Sermons & Letters 232

I. When the first Synod of Constantinople had now been concluded, in which, the errors of Eutyches being condemned and their author being deprived of his priestly office and of the prefecture of the archimandrite, the sum of the sentence passed against him was promulgated in various public places of the city of Constantinople; namely, that it might be made known to the monks and other Catholic men by a written admonition, that henceforth they should in no wise communicate with the heretical and contumacious man. But because the cause of the faith was at issue, Flavian, that he might not be wanting in his own duty, with no delay at all interposed, gave letters to the supreme Pontiff Leo, and at the same time directed to him the whole series of the things transacted.

Of this matter the most faithful witness is, above all, the deacon Liberatus, who, having recounted the condemnation of Eutyches, soon subjoined: To these acts the venerable Flavian, joining his own letter, directed it to Pope Leo, and faithfully set forth what had been transacted in the council. Which words, and then the letters of the same Flavian, Baronius, running through them, without any hesitation rightly wrote that Flavian in so acting followed the custom of his forebears. Yet Quesnel disagrees at every turn, and especially, in describing the affairs conducted by St. Leo the Great in the year of Christ 449, when he says: St. Leo, being admonished by Flavian of none of these things which were being done at Constantinople

(having, namely, received letters from Eutyches), that he should neither condemn the innocent nor absolve the guilty, wrote to Theodosius and Flavian. But why Flavian did not write to Leo, he says: It is not difficult to state, whether he believed that Eutyches was fixed by the judgment, or that the cause had been conducted according to the canon of the Church in the council, and that a monk of his own parish, being lawfully condemned, was not to be heard elsewhere. Baronius believes that the letters of Flavian were either intercepted or delayed by Eutyches. But that nothing at all was then written by Flavian is established from Flavian's own letter, whose beginning is: 'Pietate,' etc.

Who does not see that Quesnel wished, too boldly and as if from the tripod, to solve by a few and indeed weak conjectures, according to his own opinion, a question involved in the gravest difficulties? Assuredly too, if we diligently survey those two letters of Flavian to Leo alone, which Quesnel himself committed to print in Greek and Latin, we shall not easily be able to judge to which the first place is due. Nay rather, we shall come to this persuasion, that the other is to be set in the first place in order, as, led by the gravest conjectures, we shall declare a little below. Moreover, who revealed to Quesnel that Flavian gave only two letters to Pope Leo?

For from the Vatican codices we have thus far unearthed a third, written to the same Leo on the occasion of the Eutychian heresy, concerning which two clerics of the same Church of Constantinople, namely Gregory and John, were being demanded. As therefore he wrote this third one, why could he not write a fourth, a fifth, a sixth, and many others, which Eutyches could either intercept or delay, as Baronius reasonably suspects? But that Flavian ought to have written other and yet other letters to the holy Pontiff must be persuasive to me and to all judicious men, especially because the condemned heresy was growing worse day by day, and because a new synod, at the instigation of Dioscorus and by the

instigation of Eutyches, was being demanded to be held with great loss of truth and faith—which Flavian himself sincerely confessed to be by no means necessary, even from those two of his letters which have hitherto seen the light, since by the pontifical authority alone both the heresy which had arisen and the disturbances which were caused on its account would most easily be destroyed. Let Quesnel say, I pray, does he think that Flavian was utterly struck dumb, and gave no other letters to Leo, when it became known to him that the emperor, at the instigation of the eunuch Chrysaphius and of Dioscorus, was now demanding a synod, in order to abolish the things which had already been defined at Constantinople against the risen heresy?

That it is a fiction, those letters of Flavian in the cause of those two clerics of Constantinople prove, as we have already indicated above, which, with the Lord God helping, we shall make public. 2. But whatever be the case concerning the other letters of Flavian, which either perished through the injury of the times, or are even now kept obscure in the more hidden cabinets of libraries or archives, of which Quesnel made not even the least mention in the list which he compiled—led by this persuasion, that Flavian had given only those two published letters to Leo—it is therefore by no means to be doubted that he, that Synod of Constantinople being now concluded and Eutyches condemned, wrote to the Roman Pontiff,

sending the series of all that had been transacted; and therefore that Baronius's conjecture does not falter, by which he affirms that letters of this kind were either intercepted or delayed by the effort of Eutyches. To this conjecture indeed Quesnel himself ought to have subscribed, if he had attended to Leo's letters and to their chronological note. This we do not neglect to do at present, that we may more fully overthrow Quesnel's arguments. For we find the first letter of Leo written to bishop Flavian on the Kalends of March, Asterius and Protogenes holding the consulate, which falls in the year 449. That Count Pansophius carried this letter from the city of Rome to Constantinople, Flavian indicated in writing back to Leo.

But that Flavian gave no letters to Leo before he received the letters of the holy Pontiff from Count Pansophius, I can never be persuaded, being led by the following considerations. For if first we consider the time which Count Pansophius, departing from the City and about to set out for Constantinople, must have expended; if we likewise attend both to certain affairs which the noble man perhaps had to transact with the emperor and the ministers of his court, and to the making of a new journey, that he might come again to Rome—certainly the space of three months could scarcely suffice. Although we ought to believe that the course of navigations was then easier, on account of the abundance of vessels going from Rome toward Brundisium and advancing from Brundisium to Constantinople;

nevertheless that journey was rendered still more difficult in the first, that is in the month of March and April, in which, although the sea is by its own nature tranquil, it is wont to be more and more agitated and disturbed by the force of the winds with immoderate storms. But let us at length grant that Count Pansophius had a prosperous journey, and that his return to the City was not delayed beyond three months, as might be conjectured from another letter of St. Leo written to the same Flavian; what then? Did Flavian defer to write to Leo about the Eutychian heresy so long, until, being urged on by Leo himself, he received the letters? This no one will affirm without a mark of rashness, especially if he attends to the subsequent letters of St. Leo the Great. For St. Leo, in his letter

written on the twenty-second (letter), on the Kalends of June, confesses that he had received Flavian's letters with the synodal acts in the cause of Eutyches. He says that he seizes the occasion of writing from the opportune journey which the honorable man Undantis was first about to undertake toward Constantinople. For he then made very brief letters. But (he promises) about this matter we shall write back more fully through him who carried the letters of your love to us, that we may instruct your fraternity what ought to be determined about the whole cause. Here I could wish that Quesnel and anyone else who indulges in his studies would consider whether the honorable man Count Pansophius carried Flavian's letters with the synodal acts, received from Leo, or another? Not Pansophius indeed.

For those words: 'About this matter we shall write back more fully through him who carried the letters of your love to us,' indicate some particular cleric perhaps of the Church of Constantinople, as was then the custom, sent by Flavian, who should convey the letters and the synodal Acts to the supreme Pontiff. For Leo was to send him back with more prolix letters. Therefore, who would believe that an honorable man, a count of the imperial court, was to be sent back, as though indeed the office of a courier had been entrusted to him? Rather then it must be concluded that the first letters of Flavian with the synodal acts had another bearer besides Count Pansophius, as the two most weighty considerations most evidently demonstrate, which we at once subjoin.

The other is that, a few days having elapsed, being about to send more prolix letters to Flavian, as he had promised in the preceding, he begins them with these words: 'Having read the letters of your love, which we marvel to have been so late, and the order of the episcopal acts having been reviewed.' Why then, in what sense, for what reason would he have called Flavian's letters so late, or if Pansophius had brought them, who had expended the space of three months in going from the City to Constantinople, and again in returning from Constantinople to Rome? If Pansophius had brought these letters with the synodal acts, with the greatest speed, not late, they would have reached the pontifical hands, as clearly appears from the preceding reckoning of the times.

It must therefore be inferred that some other was the bearer of these letters, who, hindered either by the arts of Eutyches, or by the vicissitudes of the times, or by the storms of the sea, tarried long on the journey, and whom the holy Pontiff sent back to Constantinople to Flavian himself with another letter, namely the twenty-fourth. We add that those words, 'so late,' indicate not any delay whatsoever, but a long lapse of time, on account of which Leo's mind was carried into astonishment, as if on account of a thing constituted beyond all order and unusual.

When I had attended diligently to these words a second and a third time, and had on the other hand learned that that provincial Synod of Constantinople concerning the condemnation of Eutyches had been concluded in the month of November of the preceding year now waning, I judged that it could be inferred that Flavian, immediately in the subsequent tenth month of the same year, or at least at the beginning of January of the immediately following year 449, wrote to Leo with the synodal Acts upon the Eutychian affair, by no means having awaited Leo's letters, which he affirms that he received through the honorable man Count Pansophius.

But if Quesnel should object to me that Flavian, in that earlier letter which he caused to be printed in his edition, openly confesses that Eutyches was accused by the most religious bishop Eusebius, coming to the holy council and by his own voice disclosing to the Fathers of the synod what he himself held, so that as one alien to the right faith 'we deposed him, as all the Acts drawn up concerning him will teach your holiness, which we have also sent with these our letters'; as though he wished to indicate that he had not written to Leo before he sent the Acts drawn up with these letters; I shall at once counter by answering from the rest of that letter:

from the context it is gathered that Flavian had already earlier sent this very same part of this letter to Leo with the Acts transacted concerning Eutyches, and was compelled to write the same again, when, having heard Leo's complaints, he understood that he had not yet received both the letters and the drawn-up Acts. This those words plainly uttered seem to intimate: 'as all the Acts drawn up concerning him will teach your holiness, which we have also sent with these our letters.' But that here he speaks of a matter already carried into execution in past time, and of these letters written at another occasion, the third subsequent part of these letters, which he last added and subjoined to the earlier, ought to seem so to judicious men.

For, having narrated the disturbances that had arisen on this account in the Church of Constantinople, and the deed done, then concerning the placards publicly posted by Eutyches—full, namely, of insults and lies—and then concerning the petitions offered to the emperor, filled with arrogance and petulance, he makes his advance to Leo's letters, which he had recently received. 'But (he says) these things having thus been transacted in due sequence, the letters of your holiness were delivered by the count Pansophius, worthy of all admiration.' Let Quesnel say when Leo's letters were delivered to Flavian by Pansophius. Was it not after Flavian inserted the synodal Acts with the preceding part of these letters into the letter to Leo, whom he asserts to have received too late the holy

Pontiff? If those words, even considering the order of the discourse, can bear another true sense without any distortion, learned men will be able to affirm it. But now another consideration, which we draw from the Works of the same Leo, will indicate that they can bear no other sense. Once and again the holy Pontiff, in his two letters, namely the twenty-second and the twenty-fourth, made the Constantinopolitan bishop himself more certain that Flavian's letters with the synodal acts had been delivered to him (but too late); of which letters the one was written on the Kalends of June, but the other on the Ides of the same month, when, namely, he sent back Flavian's legate to Constantinople with fuller instruction.

It was therefore not necessary that he should make further mention of these letters with the synodal Acts as received, unless, upon the return of Count Pansophius, he had repeated the same letters with copies of the Acts. But that Flavian repeated both, Leo's thirty-second letter reveals, which was given on the Kalends of July of the same year. Since indeed the beginning of this letter is this: 'I have received the letters of your love, with the acts which have been drawn up among you concerning the question of the faith,' I easily came into this opinion, that then only was that letter delivered to Leo with all its parts, and with the new appendix, as it holds the first place in the Quesnellian edition. And indeed this was indicated to us from the text of that letter.

For Pope Leo, having admonished Flavian concerning the more recent letters and synodal acts received, makes no further mention of Eutyches, of his errors and of his appeal to the Apostolic See, concerning which matters he had sufficiently discoursed in the preceding letters; but only meets that new appendix of the repeated letter, saying: 'Although it evidently appears that the matter of which we treat by no means requires a synodal treatment; nevertheless, dearest brother, I signify that those things have followed which it pleased me to appoint in this part.' That these words ought to be referred to that which the aforesaid Flavian had most recently written to Leo in the appendix of his letter, no one will go so far as to deny. For when Flavian said that he had received the Roman Pontiff's

letters, after he had directed the synodal acts of the Eutychian condemnation with his own letters, and matters having been thus transacted and dispatched, he affirms that the letters of his holiness were given to him by Count Pansophius, by which he was informed that Eutyches had written documents full of all deceit and cunning, saying that at the time of judgment he had appealed to your holiness, and therefore he was spreading a rumor that on that account a general synod was to be held. Yet at present we have judged that nothing is to be discussed concerning this Eutychian appeal, for we shall treat of it in its own place. 4.

In the meantime, however, we rather adduce other arguments by which it is clearly understood that Flavian, once Eutyches had been condemned and deposed, reasoned otherwise than Quesnel and the innovators have imagined; and that therefore he not only thought of writing, but in fact did write to Leo the pontiff concerning the judgment held at Constantinople. Indeed he acknowledged that the supreme summit and authority of the priesthood was established in Leo himself, since he plainly appealed to him as the lawful guarantor of the Catholic religion, to whom it belongs to vindicate the common cause and the settlement of the holy Churches. Secondly, he asks the same pontiff that by his own writing he would be pleased to have held as ratified and valid the canonical deposition against him, namely against Eutyches, which he had carried out.

Thirdly, keeping in mind that saying which Christ had spoken to Peter concerning the confirming of the faith of the brethren, he adds: 'Confirm the imperial faith of our most Christian and Christ-loving emperor. For the matter needs only an impulse and support from you, which through your prudence will straightway bring all things to tranquillity and peace.' If therefore the matter, on Quesnel's authority, had been transacted and concluded in the provincial synod of Constantinople; if likewise all rights concerning that kind of judgment resided in the bishop of Constantinople, why does Flavian appeal to Leo, saying that the matter needs the impulse and support of the Apostolic See, that all things may at once be brought to tranquillity and peace?

Unless indeed my opinion deceives me, the condemnation of that heresy would have been ratified by Leo; and unless the tumults that had been stirred up had been quieted by pontifical authority, the true doctrine concerning the incarnation of Christ the Lord would never have become sufficiently and surely known to the faithful of Christ; nor would the contumacious and rebellious have acquiesced, except, as Flavian says, 'God cooperating, through your sacred letters.' Finally, the same Flavian, not concealing it, asserts that the letters of Leo alone could have prevented the future general synod of which there was rumor, saying: 'The synod which is reported to be about to take place will also be prevented, lest the Churches of the whole world be thrown into confusion.'

From this appendix, then, to this first letter of Flavian, we clearly gather whatever the ancient Eastern bishops thought and judged concerning the authority of the Roman pontiffs, whether in crushing heresies, or in confirming and convoking councils, or finally in receiving the appeals of those condemned. Although some, too boldly and as it were stupidly, under the pretext of defending and vindicating episcopal dignity, resist all these things, nevertheless Flavian's letter, and his manner of writing and acting, most solidly prove and make manifest the discipline and dogma of the Church regarding the Apostolic See, the mother and mistress of the other Churches.

But now let us hasten to make another step, that we may more clearly perceive Quesnel's mind, too much estranged from the reverence and authority of the Apostolic See. He therefore, in order to lend credence to his preceding assertions, and at the same time to show that Flavian never wrote to St. Leo except after receiving that pontiff's complaints, appealed to various other Leonine letters, either written to Flavian himself or to the emperor Theodosius. However, concerning that letter which Quesnel placed as the twentieth in his edition, and which was written on the Kalends of March—the chronological note of which he neglected to observe—lest we should do again what has already been done, here we say nothing.

We merely observe that in this cause the office of supreme judge was due to St. Leo; and that Flavian could not violate the rights of the Apostolic See in a cause of faith. This the holy pontiff clearly asserts, not only in discussing the appeal of Eutyches, but in looking back to the cause of the condemnation: he wishes to know what things had been done by Flavian in the synod of Constantinople. 'But looking back to the cause,' he says, 'we wish the account of your action to be made known to us.'

Nor was Flavian compelled by any injury to render an account of his deeds, since the order of the supreme ecclesiastical governance demanded it, and the will of the emperor was rousing the pontifical solicitude, namely that—all dissensions which had arisen in the Church of Constantinople being removed—the Catholic faith might be fortified by the authority of the Apostolic See. For these reasons, in another chapter of that twentieth letter, Leo asks that it be signified to him by Flavian through a suitable person what novelty had arisen against the ancient faith, which had deserved to be punished by a sterner sentence. 'For,' adds St. Leo…

'…both ecclesiastical moderation and the religious faith of the most pious prince indicate to us much solicitude for Christian peace.' If, therefore, these two things—namely the principle of ecclesiastical governance, to which Quesnel ought to have attended, and the earnest insistence of the emperor—were indicating so great a solicitude to Leo, I do not know with what brazen effrontery Quesnel could have contended that Flavian did not think of writing to Leo about this matter before he learned that the pontiff, deceived by the wicked deeds of Eutyches, had conceived a false opinion of the judgment at Constantinople. Leo the Great, in the first place, by no means wrote to Flavian scarcely having heard of Eutyches, or having received his appeal.

But only then, when he had been informed by the emperor that the Church of Constantinople was shaken by the uproar of many disturbances, and that contentions were engaged over matters of faith. For that twentieth letter, on which Quesnel too insisted, Leo the Great began with these words: 'When the most Christian and most clement emperor, solicitous with holy and praiseworthy faith for the peace of the Catholic Churches, had transmitted to us writings concerning those things which stirred up the uproar of disturbance among you.' Two things, therefore, Quesnel ought to have distinguished here, and to have omitted neither. The one pertained to the imperial writings, the other to the appeal of Eutyches.

He says he wonders that he was informed of the uproar of such great disturbances only by the emperor himself, and that Flavian had not first taken care that (as he says) 'the notice of your report should inform us.' The unity, disposition, and form of the ecclesiastical hierarchy therefore required that concerning the newly arisen heresy and the most grave disturbances stirred up among the clergy of Constantinople, the supreme pontiff should be informed by Flavian the bishop. This very manner of speaking utterly overturns that other Quesnellian fabrication, whereby it is claimed: 'As long as that stain confined itself within the limits of the Church of Constantinople, there was no need for Flavian to implore the aid of his colleagues.'

For, he claims, all the bishops were not ignorant that the whole Catholic truth had been entrusted in its entirety by Christ the Lord, which each was bound to defend to the best of his ability, and to suppress the errors rising up against it, as an ordinary judge, in that portion of the Church which he had received by lot. But when, warned by Leo, he learned that the heresiarch had invaded the West with his letters, spreading his poison, and that ambushes were being prepared against Catholic doctrine by the powers of the world, then he thought it his duty to approach the Roman pontiff:

'…namely that he might both be instructed concerning the whole matter, which was owed to the head of the Church, and might diligently use the favor which he enjoyed with the Augustus, lest the arts of the heretics should spread widely, and the Churches be disturbed by the convocation of a council, in which it was rightly to be feared that wicked men would prevail by their power.' 7. Quesnel's droll reasoning. But who does not understand that it not only conflicts with ecclesiastical rules, but with the words of Leo and Flavian, and utterly perverts the sacred order of the hierarchy? Therefore, on Quesnel's authority, if the bishop of some Church, either by rash judgment, or with the rules of law by no means observed, should condemn someone as a heretic;

if he should cast him down from the presbyterate and his rank, while the stain of that heresy confines itself within the limits of his own diocese, there is no need to implore the aid of his colleagues. But what does he understand by the name of 'colleagues'? If the bishops of particular Churches, whose faith can fail, and has at times been undermined by heresies, I will readily grant it. But if he should contend that the term 'colleague' is to be extended even to the Roman pontiff, the guardian and judge of the Catholic faith, then he overturns and cuts to pieces the disposition and form of unity and true charity, that same power being taken away from him whereby he has the care and the entrusted pastoral office to extend throughout the whole world.

Plainly the Leonine manner of acting and the force of his words indicate that the holy pontiff regarded himself not as a colleague, but as the supreme judge of the transactions and controversies. For by that principle he summoned Flavian to bring to his knowledge the cause and manner of the whole affair, so that he might discharge the office of a judge, not of a colleague. 'Since we,' he adds, 'who wish the judgments of the Lord's priests to be mature, can define nothing in prejudice to any party while matters are unknown, before we truly hear all the things that have been done.' Do we suppose that a colleague addressing a colleague could speak these and those other words, 'we wish to know the account of your action'? All laws assert that an equal has no authority over an equal.

But that Leo, by the authority which he enjoyed, gave command to Flavian, both the whole context of that twentieth letter, and the words of the subsequent letter written to the emperor Theodosius, clearly make manifest. For the emperor, having regard to the order of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, in which Christ the Lord set one as bishop and pastor over the other priests, did not merely implore the aid of the Roman pontiff to abolish those scandals which were spreading more widely among the clergy of Constantinople; but he demanded his judgment, so that both the dogma of faith might be confirmed; that the decrees of Nicaea might be observed; and that he might learn whether rightly or wrongly Eutyches—whom the ministers of the imperial court were patronizing—had been deposed from the rank of the priesthood and from the prefecture of his monastery.

Such a letter of Theodosius to Leo has either perished through the injury of time, or lies obsolete in the coffer of some library. Yet there remains a letter of Leo to the same emperor Theodosius, from which the supreme pontifical rights are clearly gathered, and it is plainly made known whatever the bishops of particular Churches ought to observe when some cause of faith is handled in that portion of the Church which they themselves have received by lot. 8. In this letter, then, St. Leo confesses that he was utterly ignorant of what had been done in so great a cause.

Therefore, because he had not yet received the synodal Acts together with the letters of Flavian, he says he wrote to the same bishop of Constantinople, that he might know it displeased him that he still kept in silence those things which had been done, when he ought first of all to have disclosed everything to him. Not indeed that he might obtain aid, but for the judgment of the cause, which he asserted was owed to him for three most weighty motives: namely, on account of the merit of the cause, the account of faith, and the piety of the imperial solicitude. These required that no place should be open to surreptitious dealings: 'But first,' he says, 'we must be instructed concerning the matters of which he judges him'—namely Eutyches—'to be accused, so that judgment may fittingly be given upon things well known.'

Finally he closes his letter to the emperor, saying that, after the admonition made to Flavian through pontifical letters, he hoped and believed that Flavian would refer everything to his notice, so that, the things which seemed hidden being brought to light, that which accords with evangelical and apostolic doctrine might be judged. Let Quesnel, I pray, observe whether Flavian rejected Leo as an incompetent judge, or despised his admonition; or whether he even obscurely judged that he ought not first have disclosed everything to the Roman pontiff! Or that it did not pertain to the same pontiff to judge what accorded with evangelical and apostolic doctrine?

Or because that stain confined itself within the limits of the Church of Constantinople; or because the whole Catholic truth had been entrusted in its entirety by Christ the Lord not to the Apostolic See, but to all the bishops universally, which each was bound to defend to the best of his ability; and other things of this kind, which Quesnel heaped together by carrying on the greatest trifles, so that—the honor of the primacy excepted—he might feign that an equal authority and jurisdiction was to be admitted in all bishops. 9. We could bring forth here very many things from Leo, by which he affirmed everywhere in his letters and sermons that the prerogative of the ecclesiastical primacy over the whole world belongs and is owed to himself and to his successors.

But lest we should seem to sing out of chorus for the present, we plainly pass them over. 1. In order that Paschasius Quesnel might more easily champion his depraved dogmas, and might be able to peddle the trifles which he had conceived in his mind against the apostolic See of Peter, he everywhere strove to stir up the minds of his readers and to allure them with novelties, since it did not escape him how great a desire novelty is wont to inject into men. From which manner of acting both we and all Catholic writers ought to withdraw, not merely under the pretext of preserving antiquity, but the more diligently to guard against those errors which oppress the truth—more excellent than all things—whether by frauds or by false opinions scattered among the multitude, and bring it into hatred and contempt.

Since therefore the aforesaid writer strove above all to indulge in novelties, in discoursing about the affairs of the Church and the form and principle of its governance, as we ourselves have hitherto explained in the preceding chapters, it is therefore of great importance for our present leisure of writing to inquire into and thoroughly examine that force of truth which can easily defend itself by itself against this man's ingenuity, cunning, and cleverness. About to pursue, therefore, the order of Leonine affairs, there again occur to us the letters of Leo to Flavian, and of Flavian to Leo. And although Quesnel understood exceedingly well that St. Leo…

…the pontiff took up the office of true and supreme judge in the Eutychian cause, and exercised that office with no one gainsaying it, nevertheless he undertakes to harass Cardinal Baronius and to reproach him with soft claw, because he had written: 'From an ancient institution it is without controversy confessed by Flavian and Eutyches, contending between themselves, that the Roman pontiff is the lawful and principal judge of ecclesiastical controversies, to whom both the plaintiff and the defendant of their own accord resort, about to pursue their rights.' 2. Yet Quesnel says slyly that he venerates the pontifical dignity. And at once he adds: 'But since to all the bishops of the Church…

'…share a common dignity with the Roman bishop—Leo himself professing this—far be it that what I venerate in one, I should wish trampled upon in the others. Of our own accord we acknowledge the Roman pontiff as the lawful and, if he be compared with individual bishops, the principal judge of the controversies of the Church: but who therefore was Flavian—whom both the prerogative of his see, and his singular holiness, and his constancy of faith persevering unto martyrdom, ought so greatly to have commended—to be set alongside a rebellious, unlearned, and obscure monk of evil fruit, and that a deposed presbyter should be joined with his own bishop of so great a see, a judge with a defendant; and both, as though contending over dividing a common thing, should be made to stand before Leo, as if about to fight over an uncertain cause.'

'Far be so great an injury from the most sacred assembly of bishops.' These things, and others of the sort, he devises, which he pretends can be chiefly confirmed from the letter of the same St. Leo to Anastasius of Thessalonica, which he noted in the margin, and upon which he flatters himself impudently that his whole depraved interpretation concerning ecclesiastical judgments rests and is supported. But that nothing more effective for the sayings of Baronius and for confirming the truth can be found than that very letter, I shall openly demonstrate in what follows. 3. For in the first place St. Leo…

…the pontiff, discoursing analogically (as they say) about the ecclesiastical assembly, sets up a comparison with the apostle Paul, comparing it to the natural body. In which the connection of the whole makes one soundness, one beauty: and this connection of the whole body requires unanimity, but chiefly demands the concord of the priests. To which he adds: 'Although the dignity be common' (he did not say 'the jurisdiction'), 'yet the order is not general.' For who ever denied that the dignity of bishops, received in the sacred office of ordination, is common to all bishops, or affirmed that one, by the force of the sacred episcopal unction, obtained a greater or lesser dignity in feeding his own sheep?

In this office and honor of feeding, the dignity is common to all bishops: nor on that account is the order general in such a way that anyone may judge concerning any causes whatsoever. For, on the authority of the same St. Leo, among the bishops themselves a discrimination of power must be granted, which Quesnel himself attempts to mix and confound with the honor of dignity. For he adds the example of the apostles. Who, although they were alike in the honor of the office received, nevertheless a discrimination of power or jurisdiction was granted among them: and although all were chosen for the apostolic office, yet one alone was preeminent above the rest. 'For,' he says, 'even among the most blessed apostles, in a likeness of honor there was a certain discrimination of power.'

'And although the election of all was equal, yet to one it was given that he should be preeminent above the rest.' Do you hear, Quesnel? That they are alike in the honor of character and dignity, which admits no degrees, is sufficiently established; but unequal in the prerogative of power, because one ought to preside over the rest. By what reasoning, then, or led by what words of Leo, could Quesnel boast of an equality of rights among the bishops? For not in the exercise of jurisdiction, nor in the passing of judgments, can all bishops claim all things to themselves. Since, on the authority of the same Leo, it has come about by divine as well as ecclesiastical disposition that individuals should be set over individual provinces, whose opinion among the brethren should be held first;

and again that certain ones, established in the greater cities, should undertake a wider solicitude, through whom the care of the universal Church should flow together to the one See of Peter, and nothing anywhere should be at variance from its head. If, therefore, we insist upon this whole context, what do we find that conflicts with the sayings of Baronius? Not the antiquity of the institution, whereby it was established that bishop and presbyter, contending between themselves over matters of faith, should appeal to the Roman pontiff as to the lawful judge of controversies—as we could prove from six hundred more ancient examples, drawn from the histories of Dionysius of Alexandria, Athanasius, Pelagius, Caelestius, Priscillian, Dictinius—which for the present we pass over, lest we seem to act off-stage.

Not those last words, 'to whom both plaintiff and defendant of their own accord resort, about to pursue their rights.' For although between Flavian the bishop and Eutyches the presbyter there was granted the greatest discrimination of rank, condition, and jurisdiction, and the one was the lawful plaintiff and ordinary judge, while the other was an unlearned, rebellious, and obscure condemned monk—as Quesnel reasonably asserts—nevertheless, since the latter did not acquiesce in the sentence passed against himself and had appealed to the one See of Peter, lest Leo the Great should judge with hasty mind concerning unknown matters, he had to hear Flavian the plaintiff and Eutyches the defendant, and even to summon them by letters, that they might disclose the whole series of the deeds done.

But in this, what injury or contumely was done to the prerogatives of the See of Constantinople, and to a bishop of singular holiness, who persevered in constancy of faith unto martyrdom? By no reproach whatsoever and by no disgrace was Flavian's reputation and dignity violated by the supreme pontiff's manner of acting. Nay rather, both before the knowledge of the affairs, and when the deeds done were known, he paid due honor to him, and exercised all moderation and reverence toward him. Just as all his letters directed to the same Flavian clearly make manifest.

If finally he should contend that it is injurious to the assembly of bishops to be made to stand before the Apostolic See for the settling of questions of law and fact, then the care of the universal Church ought by no means to flow together to the See of Peter, then it will be permitted to anyone to dissent from his own head, and it will be all over with the unity of the Church, whose fabric cannot be firm unless the bond of charity has bound the bishops to inseparable solidity. 4. Secondly, who could rightly deny, or would dare to deny…

…that holy Leo, in conducting causes with the bishops, did not provide for and take counsel for the honor and rights of the other episcopal sees just as for his own? Assuredly, even if other monuments were lacking to us, that praised letter to Anastasius of Thessalonica alone would suffice—the very one on which Quesnel insisted, in order to draw and peddle his new wares. For in it, discoursing about various grades of bishops—namely about bishops, metropolitans, and vicars of the Apostolic See—he enjoins and commands that the lawful rights of the metropolitans be perpetually preserved, and that the right of a dignity handed down from antiquity be not violated by the vicars of Thessalonica, though they be legates of the Apostolic See.

Nor did he think that the rights of the metropolitans could on that account be violated, if in judging causes it should happen that the bishops gathered in councils, being at variance, should not come to agreement, either on account of the gravity of the matters or the difficulty of the questions. For he then ordered that these be referred to the judgment of the Apostolic See, reserving to himself and his successors the faculty of establishing the final sentence. For it is read in a very ancient synopsis, canon 7: 'That two provincial councils of bishops be celebrated per year, and if a difficult matter should arise, and not be terminated by the judgment of the bishop of Thessalonica, it should be referred to the Roman prelate.'

Nor did he judge that by this reservation having been made, the rights of the metropolitan bishops or of the suffragans were disturbed or infringed. He also more prudently, and with a stricter mandate and canon, provided for the honor and rights of the bishops. Namely, when he feared lest, under the color of convoking provincial councils, the bishops should suffer violence or injury. In order, therefore, to guard against whatever abuses inflicting injury or ignominy upon the bishops, in the tenth chapter…

…of the same letter he decreed that in summoning the provincial bishops moderation be preserved by the pontiff of Thessalonica, lest under this color the priestly honor be subjected to affronts. And at last he closes his decretal letter with that final chapter to which Quesnel appealed, whose title is so clear, both in the printed and in the most ancient manuscript codices which we ourselves have examined, that we can scarcely doubt concerning the authority of the Apostolic See in re-examining causes long since treated and defined in provincial synods: and then especially, when a business of faith is at issue, and on account of it contentions and scandals arise, just as it is known to all to have happened in the Eutychian cause.

The title, then, of that chapter has these words: 'that if among them' (namely the bishops) 'a contention should arise concerning a matter of business, everything should be disclosed to the Roman pontiff under a report of the proceedings, so that by him what shall have pleased God may be ordained.' Do not all these things cohere with those things which Baronius had written concerning the ancient institution of the Church? Therefore, so far is it from being the case that his sayings are weakened by those things which St. Leo has in his letter to Anastasius of Thessalonica, that they rather obtain more strengthening and vigor. 5. Now let us proceed to the rest. And meanwhile, other things being passed over which we could say about this letter—which we have not only collated and corrected against the Vatican and other manuscript copies…

…but also rendered fuller and more ornate concerning the doctrine of that eighth canon, which we found more copiously and more clearly explained in a certain Greek archetype of the same Vatican library. Moreover, we shall say something about the Greek interpretation and paraphrase of that canon in an appendix which we have subjoined to the same letter. Therefore now it will only be to be inquired whether St. Leo passed judgment concerning the Eutychian cause and the disturbed affairs of the East after receiving the synodal acts and letters from Flavian, or whether he only exhibited and furnished aid and protection to the gravely afflicted bishop of Constantinople.

It behooved Quesnel to affirm the latter, lest he should depart even a little and slightly from his preceding method of discoursing. For after he had said against Baronius that Flavian had stood before Leo not as a plaintiff but as a judge; that he had not brought forward Eutyches to be condemned, but had produced himself as condemned; nor had sought a new judgment from Leo, but had asked that the sentence passed by himself be made known through the care of the Roman pontiff to his Western colleagues, so that all might labor together for the common cause of faith, with common cares, common effort, and common solicitude, he adds in the following chapter: 'Having received the letters of Flavian, Leo promises his aid and effort against Eutyches; and through the illustrious man Rhodanus he sends a letter…'

'…which was also followed by another to Theodosius, in which he professes that he adheres to the Nicene faith, condemns the dogmas of Nestorius and Eutyches, and even requests that a synod be gathered within Italy.' 6. Since therefore two things are there proposed by Quesnel, and are resolved according to the caprice of his discoursing, it will be our task at present to separate the one from the other, and to say something about each. As to the first, we affirm that Flavian indeed stood before St. Pope Leo as a plaintiff; and produced Eutyches as a defendant, already condemned in the provincial synod of Constantinople, yet to be condemned more solemnly and by a final peremptory judgment by the Apostolic See itself. Flavian's prior letter to St. Leo manifestly betrays this.

For whether he wrote that letter immediately after the synod of Constantinople—as we have already most clearly proved in the preceding chapter—or only after he had learned that he was being harassed by Leo with many complaints (as the adversary unreasonably contends), it always becomes evident that he had recourse to the Apostolic See as a plaintiff, about to render an account of the judgment already approved by himself and to obtain its approbation. But if he neither had wished nor ought to have rendered an account of this judgment approved by himself, as Quesnel contends, why did he transmit the synodal acts? Why did he judge it just to make Leo more fully informed concerning all the things done against the newly arisen heresy?

Why, in the end, does he ask that the mind of the pontiff be stirred, as befitted his priestly office, so as to decree that the condemnation pronounced against Eutyches should be held ratified, and to declare this in his own writings? Only because he held, deeply laid up in his mind, this desire, that by this final judgment of the Apostolic See the heresy which had arisen, and the tumults which had been raised on its account, might most easily be destroyed, with God working together, through the most holy letters of the pontiff.

From these observations and turns of phrase it is understood that Flavian did not merely request that the sentence pronounced by him be made known, through the care of the Roman pontiff, to his Western colleagues, but rather sought comfort and defense, whereby (as he himself says) 「you ought by your own concurrence to bring all things to tranquillity and peace.」 Therefore, once Leo alone had approved the judgment of Flavian and of the Council of Constantinople, held it ratified, and confirmed it in writing, the heresy that had arisen, or the tumults that had been stirred up, could be brought to destruction, and all things composed in peace and tranquillity. Here there is no mention of the Western colleagues; no reference by which he might compel them to labor together, with common care, common effort, and common solicitude, for the common cause of the faith.

Merely employing the customary formula of greeting, he closes the letter by saying: 「All the brotherhood that is with you, I and those who are with me salute.」 Whether, then, Flavian appealed to Leo as to a judge, and presented Eutyches as one already condemned and not yet to be condemned by the Roman pontiff, let those judge who are moved and led by no partisan zeal. 7. Equally does that also totter and fall which the same Quesnel subjoined, namely: 「Upon receiving Flavian's letter, Leo promises his aid and effort against Eutyches.」 We find, in truth, not a single word in that letter which he sent by way of the Rhone that savors of any such phrase or could be so interpreted.

For he then wrote a very brief letter, seizing the opportunity afforded by the journey which that honorable man Rhodanus was straightway undertaking toward Constantinople. Yet in it he omitted none of those things that befitted the supreme and principal judge of the Church. For, being now more fully informed from Flavian's letters and from the reading of the synodal Acts that Eutyches held opinions concerning the faith otherwise than is fitting..., one who ought not to have deviated from the Catholic tradition, but is bound by all to persist in the same belief. In the meantime he deferred writing at greater length, but promises to write more fully on the same matter: so that (he says) 「we may instruct your fraternity what ought to be determined concerning the whole cause.」

Nor indeed does he claim and assign to himself merely a universal teaching authority from the words just praised, but in what follows he also pledges that he will hereafter undertake the true role of judge and vindicator, adding: 「For we do not suffer him (Eutyches, that is) to persist in the depravity of his conviction, nor your beloved self, who resist with zeal for the faith a depraved and foolish error, to be troubled by the prolonged assault of the opposing party.」 Let Quesnel, I beseech, attend to this entire passage of the discourse, and sincerely confess whether these things can be understood merely of a colleague bringing aid and expending effort together with Western colleagues. For the cause, although it pertained to the common faith, yet was engaged not in the West but in the East.

Flavian himself was troubled by assault not from the Westerners but from the Easterners. If, therefore, Leo had not held supreme right and supreme power and jurisdiction over the Easterners, by what reason or in what sense would he have promised his ministry, both to judge concerning the Eutychian depravity and to vindicate Flavian's great zeal from the prolonged assault of the opposing party? 8. And indeed that Leo, without any dispute, exercised both offices—that of supreme judge, namely, and of vindicator, as well as of universal teacher—in the cause of which we treat, is gathered from his celebrated letter which they call the Dogmatic, written to the same Flavian a few days later.

I pass over that in the opening of that letter he said he had received Flavian's letter with the synodal Acts too late. I pass over likewise that he expounded the whole dogma of the Incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ by divine inspiration, and branded Eutyches as foolish and insane, as one who was unwilling to understand that he might do well, and who had even devised iniquity upon his bed—things which make plain that Leo claimed for himself the roles of a true judge and teacher; let me only be permitted to dwell upon the final chapter of that letter, and to argue from it whether Quesnel has reasoned rightly or wrongly in the foregoing.

For he did not refer the examination of the Eutychian cause to other Western bishops, but, having himself surveyed the synodal Acts, found certain things worthy of reprehension and reform, in no way consonant with the rules of ecclesiastical law, which ought necessarily to have been guarded against by the Easterners assembled in synod, lest the faith of the Incarnation—concerning the two natures existing in Christ after the union—should collapse. For he says: 「But when, at the interlocution of your examination, Eutyches replied, saying: I confess that our Lord was of two natures before the union, but after the union I confess one nature.」

For this assertion, being utterly contrary to the dogmas of the faith, when Eutyches had brought it forth in the course of interlocution, was by no means to be heard with impunity and without ecclesiastical censure, but was to be pierced through with anathema and execration, as something repugnant to the symbol of the apostles. Wherefore the holy pontiff, moved with the greatest astonishment against the judges of Constantinople, rebukes them with these words: 「I marvel that so absurd and so perverse a profession of his was reproved by no reprimand of the judges, and that a discourse too foolish and too blasphemous was so passed over by all, as though nothing that could give offense had been heard, etc.」 Is it not, then, in those Acts...

...did Leo find grounds by which he could more reasonably reprove and censure the judges of Constantinople for having conducted themselves less regularly or canonically in the examination of the Eutychian cause and in the compilation of the synodal Acts? Does he not judge that assertion of Eutyches to be impious and blasphemous—the very one which Flavian, together with that whole synod, deemed worthy of no censure, or at least neglected to mark with the censor's rod? Eutyches could indeed have supposed, from the synod's manner of proceeding, that he had spoken either rightly or tolerably, as St. Leo straightway adds, 「because by no sentence of yours was it refuted.」 Wishing to remedy this evil, the holy pontiff...

...admonishes the diligence of Flavian, that if, through the inspiration of the mercy of God, the cause be brought to satisfaction, the imprudence of an unlearned man may be purged from this plague of his mind. Behold, he decrees the conditions to be observed, in what manner Eutyches is to be admitted into communion, as often as he repents. 「Who indeed (he says), as the order of the proceedings has made plain, had begun well to depart from his conviction, when, constrained by your sentence, he professed to say what he had not said before, and to acquiesce in that faith of which he had formerly been a stranger.」 9.

He commands at last that if at any time Eutyches should repent of having said and brought forth such things against the Catholic faith, coming to the fullness of satisfaction and condemning by living voice and present subscription all that had been wrongly held by him, he is to be embraced with the utmost charity, and mercy is to be shown toward one thus corrected.

For the happy outcome and execution of all these matters, he affirms that he is sending four legates to act as vicars of the pontiff in the East, together with a faithful notary, 「trusting (he says) in the aid of the Godhead, that he who had erred, his depravity of thought being condemned, may be saved.」 Let it therefore be permitted me, at the close of the present contention, to ask Quesnel and any other whomsoever whether this can be a manner of acting of a colleague toward a colleague. First of all, Leo reproves the synodal Acts of Constantinople as irregularly made. Secondly, by his own authority he condemns the heretical proposition dissembled by the judges of Constantinople and proscribed by no anathema.

Thirdly, he orders that pardon be granted to Eutyches should he perhaps at some time do penance, and he establishes the manner in which the penitent is to be received. Fourthly, in order that all things enjoined by him might faithfully be committed to execution, he sends from his own side four legates, acting as vicars of the pontiff, who together with the notary Dulcitius should expend their labor that the heresy be abolished and the aroused tumults composed. Had Quesnel attended to this, or not dissembled it, are we to believe that he applied so much study to turning all things upside down, and, led by envy, hatred, and an excessive lust for quarreling, sought to bring the rights of the Apostolic See to ruin? Cultivators of truth, such as Quesnel boasts himself to be, are enemies of fraud.

And therefore he ought by no means to have passed over, or interpreted in a perverse sense, those things which we have received from our elders for the universal governance of the Church; and this all the more because St. Leo the pontiff, ever consistent with himself, also expounds more amply, in his letter to Julian of Cos, what he had said in the closing of that letter, showing that it was necessary that, in order to render an account of his profession, Eutyches 「should be pressed by frequent interrogations of the judges, nor should anything empty flow past unheeded which appeared to be poured out only from the draught of poisonous dogmas. Since indeed judgments have been established either for the settling of controversies or for the punishing of misdeeds.」

If judges do not press the accused, or those charged with crimes, with frequent interrogations, they can by no means sufficiently come to the knowledge of the truth, nor can crimes be duly and canonically proved or attested, as in inquiries concerning the faith it has always been judged necessary. Therefore that Quesnellian assertion also totters and falls, namely that in the Acts of the Council of Constantinople nothing at all occurred that was not done duly and canonically. Since we find one thing that was proscribed by the Apostolic See, and understand that the judges themselves, and Flavian himself, were deservedly reproved, for whose cause a new judgment had to be instituted according to the rules prescribed by the same St. Leo...

...as prescribed by Leo in both letters just now praised. Now indeed let us take up discourse concerning the appeal of Eutyches.