But indeed, in my opinion, Quesnel's conjecture could not gain any greater strength from these words which close his appendix. For although, as we have said, in that inscription the titles of honour are lacking, this perhaps must be ascribed to the fault of the copyist, since on the other hand from those very words, 'to Leo, pope of the city of Rome,' we have all this: that one alone is named, to whom, according to the rights of the ecclesiastical primacy, it belonged to judge concerning matters of faith and concerning the deposition of presbyters. I confess next that no express mention of the Apostolic See is made, and that he omitted also to proclaim its splendour and prerogatives. But what of it? Was this writing, then, whatever it be, sent to many? Away with the fiction!
In the first place, Eutyches was not accustomed, in composing his letters and libelli, to occupy himself in proclaiming the splendour and prerogatives of those to whom he appealed. He merely set forth the account of his own affairs and business, without leisure to conciliate to himself the minds of those whom he needed. If it had not been burdensome to our adversary—who strove to overthrow and abolish the rights of the Apostolic See by feeble conjectures—to survey two of Eutyches' writings, both directed to the emperors Theodosius and Valentinian, he would doubtless not have been deceived by too much divination. 10. For in these he did not proclaim the prerogatives of the emperors, or their supreme dominion, nor was he intent upon conciliating their minds to himself.
He set forth in few words the cause pleaded by Flavian against him, adding: 'I therefore supplicate your serenity, patron of the accustomed orthodox faith, to command the most blessed bishops, on behalf of my slender opinion,' and so forth. And finally, closing his supplication, he used this brief formula containing no praises of prerogatives: 'That, having obtained this'—namely the examination of the proceedings under Flavian—'I may, praising after the wonted manner, give thanks to the Lord, and to Christ the God of all, and to your piety ever.' He has things not unlike in the other letter written to the same emperors, as may be seen in the Acts of the Council of Chalcedon.
Eutyches, therefore, did not use in his writing that copiousness of style by which his luxuriance might feed itself in proclaiming the praises and prerogatives of those to whom he wrote, even though he needed their help and protection. Will Quesnel perhaps deny that he needed imperial protection and patronage? Finally, on the very authority of our adversary, Eutyches addressed the one to whom he writes as a defender of the faith and a detester of evil factions, most humbly asking that the things done against him through treachery should bring no prejudice upon him, nor should he permit him to be shaken and removed from the number of the orthodox.
Who else could ever have rightfully fulfilled all these things, and granted the prayers of the supplicant, save the supreme pontiff, seeing that the matter was already being dealt with concerning a business ordinarily concluded in a provincial synod, and concerning a sentence already pronounced—whose Acts could be invalidated, or rescinded, or reproved, or ratified only by the one and supreme judge? If we desire any certain testimony on this matter, it will help to consult one man, Saint Peter Chrysologus, who, when Eutyches had solicited him by letters to take himself as the vindicator of his cause, replied to him without ambages and any putting-off:
'But in all things we exhort you, honourable brother, that you obediently attend to those things which have been written by the most blessed pope of the city of Rome; since blessed Peter, who lives and presides in his own see, affords the truth of faith to those who seek it. For we, out of zeal for the peace of the faith, cannot hear causes of faith apart from the consent of the bishop of the city of Rome.' Let Quesnel look to it! Blessed Peter alone, who lives and presides in his own see, affords the truth of faith to those who seek it. Nor can any other bishop by his own right hear causes of faith apart from the consent of the Roman bishop.
Whether the things we have written thus far in these three chapters concerning Eutyches' appeal are solid or infirm, only the reader who is led by no partisan zeal will be able sincerely to judge. One thing at last, as a crown, we have judged should be added: namely, that in defending the legitimate rights of the Apostolic See, and in vindicating the opinions of Baronius and Christian Lupus, we have not indulged in our own conjectures. We have wished only to set forth those things which can be drawn from the ancient monuments, upon which we have always laboured most to rely. 1.
It would not have been permitted me to treat and expound the rights of the Apostolic See concerning Eutyches' appeal solely on the faith of the ancient monuments, unless I had also instituted various encounters with the adversaries, who interpret otherwise the form and method of ecclesiastical governance, employing all their force and zeal in distorting either the testimonies of Saint Leo the Great, or the writings of others, which could lead us to a full and sincere knowledge of all things. Now indeed we ought to perform something weightier; and, being unwilling in the least to break the thread of the history which pertains to the second Ephesine synod—which furnished the greatest increase of the Eutychian heresy—
we now at once set about describing it, with the greatest loss to the Catholic faith, and the ruin of the Eastern Churches, and the disgrace of the priestly dignity, and the grief of the holy pontiff Leo, and to the delight of the heathen. In weaving together which history, although very many most eminent men have bestowed their labour, yet since not all were led by the same spirit of truth, hence it came about that they reasoned in one way and another concerning the rights of the Apostolic See; or from that synod—turned into a robbery by the fury and violence of Dioscorus of Alexandria and others—they draw arguments for amplifying more and more the authority of the emperors, but for restricting the jurisdiction of the Roman pontiffs within narrow limits.
I confess indeed that my mind is pressed with the greatest anguish and sorrow on account of this mournful tragedy, which filled the Church herself and almost the whole world with betrayals, murders, squalor, exiles, contumelies, and afflictions. Calling to mind how old rivalries can pervert the hearts of priests, and private hatreds rage; when, namely, the bonds of the Christian religion being broken, ambition alone, arrogance, and presumptions strive in tyrannical fashion to claim for themselves all dominion, by fair means and foul, every moderation of piety being cast away.
When such evils grow rank in any commonwealth whatsoever, it is very difficult to remedy them, namely when the authors of scandals and rivalries enjoy the patronage of great princes, and foster it more and more—those princes' ministers, who by wicked arts circumvent the pious and most clement moderators of affairs, and, following the wantonness and impetus of their own will, imbue their minds with prejudiced opinions, so that at last, deceived by false suggestions, they decree and establish that which is repugnant to divine and human laws.
By these most grievous calamities the Eastern Church was harassed and as it were wholly oppressed, when Chrysaphius, abusing the piety of the most clement emperor Theodosius, in order to defend the base, proud, and heretical man Eutyches, wished the cause of which the question was treated to be committed not to the judgment of the Roman pontiff, nor to the examination of a universal council, but to the arbitration and power of Dioscorus bishop of Alexandria. For he, namely Chrysaphius, ungovernable in his hatred against Flavian, had moved the will of Theodosius—when the Constantinopolitan synod had been concluded—so that, under the pretext of rendering due obedience to the Roman pontiff and of affording protection to ecclesiastical affairs, he might most solicitously write to Saint Leo on behalf of peace.
But whether by that earlier letter he requested that a general council be assembled is not certain. Nay rather, one may readily descend to this opinion, that he then kept deep silence about holding one. For although Theodosius' letters have perished through the injury of time, yet since Saint Leo's replies to him survive, we by no means find that imperial petition indicated in them. Especially since Saint Leo hopes to inform Theodosius that, after the admonition made to Flavian by letters, he himself will report all things to our notice, so that, these things which still seem hidden being brought to light, that which accords with the evangelical and apostolic doctrine may be judged. It is therefore probable and certain that Theodosius wrote nothing to Leo about a new synod to be convened.
Otherwise he would have spoken of a matter of such great moment, nor would he have reserved to himself to judge after those things which were then hidden to him should be brought to light. 2. Nevertheless I cannot deny that at that time, or a little after, a rumour was spread at Constantinople about a similar synod to be convened, and that it was insinuated to the emperor Theodosius by the counsel of Chrysaphius and other depraved ministers, and by the machinations of Dioscorus. For, as we have seen, Flavian, compelled to write again to Saint Leo, who had not received the earlier letters, asks that the council which is being divulged as to take place be removed. And although this letter lacks a temporal note, yet we can conjecture that in the month of April a rumour of celebrating a council had been spread in the East.
But I am persuaded that as yet nothing of this deliberation of the emperor had become known to Leo in the following month of June. For on the eighth or ninth of the Kalends (as the Vatican codices have it) of this month, writing back to the same emperor, filled with apostolic vigour, he confidently addresses him, that he may become solicitous for the integrity of the Catholic faith: 'This (he says) I ask by unwearied prayers of the divine mercy, that it may inspire your heart with that which is of the truth, and may not suffer you to be deceived in anything by the deceit of human rivalries.' Saint Leo, therefore, had understood that Theodosius' mind had already been somehow alienated from the truth by the deceits of human rivalries, and circumvented by the suggestions of wicked men.
To elude these, he most wisely resolved to ask and to insinuate to the emperor that he should order an episcopal council to be held within Italy, whereby all the scandals which have been stirred up to the disturbance of the whole Church might be cut away. Here I am forced to confess that it does not at all escape me that certain theologians of our age, hostile to the Roman curia, insist upon those words of Leo, 'that you would order an episcopal council to be held within Italy,' in order to gather therefrom that the right of convening councils pertains not to the Roman pontiff, but to the emperor. But since Catholic doctors everywhere refute arguments of this kind, and since we have said something on this in another work of ours, it will not be for the present leisure to sift out this controversy.
For this reason we confirm the foregoing account of the historical facts by another letter of Leo written to Flavian. In it, indeed, he advises the holy bishop concerning the letters he had received together with the synodal Acts drawn up against Eutyches. He pledges his own solicitude, being unwilling on any account to allow either Eutyches to persist in the depravity of his conviction, or Flavian himself, who was resisting a foolish error with the zeal of the faith, to be troubled by the prolonged assault of the opposing party. In this letter, however, he expresses not a single word about a council to be held either within Italy or at Ephesus—which perhaps he was not yet turning over in his mind, and which council he afterward, scarcely four days having elapsed, announced to the emperor Theodosius, as we have seen.
Quesnel, however, attending to the aforementioned letter of Leo written to Theodosius, suspects that the emperor's deliberation concerning a council to be held at Ephesus had already become known to the holy pontiff. On that account he resolved to append the following note at the foot of the letter: «On the eighth day before the Kalends of June: since Leo, from Letter 27 to Pulcheria, testifies in express words that on the third day before the Ides of May he received letters announcing the synod convoked by Theodosius, it is remarkable why he makes no mention of that same synod before the prince. Perhaps the pontiff judged that it should be dissembled, so that he might the more freely ask of Theodosius that the synod be gathered within Italy.»
...he could, or else that in one or the other letter the number of the day or the month is corrupt.» Baronius too, stumbling on this same knot, after he noted that the emperor wrote letters to the Roman pontiff after the conclusion of the second Constantinopolitan synod, on the fifth day before the Ides of April, concerning the holding of a synod at Ephesus (which letters holy Leo received, as he himself testifies in his letter to Pulcheria, on the third day before the Ides of May), reconsiders with himself that within the space of a single month the letters were conveyed from the City to Constantinople. But the same most learned Cardinal Baronius neither offers any light nor furnishes us any weighty consideration for reasonably removing the difficulty afterward raised by Quesnel.
Since, therefore, we were pressed more or less by both of those consequences of Quesnel's reasoning, we prefer to admit that a corruption of the number of the month or of the day crept into one letter or the other, rather than to make or suspect the holy pontiff guilty of dissimulation. We ought certainly to believe that he employed no dissimulation with bishop Flavian; but in the letter written to him on the twelfth day before the Kalends of June he has (as we have seen) not one word about the letters received from Theodosius announcing the Council of Ephesus. Indeed, if that whole letter be scanned carefully once and again, it is gathered that the Roman pontiff had not even in a dream imagined that the emperor was about to deliberate over the convening of such a synod.
For in it he speaks as the supreme arbiter of all those controversies: concerning the wounded faith of Eutyches, whose doctrine he declares to deviate from tradition; he promises Flavian timely instruction, so that he may be taught what ought to be determined about the whole cause; and finally he testifies that he by no means suffers the obstinacy of Eutyches, nor that the holy bishop be harassed by such grievous disturbances. If therefore on the third day of the already past Ides of May he had received from Theodosius the letters announcing the Council of Ephesus, all these things could not cohere; and Leo himself would not only have employed dissimulation, but would have used lies, whereby the deceived Flavian was awaiting the protection of the Roman pontiff, which he was promising him by these very letters.
It remains, therefore, that an error crept into one or the other of those letters, and that in place of the Ides of May, the Ides of June ought to be read in that letter which he wrote to Pulcheria. The words that follow lend strength to the conjecture, namely: «The greater part of the time remaining must be spent so that the departure of the priests who are equal to the business may be able to be arranged.» For Leo's complaint would seem feeble if from the day of receiving the letters by which the Ephesine synod was announced, nearly three whole months still had to run their course, since the council was not to begin until the Kalends of August, or the Ides of that same month. For who will affirm that the remaining part of these three months was not sufficient for the bishops of Italy to set out for Ephesus?
Especially since in those months, with the aid of ships, one is wont to sail in tranquillity, and in the space of a single month the whole journey can be completed, as Baronius noted above. But to us this consular note is nevertheless not more fully pleasing, even if we should say that perhaps it ought to be read: the third day before the Ides of June. For if we attend to the other letters of the holy pontiff, either those directed to Julian bishop of Cos, or to Theodosius and Flavian, we plainly understand that already on the Ides of that same month the legates of the Apostolic See had been designated, who were to be present at the announced synod. And although he has express mention of its being held only in the letter to Theodosius, writing:
«Since, however, your Piety, which in honour of God most religiously loves the catholic truth, has established a synodal judgment at Ephesus,»—nevertheless I can hardly be brought to believe that an interval of only three days could have sufficed for Leo to dispatch from the City three apostolic legates together with Dulcitius the notary. Yet since the monuments that survive do not dissolve all the doubts which may be conceived on this side and that, we need not linger longer in resolving them, if from the series of events we did not still have one argument that holy Leo could by no means have received Theodosius's letters announcing the Council of Ephesus on the third day before the Ides of May.
But whatever may be the case concerning any error which could have crept into the temporal note of the day or the month, this one thing is most certain: that holy Leo neither dissembled nor lied, in the letters directed both to Flavian and to Theodosius. This, we judge, is evidently established from the following computation of times. And first of all we suppose that the holy pontiff Leo, having been warned by the emperor concerning the disturbed affairs of the Church of Constantinople, sent his first letters both to Flavian and to Theodosius on the twelfth day before the Kalends of March, which was the sixteenth of February.
We likewise suppose that Flavian received these letters given to him on the twenty-fifth day of April, namely when the second Constantinopolitan synod was being held, in which also the Acts of the earlier synod, at the demand of Eutyches and by the mandate of the emperor, were reviewed and reread, with Thalassius the bishop and Florentius the patrician presiding. That the Ides of May fell on the fifteenth of that month is a matter fully ascertained by all. Therefore the third day before the Ides ought to fall on the twelfth day.
Wherefore, since from the twenty-fifth day of April to the twelfth of May no more than twenty-two days elapsed, it does not follow but that Leo could not have received from Theodosius the letters announcing the Council of Ephesus on the third day before the Ides of May—especially since it is by no means likely that on that very twenty-fifth day of April, on which the acts of Flavian against Eutyches were reviewed and re-covered, with Thalassius and Florentius the patrician presiding, the emperor deliberated concerning the holding of a synod at Ephesus. For first it was necessary to be informed of the things that had happened; and then also time had to be given for the machinations and councils of Chrysaphius and Dioscorus and the rest of those scoundrels.
...just as also to wait until the imperial decrees were dispatched. If therefore we were to believe that all these things were accomplished most swiftly, namely in the space of two or three days, and that the mind of the prince, being seduced, deliberated that that council should be held at Ephesus—what then? Could the letters announcing the Council of Ephesus have reached Leo on the twelfth of May? It is a fabrication. For the letters could not be conveyed from the city of Constantinople in the space of fifteen or eighteen days, as will be established from the subsequent narrative of events. Falsely, therefore, did Quesnel reason, falling into the suspicion that holy Leo dissembled these letters announcing the council, under the pretext of a council to be gathered within Italy.
Now, however, let us proceed to the command of Theodosius, by which he willed it to be decreed that a general council be gathered at Ephesus; from which narrative it will be more and more clearly established, whatever we have explained in the foregoing. After, then (writes Liberatus the deacon), nothing had been proven to the notaries concerning the falsity of the acts, Eutyches asked Dioscorus the Alexandrian bishop to inquire into what had been done concerning him, and to examine the cause. He urged before the prince that a universal synod be held, so that the judgment of Flavian might be tested. Dioscorus therefore wrote to the emperor Theodosius, that a general synod ought to be held, and Eutyches persuaded that it should be done. The emperor assented. And directing...
...a sacred [rescript] to Dioscorus in Alexandria. Now if we attend to this exchange of several letters, which took place between Eutyches and Dioscorus, and between Dioscorus and the emperor, which was not begun until after the twenty-fifth day of April, we ought to believe that the letters announcing the general Council of Ephesus were protracted until at least the last day of that same month—unless we wish to affirm that they were only signed on the third day before the Ides of June, as Leo himself, in addressing Pulcheria, perhaps wished to indicate. In which case, through the injury of time and the negligence of copyists, some lacuna crept into the text, which nevertheless we have hitherto been able to supply with the aid of several manuscript codices.
This conjecture acquires still greater force from the words of Nicephorus. He, in recounting the devices employed by Chrysaphius to circumvent the imperial mind, describes this man's nefarious contrivances in these words: «Now when they had by their own authority approved those Acts and decrees as legitimate,»
«...the eunuch Chrysaphius, who held the same views as Eutyches, since he could not bear the affront, greatly increased his wrath against Flavian, and indicated to Dioscorus of Alexandria, that impious man, that he would gratify him in all things that were pleasing, if he would defend the imperilled Eutyches, but would assail Flavian and Eusebius of Dorylaeum.» Finally, that that temporal note contains an error, but that Leo by no means dissembled in demanding that the council be held within Italy, is clearly demonstrated from Theodosius's letters announcing the Council of Ephesus, whether directed to Dioscorus, or to Barsumas and the other Orientals. For the first, written to Dioscorus, the emperor signed on the third day before the Kalends of May;
the second on the Ides of May; and the third indeed, which was given to Barsumas, we find written on the day before the Ides of May. It is therefore not likely that holy Leo, dwelling at Rome, could have received from Constantinople the imperial letters announcing the Council of Ephesus on the third day before the Ides of May, if even then the emperor had scarcely deliberated about holding the council, and on the day before the Ides of that month was wholly occupied in summoning to the synod the chief patrons of the Eutychian faction. Therefore it would rather have to be inferred that holy Leo, in the course of the month of June—indeed almost as it was ending—received from Theodosius the letters announcing the council, signed on the third day before the Ides of May; and that this is what those words noted in the letter to Pulcheria signify, upon which Quesnel insists.
At length Chrysaphius obtained what he desired. For, on the authority of Liberatus, the emperor, in directing the sacred [rescript] to Dioscorus, ordered that he himself should choose ten metropolitan bishops whom he wished, and should come to Ephesus, and, the council being gathered, should discuss the cause of Eutyches. He commanded also that Barsumas, that abandoned man, an archimandrite, should be present, and act in the stead of all the monks accusing the Oriental bishops. But he forbade Theodoret bishop of Cyrus to be present at the council, and ordered him to remain in his own city. For Eutyches had already, through his son (as I said), Chrysaphius, banished into exile Ibas bishop of Edessa into many dwelling-places, lest he should be present at the synod.
Now these things which the deacon Liberatus here narrates correspond excellently to those which are read in the imperial rescript concerning the convening of the Ephesine synod, as may be seen in Baronius and in the collection of councils. But Baronius has rightly observed that the temporal note of this imperial letter was corrupted, so that in place of «the third day before the Kalends of April, Zeno and Postumianus most illustrious men being consuls,» it ought to be restored as «the third day before the Kalends of May, Asterius and Protogenes being consuls.» This we had to note in confirmation of those things which we have described above.
But Chrysaphius and Eutyches did not believe that all these things could suffice for them to crush the most holy men Flavian, and Eusebius of Dorylaeum, and other men distinguished in doctrine and morals, unless by the mandate of the emperor they had Dioscorus appointed as arbiter of all the matters to be transacted. On that account they extorted letters from the emperor, that Dioscorus, as the head of all the factious, should preside over the council—the emperor arrogating and usurping to himself that right which hitherto none of the emperors had dared to exercise.
Yet the wicked ministers had impelled Theodosius, under the cloak of piety, to assume this to himself, namely that Theodoret should not be present at the council: «he presumed (says the emperor) to put forth things contrary to those which Cyril of holy memory wrote concerning the faith.... For this reason (he adds) we have judged it necessary by these sacred letters to make manifest to your reverence, to your beatitude, and to the whole holy synod, that we, following the rules of the Fathers, grant the authority and primacy to your beatitude, not only on account of Theodoret, but of all others who pertain to the assembled holy synod.»
But Theodosius, entangled in these sacrileges in arrogating ecclesiastical rights to himself, exhibited protection and authority so that the Eutychians might with impunity practise all their evil, deceitful, and base machinations; and under the pretext of the Nestorian heresy, Theodoret was hissed out of that assembly; Ibas was compelled to live in exile; and, on the contrary, those who were most devoted to Eutyches were ordered both to be present at and to preside over the synod. What more? To bring about the graver ruin of the Catholics, Theodosius, deceived by the plotters, gave new letters to Dioscorus, in which he proclaims Barsumas as a man most approved in the faith and adorned with equal integrity of life, whom he orders to hold the place of all the Oriental archimandrites.
On the same day at length, namely on the Ides of May, he writes to the same Barsumas, adorning this man's labours in overthrowing the Nestorians and their heresy with the highest praises, judging it just that in the synod to be held at Ephesus (as we have said) he should hold the place of all the Oriental archimandrites. Thus therefore, matters being arranged, the Eutychians, reconsidering among themselves, [held] that that synod could by no means be called ecumenical, to which the supreme head of the Church had not been summoned, and into which the Roman Pontiff had no influence—since moreover they had by now understood from the preceding letters of holy...