Sermons & Letters 174

By many and manifest proofs it has been demonstrated to me—and I rejoice—with how great an affection you consult for the universal Church; and, as soon as it was permitted, I did not delay to obey the precepts of your piety, sending Domitian and Geminian, my brothers and fellow bishops, who among you, carrying out the entreaties of my solicitude, might supplicate for your quiet on behalf of the evangelical doctrine, and obtain the liberty of the faith in which, according to the erudition of the Holy Spirit, you yourself especially excel, the enemies of Christ being driven far off—who, even had they wished to conceal their frenzy, would not lie hidden, because one thing is the holy simplicity of the Lord's flock, another the simulation of beasts lurking under the clothing of sheep;

nor can those now creep in through hypocrisy whom the frenzy of so great a madness has made manifest. Recognize therefore, august and venerable Emperor, unto how great a bulwark of the whole world you have been prepared by divine providence, and understand what aid you owe to your mother the Church, which glories chiefly in you as her son. Let not the contests that have been extinguished rise up again with revived commotions against the triumphs of the Almighty's right hand; especially since this is by no means permitted to the long-condemned audacities of the heretics, and this fruit is owed to pious labors, that the whole fullness of the Church may remain secure in the solidity of its unity, and that nothing whatsoever of the well-ordered things be re-examined:

because after legitimate and divinely inspired constitutions, to wish to contend is not the mark of a peaceful spirit, but of a rebellious one, since the Apostle says: For to strive about words is profitable to nothing, but to the subversion of the hearers (2 Tim. 2:14). For if it be always free to debate by human persuasions, there will never be able to be lacking those who dare to resist the truth, and to trust in the loquacity of worldly wisdom: whereas how much the faith and Christian wisdom ought to shun this most harmful vanity it knows from the very institution of our Lord Jesus Christ; who, being about to call all nations to the illumination of the faith, chose not from philosophers or orators to serve for preaching the Gospel;

but He took from the humble and from fishermen, through whom He would manifest Himself, lest the heavenly doctrine, which was full of virtues, should seem to need the aid of words. Whence the Apostle protests and says: For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the Gospel; not in wisdom of speech, lest the cross of Christ be made void: for the word of the cross is indeed foolishness to those who perish, but to those who are saved it is the power of God; for it is written: I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the prudence of the prudent I will reject. Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? (1 Cor. 1:17-20). For rhetorical arguments and the cunning of debating instituted by men

glory especially in this in disputing, if in uncertain matters and things confused by the variety of opinions they may draw the sense of the hearers to that which each has chosen to assert by his own talent and eloquence; and so it comes to pass that what is defended with greater fluency is esteemed truer. But the Gospel of Christ needs not this art, in which the doctrine of truth has been made manifest by its own light; nor is it asked what may please the ears, where for the true faith it suffices to know who teaches. But those who are deceived by their own inventions—nothing more separates them from the evangelical light than that they do not think the truth of the Lord's incarnation pertains to human, that is, our, nature:

as though it were unworthy of the glory of God, that the majesty of the impassible Word should assume the reality of mortal flesh; whereas the salvation of men could not otherwise be restored, unless He who is in the form of God deigned to take up also the form of a servant. Whence, since the holy Synod of Chalcedon—which was celebrated by all the provinces of the Roman world with the consent of the whole world, and is undivided from the decrees of the most sacred Council of Nicaea—has cut off all the impiety of the Eutychian dogma from the body of catholic communion, how shall there be for any of the fallen a return to ecclesiastical peace, unless he has been cleansed by complete satisfaction? For what license of disputing can be granted to those who have merited to be condemned by a just and holy judgment? that they might receive as true

that most true sentence of the blessed apostle John, by which, amid the very beginnings of the nascent Church, he struck down the enemies of the cross of Christ, saying: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that dissolves Jesus is not of God, but this is of Antichrist (1 John 4:2-3). With this preceding doctrine of the Holy Spirit we must piously and constantly make use, lest, while such debate is admitted, authority be derogated from those things which have been divinely defined, since through all parts of your reign, and in all the ends of the earth, that faith which was confirmed at Chalcedon is preserved in most well-founded peace; nor let him be worthy of the Christian name who breaks himself off from the fellowship of our unity.

Of whom the Apostle says: A heretical man, after a first and second correction, avoid; knowing that such a one is perverse, and condemned by his own judgment (Titus 3:10-11). What therefore the impious parricide committed in the invasion of the holy Church and in the most cruel slaughter of its very prelate, cannot be expiated by human remissions, unless He be entreated who alone can both worthily punish such things, and alone by ineffable mercy release them. But we are not desirous of vengeance, yet we cannot in any part be associated with the ministers of the devil.

But if we should come to know that they depart from the perverse, recover from error, and are converted from the arms of discord to the laments of penitence, we too can supplicate on their behalf, lest they perish eternally: that we may use the example of the Lord's piety, who, affixed to the wood of the cross, prayed for His persecutors, saying: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do (Luke 23:34). But that Christian charity may do this fruitfully for its enemies, let the impious cease ever to provoke the ever-religious and ever-devout Church of God; nor let heretics dare to disturb the souls of the simple people by fallacy: that where in all past times the most sincere faith flourished, now also the evangelical and apostolic doctrine may be able to thrive.

Because we too, imitating the divine mercy as far as we are able, desire that no one be struck by justice, but that all be delivered by mercy. Let your clemency, I beseech you, make use of the suggestions of my aforesaid brethren; whom, as I said a while ago in the preceding epistle, I have sent not to debate with the condemned, but only to supplicate you for the stability of the catholic faith.

And especially let your piety grant this, for the sake of your faith and of the contemplation of the divine majesty, that—the contentions of the heretics being entirely removed—it may deign to bestow a merciful care upon those who have unhappily fallen; and, the liberty of the Alexandrian Church being recalled to its former state, that a bishop may there be ordained who guards the statutes of the Synod of Chalcedon, and is in concord with evangelical discipline, one who is able to pacify the disturbed people. These bishops also, or clergy, whom the impious parricide has driven from their churches, let them be recalled by the command of your piety;

and, with the rest also restored to their former state—those whom a like malignity has made exiles from their own dwellings—that we may rejoice fully and perfectly in the grace of God and in the merit of your faith, without any din of contentions now. For if anyone be so forgetful of Christian hope and of his own salvation that, unto the overthrow of the most sacred Council of Nicaea, he presume by any disputation to violate the evangelical and apostolic decree of the holy Synod of Chalcedon, him, together with all the heretics who have thought impious and detestable things concerning the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, we condemn with a like anathema and equal execration:

so that both to those corrected by legitimate satisfaction the remedy of penitence be not denied, and against those who resist, the synodal sentence, which is full of truth, may remain in force. Given on the sixteenth day before the Kalends of September, in the consulship of Leo and Majorian, Augusti. 1. Among all the epistles of Leo, two above the rest are found most celebrated both among the Latins and among the Greeks: Epistle 28, to Flavian, and the following one to Leo Augustus: inasmuch as they more fully explain and defend the catholic dogma against the Eutychian heresy. Here, when the epistles of St. Leo published on behalf of the faith are praised, express mention is made especially of these two:

and just as Epistle 28, to Flavian, was called the first tome, so indeed this one, to Leo Augustus, is named the second tome by Martin I in the Lateran Council in these words: Of the second volume of blessed Leo, Roman pontiff, addressed to the emperor Leo. Here in professions of faith the doctrine of both epistles is sometimes declared to be received equally with the doctrine of the councils; and Pope Simplicius, in Epistle 5, to Acacius, wrote of this: For they recognize what is well known also and celebrated among all the powers there, which my predecessor Leo of blessed memory wrote in answer to the consultation of Leo of august memory, and how reverently these things were received.

Hence in the ancient Lectionaries this epistle also is read as inserted, as may be seen in the Vallicellan codex XXVI, and the same is found transcribed in the manuscripts of the collection of the Sermons of St. Leo, which derives its origin from the Lectionaries. Compare the manuscripts of the Vatican Basilica 210 and Barberini 88. A Greek interpretation of the same is also exhibited in some Greek codices, and we shall bring it forward from the Miscellanea of Gerard Vossius, provost of Tongeren, who made use of a Greek codex once belonging to Cardinal Sirletus, but afterwards to Cardinal Colonna. But certain emendations, upon second consideration, we have taken from the Greek Vatican codex 1341, which P. Cacciari employed in the most recent Roman edition. Nor let it disturb, if it is not found in the Chalcedonian collection;

since this collection, as we have shown in the preface, was compiled while Valentinian was still living, that is, before this epistle was written. This epistle was employed with distinguished encomium by St. Ephraem of Antioch, in Photius, codex 228. 2. That the time may be established, which by some is called into doubt, the occasion of the epistle's being written must be recalled. Leo Augustus, in the year 457, in order to blunt the audacity of the Eutychians—who, stirring up tumults and doubts against the Chalcedonian definition, had thrown all Egypt into commotion, and were seeking a new examination and a new judgment—by encyclical letters to all the metropolitans, and especially to St.

He petitioned Leo through those he had sent that, among other things, each bishop should convene a synod of his own province and set forth in letters what they thought concerning the Council of Chalcedon. The holy Pontiff replied at once, that is, on the Kalends of December of that same year, by Letter 156, and at the same time he promised in chapter 6 a fuller letter in these words: 'And lest the page of this letter be drawn out to excessive length, they have been comprised in other letters which accord with the assertion of the catholic faith, so that, although the things which have been proclaimed by the Apostolic See might suffice, these too which have been added might yet lay open the snares of the heretics.' That he satisfied this promise is clear from the following letter, from its subject matter. Tillemont, note.

Tillemont, in his note 70 on Leo, inclines to the opinion that this letter was given either on those same Kalends of December in the year 457, on which Letter 156 was given, or a little later; for it seems to him improbable that the Pontiff should have deferred for eight months and more a letter which, in the testimony quoted, he indicated was already prepared. Hence he thinks that the chronological note appended to this letter should be rejected; and he confirms this from the fact that this chronological note is lacking in most of the manuscripts. Moreover, since he judges that what Leo wrote in Letter 157 to Anatolius, chapter 1, is to be referred to this letter — 'Therefore indeed, as far as I was able, I besought the most pious prince that... he might recognize that the assertions of the heretics tend toward a great blindness of ignorance' —

he asserts with greater probability that this was delivered together with Letter 156 on the Kalends of December. But the words 'I REMEMBER that I promised' make plain that neither together with Letter 156 nor a little after it was this letter given; for these words show a promise made long before. And that in Letter 156 a verb of past time, 'have been comprised,' indicates these letters as already prepared and written need in no way move one from believing that this promise was so long deferred. For that it was familiar to Leo to employ the past tense of a thing which was believed to be soon future, though it was afterward put off to a longer time, we have shown elsewhere by other examples. Moreover those words in chapter [1] of this letter,

'on a faithful occasion I discharge it,' hint at some occasion which occurred after the promise was made on the Kalends of December. Now the first occasion after those Kalends fell on the 21st day of March in the year 458, when through Philoxenus, an agent in affairs, he sent Letters 160, 161, and 162. He could have joined this letter also to these. But since through the same Philoxenus the emperor had asked that St. Leo would send some of his brethren, well instructed, whom indeed he promises to send in Letter 162, chapter 3, he judged that the transmission of these letters should be deferred to this time; and Domitian and Germinian, the legates, were that faithful occasion which he mentions at the beginning of the letter.

But since these legates departed with the preceding letters signed on the sixteenth day before the Kalends of September, we recognize that this same day is, according to Leo's custom, rightly affixed to this letter also. Hence, out of the two days — the thirteenth or the sixteenth before the Kalends of September — the former of which two codices, the Trecopithanus and the Oxoniensis of Quesnel, together with the editions of Josias Simler, Surius, etc., possess, while the latter is possessed by the Theodorician codex of the same Quesnel and our most excellent Ratisbon codex — we have preferred this last as agreeing with the preceding letters. And it was easy, by a scribe's slip, for the mark VI, its sides being separated, to be changed into III, and to write XIII for XVI before the Kalends of September. Nor let it disturb anyone that most codices and collections lack any chronological note;

for other notable letters lack a chronological note in all the manuscripts; and if we should find such a note in some codex, no one on that account would think it ought to be expunged, unless perchance it were at variance with history. But in the present letter, besides the credibility of several codices of diverse origin — among which especially the Ratisbon commands the greatest credit — not only does nothing conflict, but rather all things accord with what has been said before. 3. Finally, a few things must here be premised concerning the testimonies appended to this letter. St.

Leo had first collected these after the pseudo-synod of Ephesus, and had sent them to the East through legates, in order to confirm the doctrine of his Letter 28. These testimonies, though they were written by Leo in Latin, yet only a Greek version of them survives, which is read appended in the editions of the Councils to the Letter to Flavian in the 2nd act of the Council of Chalcedon, concerning which we have said more at the end of the admonition to Letter 28. But these same testimonies, again appended to this letter, are found written in Latin both in the printed editions and in the codices of Leo after this same letter to Leo Augustus; and besides, these are found separately inserted in the most ancient collections 3 and 5, as well as in the manuscript of the Chapter of Verona, 58.

But among these testimonies there are several which are by no means read in the editions of the Councils in the 2nd act. We believe that this arises from the fact that the holy Pontiff, being about to write to Leo Augustus, used greater diligence and sought out and added new testimonies. Moreover, it is especially to be noted that of the Latin Fathers only three are cited — Hilary, Ambrose, and Augustine — and that their testimonies were taken from Latin sources. There are more testimonies of the Greek Fathers, and these were derived from those translations which had appeared in Leo's age. Thus the testimony of Athanasius is manifestly from that interpretation of the Letter to Epictetus by which the same letter is presented entire in collection 5, chapter 52, and in the manuscript of collection 12.

The testimonies of Theophilus, from two paschal letters, plainly exhibit the version of Jerome; the testimony of Cyril, from the Letter to Nestorius, is transcribed in the very same words in the praised collection 5, chapter 56, and among Leo's letters in collection 12.