Sermons & Letters 235 part 3/3

...Leo had condemned Eutyches, and would condemn him by a more solemn judgment if he were present at the general synod; [and so] they moved the mind of the emperor that he should be advised of the future synod late, being led by this persuasion, that the shortness of time would prevent him from being present at the assembly either in person or through his legates. And so, since neither ecclesiastical custom derived from the canons, nor the afflicted times owing to the disasters pressing on from the devastation of the Huns, nor finally his own love for his fatherland and citizens permitted him to desert Rome (having left the Apostolic See, as though bereft of its own father and pastor) in order to set out for Ephesus, he judged it right to depart excused, with the emperor Theodosius and Pulcheria, in these words:

«For as to that which his Piety (namely the emperor's) believed that I too should be present at the council—even if it were demanded according to some precedent, yet now it could by no means be fulfilled, because the too uncertain condition of present affairs would not allow me to be absent from the people of so great a city;»

«...and they would be cast into a certain despair of tumultuous spirit, if for the occasion of an ecclesiastical cause I should seem to wish to desert my fatherland and the Apostolic See.» But because the affairs of the Church of the East were especially dear to the heart of the supreme pontiff, when he judged that provision must be made both for the safety of the citizens and for the advantage of the Apostolic See, he by no means neglected to fulfil his own part, so that the things to be done in the announced Ephesine synod might proceed according to the divine and ecclesiastical laws. On that account, addressing the same Pulcheria, he immediately added:

«Since therefore you recognize that it has pertained to this public interest, that—saving the leave of your Clemency—I should not deny to my charity and to the prayers of the citizens, deem that in these my brethren whom I have sent in my stead, I too am present with the rest who shall be present; to whom, according to the cause sufficiently and fully made plain to me from the series of the acts and from the very profession of the man in question, I have clearly and fully shown what ought to be observed.» From which manner of acting, indeed, the holy pontiff flattered himself that all things in that synod would be brought to a happy issue through his legates; since he had first necessarily instructed them by a memorandum concerning all the matters to be done or defined, clearly making plain also what ought to be observed.

But now he also makes mention of the sending of these legates and of their necessary instruction for all the things that were to be done, in the letter to the emperor, written on the same day. In which likewise, more briefly, he set forth in few words those three causes or motives by which, being hindered, he was detained from being present in person at the Ephesine synod; yet he makes him certain that from the series of the acts he had learned more than sufficiently that Eutyches had erred ignorantly and imprudently, and ought to depart from his conviction, which is deservedly reproved. Wherefore, since the emperor himself had determined that a synodal judgment ought to be held at Ephesus, so that to the ignorant old man the truth in which he too greatly gropes might become known:

«I have sent my brothers Julius the bishop, and Renatus the presbyter, and my son Hilary the deacon, who in place of my presence may suffice for the quality of the business;» yet he closes this letter by indicating that he had sent to bishop Flavian such writings, from which it appears beyond doubt what the Catholic Church universally believes and teaches concerning the sacrament of the Lord's Incarnation. Wishing to intimate that it was permitted neither to Eutyches, nor to any other whosoever, to shrink back—without the manifest mark of heresy and contumacy—from those things which were proposed to be followed by the See of holy Peter, the pillar and firmament of the true faith.

Meanwhile the legates of the Apostolic See, instructed concerning all the things that had already occurred also in the Eutychian affair, and receiving from the supreme pontiff a written memorandum concerning each of the things to be done in the Ephesine synod, commit themselves without delay to the journey. For it was necessary to elude all the arts of the Eutychians against holy Leo, who, under the pretext of the evils growing in the East on account of the new heresy, had led the mind of the emperor to appoint a very short time within which the bishops should assemble at Ephesus.

It behoved them therefore to undertake their journey most swiftly, to frustrate the will of Dioscorus and the rest, who had it among their wishes that the general council should be conducted without the Roman pontiff, who might preside over it either in his own person immediately or through his legates. Hence therefore we can by no means subscribe to Quesnel, who, in his dissertation on the Life and Deeds of the great Leo, and also in his notes on Letter 32, insisting on a certain corrupt reading borrowed from the Grimani codex, contends that the legates of the Apostolic See had not yet set out from the City on the twelfth day before the Kalends of July to go to the Ephesine synod. For the letter of which we speak holy Leo had written to Flavian. In which he says:

«Although it evidently appears that the matter in question by no means requires synodal treatment, yet, most dear brother, those whom it pleased [me] to appoint in this affair have followed after.» Quesnel therefore, having expounded that word «followed after,» inserted another into the text, namely «about to follow after,» following the reading of the Grimani codex; and in the margin he added this supplement: «But that the legates had not yet set out is established from this Letter 34.» But that already on the twelfth day before the Kalends of July the legates had set out from the City, and that an error had crept into the Grimani codex, we can conjecture from many things, and chiefly from the preceding letter directed to Julian bishop of Cos, in which, writing about the aforesaid legates, he says, «whom I have sent from my side in my stead.»

Moreover this letter was signed by the holy pontiff on the Ides of June, which was the thirteenth day of that month. If therefore the holy pontiff had then already sent his legates, there is no reason why—despising the authority of all the other manuscripts and of the preceding editions—we should wish or be able to conjecture that on the twelfth day before the Kalends of June they had not yet set out, and to contend that this by no means ought to be inferred from a single word only, obscurely betraying and indicating a slip of the copyist, when all copies, both manuscript and printed, exhibit «followed after,» not «about to follow after.» It is added that if they had so long delayed to undertake the journey, since the council was to begin on the Kalends of August, scarcely any time would now have remained for them to reach Ephesus on the appointed day.

And on that account that zeal employed by holy Leo for frustrating the evil arts of the Eutychians would have been less prudent, since by such and so great a prolongation of time he would have exposed himself to that peril, that—while those who patronized the Eutychian cause strove for it—the council might be begun and brought to its conclusion, the legates of the Apostolic See by no means being awaited. Nor can that Letter 34, to which he appeals, and which Leo the Great begins with these words, «Our men having already set out, whom we directed to you in the cause of the faith,» signed by the same supreme pontiff on the tenth day before the Kalends of August, conclude anything in Quesnel's favour. Nothing, I say, does it conclude in Quesnel's favour. For in it there is not prescribed the time at which the pontifical legates departed from the City;

and those words can conveniently be reconciled with the preceding one, in which he signified that the pontifical legates had followed after. And what hinders that the holy pontiff could a second and a third time have made Flavian more certain concerning the departure of the legates? For the exchange of letters was not so easy, nor so expeditious and safe, that he could persuade himself with certainty that—no impediment being interposed which might retard the course of the letters and their bearers—his letters would be conveyed most swiftly from the city of Rome to Constantinople. Which indeed Quesnel himself readily grants in his dissertation on the Life and Deeds of the great Leo, affirming that the mind of the holy...

...pontiff's mind sometimes wavered as to whether the letters which he had sent to the emperor and to the other Orientals were faithfully delivered. But lest we depart from that manner of acting which the same holy Leo observed with Flavian himself, it will here be helpful to observe that in several letters, written indeed at different times, he made him more certain concerning the receipt of the synodal acts drawn up at Constantinople against Eutyches. This he testifies in Letter 32, which was written on the twelfth day before the Kalends of July. Again in Letter 24, by which he testifies that he had received these synodal Acts on the Ides of the preceding June. Finally on the twelfth day before the Kalends of June, in Letter...

...22, he confesses that Flavian's letters had already come to his hands, by which he was made more certain concerning the cause which he grieved to have been stirred up among you by depraved error. For he could not have confessed himself more fully instructed concerning this new error recently arisen, unless he had received the synodal acts together with the letters. Wherefore the zeal of the holy Pontiff ought to be most greatly praised, who in causes of the gravest matters several times makes express mention of the same affair.

That is to say, in order that if at any time the bearers of his letters were detained by infirmities, or were hindered by some unforeseen mischance, and compelled to interrupt the journey they had begun, at least those to whom he directed his writings might, by ever new letters, bearers, and messengers, be made more certain about the matters which were then being treated through the exchange of letters. If any things at length occur in this chapter which have not been diligently explained, they will more and more clearly be established from what follows.