Although I received the letter of your Charity some time ago, I nevertheless wonder that you passed over in silence that opportune occasion for replying which our brother Anatolius necessarily used, since, according to the circumstances of the time and of affairs, more frequent exchanges of discourse between us ought to take place. I indeed, having been more fully informed by the letters of the aforesaid brother concerning those things which heretical rashness perpetrated at Alexandria, have written to the most clement prince, and, as was necessary, have made supplication for the state of the Church, that he might expend the zeal of his devotion upon affairs greatly disturbed. Wherefore, just as I have exhorted our brother and fellow-bishop Anato-
-lius, so also I do not cease to admonish your Charity, that with as many prayers as shall be opportune you may entreat the same most clement prince, whom we have learned to have already of his own accord bestowed certain things for the safeguarding of the Catholic religion; so that the business may not be difficult with him, by whose voluntary solicitude we are anticipated. CHAP. II. That, therefore, which is the chief thing in the cause of the faith. — Obtain by unceasing suggestions that the statutes of the holy Synod of Chalcedon be assailed by no snares of the heretics, nor let it be permitted that anything be shaken from that definition which, from divine inspiration, is beyond doubt in all things consonant with the evangelical and apostolic doctrines. Then with all assiduity demand this:
demand that the state of the Alexandrian Church be recalled into the liberty of the ancient faith, the blindness of the heretics being refuted and driven away — namely, through the providence of Catholic priests — so that in the place of Proterius of holy memory there may be appointed as prelate a man most approved, and of whose faith no doubt can be entertained; to whom, with the security of concord, let the communion of the Apostolic See be extended. For it will be glorious enough for a religious prince, if by his own dispositions not only the whole commonwealth but also the Church of God be at rest. Given on the fifth day before the Ides of July, in the consulship of Constantine and Rufus.
Although I recently directed twin writings to your Clemency — one of which fulfilled the duty of salutation, the other made supplication for the state of the Church — nevertheless, most glorious Emperor, on the occasion which by God's providence has offered itself, it is fitting that both be repeated.
According, therefore, to that confidence which by the inspiration of God you have supplied to the universal Church — appointing, before anyone's prayers, that which was most to be desired by all — we do not cease to give thanks, and to bless the providence of God in the fervor of your faith; you who, with a holy and Catholic spirit, as I have learned from the discourse of my brother and fellow-bishop Anatolius, so resisted the impudence of the heretics that you professed yourselves to be the guardians of the Synod of Chalcedon for the peace of the whole world.
Since this has been most wholesomely defined according to the judgment of your faith, how much more zealously must it be conferred upon the universal Church, that the tranquillity of the Christian faith may profit even your empire, and that heretical wickedness may in no way glory in any of its machinations! Whose stubborn and insidious contention immediately grows quiet, if it be curbed by imperial power. Given on the Kalends of September, in the consulship of Constantine and Rufus, most illustrious men. 1. Quesnel found in the Grimanic codex the two following letters as distinct — one addressed to Basil of Antioch, the other to Euxitheus of Thessalonica and Juvenal of Jerusalem. But in the Ratisbon codex only one is presented, yet with the inscription:
'Leo the bishop, to Basil, Juvenal, Euxitheus, Peter, and Lucas, bishops.' These two last, as we learn from the encyclical codex, are Peter of Corinth and Lucas of Dyrrachium, to whom we recognize the same letter was likewise directed. After the first passage, proper to Basil of Antioch alone, in the same codex it is noted: 'Thus far to Basil'; whereby we are advised that what follows — 'Having learned the things at Alexandria, etc.' — was written equally to Basil and to the others named in the inscription. This inscription and note of the Ratisbon codex agrees especially with what St. Leo writes in Epistle 153: 'It has pleased us also that we should send general letters to the metropolitan bishops, which may strengthen and fortify their mind...'
'Of which letters you shall direct one to the bishop of Antioch, another to the bishop of Jerusalem... But we ourselves have already transmitted similar writings to the Illyrian bishops.' Here three copies of a similar letter are indicated: to Basil of Antioch, to Juvenal of Jerusalem, and to the Illyrian bishops — that is, to Euxitheus of Thessalonica, Peter of Corinth, and Lucas of Dyrrachium, who are more accurately named in the inscription of our Ratisbon codex. But from the Grimanic codex we gather this: that in the copy of Epistle 150, to Euxitheus and the other metropolitans of Illyricum, the words 'throughout Illyricum' were inserted into the final passage:
which, since they in no way suit Juvenal of Jerusalem, were most certainly absent from the letter to him; and therefore we have judged that the name of Juvenal ought to be deleted from the inscription of that letter. 2. These same two letters were of suspected authenticity to Pagi (at the year 457, n. 7), as also Epistle 153, on account of the aid implored of the Patrician Aspar — which two names, placed separately in Epistles 149 and 150, he took to be two persons, the first that of a son, the other that of a father, whereas nevertheless they signify one Aspar, who was adorned with the dignity of patrician; whence in Epistle 153 he is called Patricius Aspar. But since Aspar was an Arian, it seemed incredible to Pagi that St.
— that the Pontiff should have sought help from an Arian against the Eutychians and against Timothy Aelurus, whose patronage Aspar had undertaken. But since the Emperor Leo owed his rule to the Patrician Aspar, it was necessary to have recourse to him who held the highest authority with the prince, that he might either favor [the cause] or not oppose it. And since he had formerly favored the Catholics against the Eutychians — so much so that with Marcian he interceded for Theodoret, who rendered him thanks in Epistle 139 — the holy Pontiff, perhaps at the suggestion of Anatolius or Aetius, in writing to him supposed that he might hope for some aid.
The patronage of Timothy had not yet been detected at the very outset, or at least there was hope that he might be moved by the letters and offices of Leo — with the same hope St. Leo wrote to the Emperor Theodosius, although he knew him to be favoring both Eutyches and the Ephesine brigandage. The style, certainly, and the whole complex of matters point to Leo, as the same Pagi could not deny. Pelagius II's Epistle 3 also, to Elias and the other bishops of Istria — where from the following letter he recites two testimonies — does not permit us to doubt of its authenticity.
But the authority of two so notable codices of diverse origin — the Grimanic and the Ratisbon — so vindicates the names of Patricius and Aspar, that it is plainly a fiction to suspect that these names were inserted in these letters in place of the names of other magnates, as the praised Pagi conjectured at the end of his annotation — especially since the name of Patricius is likewise read in another letter, Epistle 151, which we shall edit from the Ratisbon codex. 3. The date of these letters, marked by Quesnel from the Grimanic codex, labors under a manifest error. For since in the text alleged from Epistle
153, Leo committed to Aetius that he should direct the letter to Basil of Antioch, this was without doubt transmitted together with the very letters to Aetius, and consequently dated on the same day, according to Leo's custom — namely, the Kalends of September. Moreover, from the same letter to Aetius we learn that other letters were sent at the same time to the emperor, to Aspar, and to others. Now we have Epistle 148 to the Emperor Leo, Epistle 151 to Anatolius, and 152 to Julian; and since all these are marked with the Kalends of September, there is no doubt that the two following also were dated on the same day, as indeed we have emended from the Ratisbon codex. CHAP. I.
— We ought indeed to have learned of the ordination of your Charity, according to ecclesiastical custom, by the report of yourself or of our brethren the provincial bishops; but because there were not lacking causes which could impede this care, and because the prince Marcian of holy memory by his writings made your consecration known to us, and because we can in no way doubt your merit, whom we know — from the present necessity, just as we admonish several of our brethren, so also we admonish your Charity by our letters.
For having learned what was committed at Alexandria by the fury of the Eutychians — which I do not doubt is known to your Fraternity — out of that solicitude which I owe to all the Churches of God, I have directed these writings, by which I have judged that your Charity should be admonished, that you may resist their wicked audacities with holy constancy, lest in any of us the common faith be found either trembling or lukewarm; since, by the favor of the Lord — who does not desert His Church in any tribulation — we have so religious and so Catholic a mind in the most pious emperor, that nothing else is to be believed of him than what we proved of Marcian of august memory. CHAP. II.
— Since indeed, even now while our action was still ceasing, the most faithful emperor so abhorred the parricidal crime that he granted no access to the action of the heretics — who, after the enormity of the crime perpetrated, believed this to be possible for them: that, the definitions of the holy Synod of Chalcedon being dissolved, the episcopal council should be summoned into other discussions. And because this, most dear brother, is abruptly hostile to the Christian faith, and is demanded with such great wickedness for no other cause than that the preaching of the Gospel and the mystery of the Lord's Incarnation may be overthrown, I beseech your Charity that you relax your minds in nothing from the definitions of the Synod of Chalcedon;
and that you suffer those things which were composed by divine inspiration to be defiled by no novelty. For I am certain that the most clement emperor and the magnificent man Patricius, together with the whole assembly of the illustrious powers, will suffer the heretics to obtain nothing to the disturbance of the Church, if they see the pastoral minds wavering in nothing. But that this exhortation may reach the notice of all our brethren and fellow-bishops, let the care of your diligence provide; because — as must often be said — the whole Christian religion is disturbed, if anything of the things established at Chalcedon be shaken. Given on the Kalends of September, in the consulship of Constantine and Rufus.