Sermons & Letters 104

Chapter I. — If Paul, the herald of truth, the trumpet of the Holy Spirit, betook himself to the great Peter, that he might carry back from him an explanation for those who at Antioch were in doubt concerning conduct under the Law, much more do we, the humble and small, run to your apostolic see, that we may receive from you a remedy for the ulcers of the Churches. For it befits you to hold the primacy in all things. Your see is indeed adorned with many prerogatives. For while other cities are adorned by their size, or their beauty, or the multitude of their inhabitants, and some also which lack these are made illustrious by certain spiritual gifts — upon your see the Giver of good things has bestowed an abundance of good things.

For that city is the greatest and most illustrious of all, which both presides over the whole world and overflows with a multitude of inhabitants. Besides this, the empire which now holds sway over affairs took its origin from it, and imparted its very name to its subjects. But above all, the faith adorns it, of which the divine Paul is a fit witness, crying out: Your faith is proclaimed in all the world (Rom. 1:8). And if immediately after receiving the seeds of the saving preaching it brought forth these marvellous fruits so abundantly, what discourse could be equal to praising the piety which now flourishes in it? It has moreover the sepulchres of the common fathers and teachers of truth, Peter and Paul, illuminating the souls of the faithful.

Whose most blessed and divine pair indeed arose in the East and spread their rays in every direction; but in the West they willingly underwent the setting of life, and thence now illuminate the whole world. These men rendered your see most noble; this is the summit of your good things. And their see God has even now made illustrious through them, while in it He has established your Holiness, pouring forth the rays of the right faith. Chapter II. — Of which matter, though there are many other arguments at hand, your zeal against the infamous Manichaeans, which your Holiness lately exerted, suffices, and by what zeal for divine things your love toward God is made manifest. Sufficient too are the things which have now been written by you, to show your apostolic character.

For we came upon those things which your Holiness wrote concerning the incarnation of our God and Saviour, and we admired the exact diligence of the work. For it declared both truths by the same labour: both the eternal Divinity of the Only-begotten from the eternal Father, and His humanity from the seed of Abraham and David, and that a nature in all things like to us was assumed, unlike in this one thing, that it remained free from sin, inasmuch as it was born not from nature but from free will. And this too the letter contained, that the only-begotten Son of God is one, and His Divinity impassible, which can neither be turned nor changed, just as also the Father who begot Him and the Holy Spirit.

And therefore that He took up a passible nature, because the divine nature did not receive suffering: so that through the suffering of His own flesh He might bestow impassibility upon those who should believe in Him. These and other things kindred to these were contained in the letter. But we, admiring your spiritual wisdom, extolled with praises the grace of the Holy Spirit, which spoke through you, and we ask and beseech and pray and as suppliants entreat your Holiness to bring help to the Churches of God tossed by tempest. Chapter III. — For when we hoped for an end of the tempest through those whom your Holiness sent to Ephesus, we have fallen into a heavier storm.

For the most just prelate of the Alexandrians was by no means content with this iniquitous and most unjust deposition of the most holy and most dear-to-God bishop of the Constantinopolitans, the lord Flavian, nor did a like slaughter of other bishops satiate his soul; but he butchered me too, though absent, with his pen in like manner, though I was neither cited to law, nor present, nor accused, nor questioned as to what I hold concerning the incarnation of our God and Saviour. And murderers indeed, and breakers-open of sepulchres, and invaders of others' marriages, judges do not condemn before either they themselves confirm the charges brought against them by their own confession, or they are openly convicted by others.

But this man condemned me here, nourished as I was in the divine laws, dwelling five-and-thirty stages away, as he pleased. Nor did he do this only now, but even last year, when two men infected with the disease of Apollinaris had set out to him and had woven calumnies against us, rising up in the church he transfixed us with an anathema; and that too after I had written to him and had set forth by letter what I hold. Chapter IV. — But I indeed truly lament the tempest of the Church, yet I study quietness. For when for six-and-twenty years I had governed, with the help of your prayers, the Church committed to me by the God of all;

neither under the most blessed Theodotus, prelate of the East, nor under those who succeeded him in the see of the Antiochenes, did I sustain even the least rebuke; but with the divine grace cooperating with me, I freed above a thousand souls from the disease of Marcion, and led many others from the parties of Arius and Eunomius to Christ the Lord. And I obtained the pastoral care of eight hundred Churches, for so many parishes has Cyrus, in which, by the help of your prayers, no tare has been left, but our flock has been rescued from all heretical errors. He who beholds all things knows how many stones cast at me by the abominable heretics I have received;

how many contests I have had in many cities of the East against the pagans, against the Jews, and against every heretical error. And after so many sweats and labours I have been condemned without a hearing of my cause. Chapter V. — But I await the sentence of your apostolic see, and I pray and adjure your Holiness to bring aid to me who invoke your just tribunal for what is right, and to command that I come to you and set forth my teaching, cleaving to the apostolic footsteps.

For I have writings — some composed twenty years ago, some eighteen, some fifteen, some twelve — certain of them against the Arians and Eunomians, certain against the Jews and pagans, some against the magi who are in Persia, others concerning universal providence, and others again concerning theology and concerning the divine incarnation. There have also been set forth by me, through the divine grace, both the apostolic writings and the prophetic oracles. And it is easy from these to recognize whether I have kept the stable rule of faith, or whether I have deviated from its rectitude. But do not, I beseech you, reject my suppliant prayers, nor despise my wretched grey hairs, treated contumeliously after so many labours. Chapter VI.

— Before all things I pray to be instructed by you whether I ought to acquiesce in this unjust deposition or not; for I await your sentence. But if you shall have bidden me to remain among the unjudged, I will remain, and will thenceforth be troublesome to no man, but will await the just judgment of our God and Saviour. As for me indeed — the Lord God is witness — the care of honour and glory does not touch me, but of the scandal which has been cast in;

because many of the simpler folk, and especially those who by our labour have emerged from various heresies, looking to the see of those who condemned us, will perhaps reckon us heretics, since they cannot discern the perfection of doctrine; and because, though I have held the episcopate for so many years, I have acquired neither house, nor field, nor a single obol, nor a tomb; but I embraced voluntary poverty, and the things which had come down to us from our parents I distributed immediately after their death, as all know who dwell in the East. Chapter VII. — But above all I beseech your sacred and dear-to-God head to bring me aid and help by your prayers.

These things I have suggested to your Holiness through the most reverend and most dear-to-God presbyters, the chorepiscopi Hypatius and Abramius, and Alypius the exarch of the monks who are among us: since the bonds of the imperial letters have held me back from hastening to you, as they have others also. And I pray your Holiness both to look upon them with fatherly affection, and to lend them your sincere and kindly ears, and to deem worthy of your care and providence my old age, harassed by calumnies and assailed without cause; and, above all, to bear the greatest possible care for the faith assailed by snares, and to guard the paternal inheritance whole for the Churches:

so that for these things too your Holiness may receive from the bountiful and generous Lord the rewards prepared. Note: the remarkable fragment of the letter of Anatolius which we append to the epistle — from which we learn that he was ordained after the death of Flavian — was edited by Cotelier from the Royal codex among the Monuments of the Greek Church, vol. I, p. 66. Quesnel inserted it into the second edition of Leo, and prefixed it to epistles 69, 70 and 71, given in the month of July in the year 450, in which the ordination of that same Anatolius is spoken of. But in his observations on this fragment he affirms that about these times (namely of the aforesaid letters of Leo) Flavian died;

to whom therefore Anatolius, having succeeded, gave about the same time that letter to the same Leo, from which this fragment was excerpted. We do not assent. For Prosper in his Chronicle testifies that Flavian, a little after the Robber-council of Ephesus held in the month of August of the year 449, passed to Christ by a glorious end in that same year 449, among the hands of those by whom he was being led into exile. The History of the Eutychianists agrees, which indicates that he, while being deported into exile, died on the very journey at Epipa, a city of Lydia. This death could indeed for some while be concealed by the enemies of Flavian, on account of the Constantinopolitans who greatly favoured him;

Hence the archimandrites, the clergy and the people of the city of Constantinople who sent letters to Leo rather early, around October of the year 419 (as may be gathered from the note on Letter 59), were unaware of the death of that same bishop. But nonetheless it is clear from Theodore Lector that Anatolius had been ordained before the end of the year 449. For in the fragments of that same author collected by Valesius, when the ordination of Anatolius and certain circumstances of that ordination are mentioned, he says: 'Now these things were done during the consulship of Protogenes and Asterius.' Therefore this letter seems to have been written to Leo toward the end of that same year, as also was another of his ordinands, of which mention is made in Letter 74; for such letters used to be written immediately after his ordination.

About the same time, concerning the same matter, Theodosius and Pulcheria sent letters to Leo, and all these letters seem to have been dispatched together. Yet they had not yet reached Rome in the month of March of the year 450, when Leo wrote Letters 60 and 61, in which he assumes that Flavian was still alive. The pontiff could have received them in April or May; what caused this delay we do not know. But since they were proposing a difficult matter which demanded fuller deliberation, perhaps it was on this account that Leo held that conference for whose sake he writes, in Letter 67 to Ravennius, that he had long detained the Gauls Petronius and Regulus; on which see note 2 (885 d).

Indeed this affair of Anatolius caused the pontiff so great a business that he judged four legates should be chosen, instructed, and dispatched to Constantinople, which demanded no small delay in replying: hence it is no wonder if Letters 69, 70, and 71, in which he replies concerning this ordination, were given in the month of July of the year 450. Meanwhile this fragment, excerpted from the letter of Anatolius which was drawn up immediately after his ordination before the end of the year 449, since the precise day and month lie hidden, we have thought fit to place before the letter of Leo to Theodosius, which is dated the 25th of December.