our archivists have searched the relevant files thoroughly. We can find no record of any threat. No edict. No soldiers. No lions.
Just enthusiasm.
We are not theologians. We have said this before. But we were, for several centuries, the people your predecessors were supposed to be refusing. We know what capitulation looks like. We processed the paperwork.
This does not look like capitulation under duress.
This looks like something the lapsi — disgraced, excommunicated, and desperate for forgiveness — could not have imagined even in their darkest moment.
They fell under pressure.
You leapt.
Roma Locuta Est.
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