Sermons & Letters 247

1. A most grave wound having been inflicted upon the Chalcedonian Acts by the ambition of one single man, the Easterns themselves took care to remedy this with all their strength — both in the synodal letter written to St. Leo after the synod, and by seeking out and obtaining for themselves the support of the emperor Marcian and the empress Pulcheria, by which they strove vigorously that the same holy pontiff should by no means abolish the twenty-eighth canon concerning the privileges of the Constantinopolitan Church, but should confirm it together with the other sanctions and hold it ratified. Anatolius, moreover, reckoning with himself the service and honor with which he had assiduously attended St.

Leo and the pontifical legates up to that day, flattered himself that the pontiff's mind could be softened by his letters, if — recalling to mind what he had hitherto displayed in testimony of the Catholic faith and in honor and service of the apostolic see — he should be willing to repay some worthy recompense for so many labors undergone. He believed also that Julian, bishop of Cos, who among the Easterns discharged the office of apostolic vicar, could advance his wishes. And therefore he did not delay to interpose his good offices, so that, mediating parties being assumed, he too might plead before the same holy pontiff that the rights and privileges of the Constantinopolitan episcopate might be enlarged.

When I had attentively considered the manner of acting of all these, I persuaded myself for certain that the bishops especially of the whole East, gathered in general synods, and the emperors themselves, firmly believed that no decrees of councils could hold firm in the Church, nor have the force of a canon, which had not been approved by the Roman pontiff — indeed, that they fall with all their force whenever they are expressly disapproved when defined — as we have plainly explained in the preceding book, and chiefly in chapters 4, 5, 6, and most recently we indicated from what has just been said concerning the eleventh session of this Chalcedonian council. 1. And, that we may discourse truly and solidly, let it first be permitted to note what they wrote in their synodal [letter] to St.

the pontiff concerning that twenty-eighth canon. Besides, let us attend on this occasion that they there called Leo the legitimate interpreter of the voice of blessed Peter, and adjudged to him the primacy of the supreme head by a sincere confession — against whom the Alexandrian prelate Dioscorus had vented his madness, plotting excommunication. Having at length attained a glorious victory after so many and so great disasters, by which for the space of three years the Church of the East especially had remained afflicted, they rejoice, because the holy pontiff had happily hastened to unite the body of the Church. Then they subjoin: 'These are the things which, together with you — who were present in spirit, and resolved to show favor as toward brethren, and by whom, through the wisdom of your vicars, you seemed almost to be among us — we have accomplished.'

As much, then, as they praise the triumph of the faith attained by the supreme felicity of St. Leo's patronage, wisdom, and influence, so much do they endeavor to expend zeal in persuading him that they had been led by desire of peace and quiet to the defining of certain statutes which would provide for the safety of the Churches: 'knowing (they say) that Your Holiness, when informed, will both approve and confirm the same.'

In order more easily to obtain the confirmation of these statutes, they appeal to that custom which has already obtained from a long time, which the holy Church of God of the Constantinopolitans has had for ordaining the metropolitans of the provinces of both Asia, Pontus, and Thrace, 'and which we have now confirmed by synodal decree, not so much granting anything to the see of Constantinople, as providing fitting quiet for the metropolitan cities, because, when bishops frequently end their lives, many disturbances arise, with the clergy and peoples who are throughout those same cities remaining without a ruler and throwing the ecclesiastical order into confusion.'

3. Under this pretext, then, of ecclesiastical tranquillity — from which they affirmed they promised themselves many good things — they tried to vindicate from any censure those bold acts of audacity by which the ancient custom of discipline was being ruined. Wherefore, lest the holy pontiff should take it ill that they had by no means observed in the council the order of judgments established by him, and that, contrary to the legates' instructions, commands, and protestations, they had come to enact those statutes of which they treat, they recall to his mind the past dissensions, rivalries, and quarrels of the Church of the Ephesians, 'whence certain persons were often troublesome to you.'

Then they relate how they confirmed the Constantinopolitan canon, decreeing that 'after your most holy and apostolic see, the Constantinopolitan [see] should hold the honor (which is ordained second).' Wherefore they earnestly entreat St. Leo that he would deign to honor with his pontifical decrees the judgment now made — concerning which supplication, since we have already treated of it in the prior book, chapter 6, there is no reason to discourse again of the same. This synodal letter alone of the Chalcedonian Fathers, when at times I considered it silently with myself, no little did it move my mind against those who dared to adjudge all firmness and force to the canons even of general councils, with any approbation and confirmation of the apostolic see set aside.

Nay rather, I was the more moved when I cast my eyes upon another letter written by the emperor Marcian. For although he was accustomed to give himself to the administration of civil affairs, and labored with excessive zeal to enlarge the honor and prerogatives of the imperial city, nevertheless he judged that this increase of honor could depend neither on himself nor on the decree of the synod, unless it were rendered ratified and firm by the Roman supreme pontiff himself. 4.

Therefore the emperor himself too, after he judged it fitting to congratulate Leo and himself — because, every contention and discord which envy, the enemy of faith, had cast in having been exploded — relates how he too had hastened to be present at the holy synod, 'although,' he says, 'expeditions and public necessities detained us in other places.' Then he proceeds to describe in a few words how in the synod all things had proceeded with the triumph of truth and the glory of faith, 'since, according to the letters (he subjoins) of Your Holiness, all assented to the exposition, as truth demanded.'

Coming at length to the decree of the Constantinopolitan council, renewed again or confirmed in this synod, he appeals to the pontiff, that he too would deign to apply his own consent to this part, 'although the most reverend bishops who, acting in the stead of your religion, came together to the holy synod, had contradicted.' That Pulcheria Augusta too undertook the role of mediator in this cause, the same St. Leo discloses from the letter written back to her.

And although that same letter of Pulcheria on this subject has hitherto been desired by the learned [i.e., is lost], nevertheless from Leo's response it becomes manifest that Anatolius and the Constantinopolitan clergy had placed much confidence in the good offices on which a woman of such virtue and authority expended her labor. No less solicitude for this business did Julian, bishop of Cos, also employ, whose letter, although it has not yet seen the light and has perhaps perished by the injury of the times, nevertheless — since the holy pontiff's letter survives, by which he rebukes him for having loved Anatolius too much and wished to favor him in an unlawful cause against the state of the universal Church — it is therefore now most manifest that this man too undertook the role of mediator. 5.

Anatolius himself at length, by no means despairing that he could move the pontiff's mind to grant what, led by the greatest ambition, he was craving, gave to the supreme pontiff a rather prolix letter, and applied all his zeal to insinuate himself into his patronage, and to persuade him that the prerogatives of the Roman episcopate were augmented by the new honor of the Constantinopolitan see, on this ground: that the honor of children redounds wholly to the glory of their parents. This letter of Anatolius, lacking in the preceding editions, we indicated in chapter 5 of the prior book of the history of the Eutychians, page 32 and following; and, as we said, we transcribed it from a Vatican Greek manuscript codex in the year 1738, and into Latin it was rendered also by

Lord Franciscus Marianus, scribe and interpreter of Greek letters in the Vatican Library. 6. Meanwhile, indeed, in perusing the letters of these men, the mind of the holy pontiff could not even slightly be moved to indulge the ambition of Anatolius — setting aside the Nicene sanctions — and to bend himself to acquiescing in the supplications of the powers of the age and of the whole synod. Wherefore on the eleventh day before the Kalends of June, in the year four hundred and fifty-two, taking up his pen, he replied to the aforesaid indicated letters, using that constancy and fortitude of mind which most became the supreme pastor of the universal Church.

And first indeed we will speak of the letters to Marcian and Pulcheria, which in the Quesnellian edition also obtained the first place. The holy Leo, then, undertaking to address the emperor in his letter, professes that one ought to rejoice over the victory of the faith, redounding to the whole Church by the great gift of divine mercy; and, certain things having been subjoined — borrowed from the testimonies of the Scriptures, which manifest the existence of the two natures in Christ the Lord after the union — immediately, in the other section of the letter, he chides the unjust ambition of Anatolius, since rather he ought to have been counseled that, abandoning the error of his ordainers, he should pass over by a salutary correction into the assent of the Catholic faith.

For St. Leo always reasonably doubted that Anatolius had at some time been stained with the soot of the Eutychian [heresy], inasmuch as he was the apocrisiarius of Dioscorus, and had been raised to the Constantinopolitan see by the Eutychian faction and by the arts of the eunuch Chrysaphius after the murder of Flavian. Whom indeed the supreme pontiff would never have received into communion, nor held his election and ordination ratified, had not Marcian himself and Pulcheria overcome the pontiff's mind by their supplications, and had not Anatolius made a public confession of the faith before the whole clergy and the people of Constantinople, into the hand of the pontifical legates, whom for this cause especially he directed to Constantinople, as we saw in the prior book, chapter 12.

All these things, then, St. Leo now recalls to the emperor's mind, saying: 'He ought nevertheless to have guarded that what is known to be consented to by your (most codices, as Baronius and Quesnel note, have in the margin "our") benefit, he should not disturb by the depravity of any cupidity.' And because the emperor and Pulcheria Augusta had pledged for the faith of Anatolius, that he should be received into the communion of the apostolic see, therefore he subjoins: 'For we, having regard to the intervention of your faith, when his beginnings wavered according to the authors of his consecration, willed to be more benign toward him than just.'

For he intended to judge that Anatolius's ordination — inasmuch as it was made by heretics and schismatics — had been utterly unlawful, and that Anatolius could have been deposed from the episcopal ministry, as one ensnared by those canonical penalties on account of which he ought to have remained perpetually impeded and suspended from undertaking the sacred office. Wherefore, in testimony of the kindness shown toward Anatolius, in order to remove all the perturbations which, by the working of the devil, had been stirred up, (he says) he had made use of those remedies of leniency which ought to have made him modest rather than immoderate.

And because he was pleading his cause with a most Christian, religious, and truly orthodox prince, whose heart he knew was set on zeal for the faith and for the defense of ecclesiastical discipline, he assigns yet loftier foundations for the refusal given. Namely, that even if Anatolius had been sprinkled with no defilements whatever, but had been legitimately and solemnly ordained for his excellent merits and by the best judgment, nevertheless, against the reverence of the paternal canons, against the institutions of the Holy Spirit, against the examples of antiquity, he could be aided by no votes.

Therefore, after he had affirmed that he was willing neither to hold valid nor able to grant assent to the canon about which the question was being raised, he protests that the glory of the city of Constantinople, derived from the authority and power of the emperors, could in no way remain diminished, even if the bishop of that city did not ascend to a higher rank and order. Yet (he says) the reckoning of secular matters is one thing, and that of divine things another: nor, apart from that rock which the Lord wondrously set as a foundation, was that construction stable; but he loses what is his own who covets what is not his due. And drawing a distinction between the royal city and the apostolic see, he indicated whence the privileges of the Churches are derived, adding:

For the privileges of the Churches, established by the canons of the holy Fathers and fixed by the decrees of the venerable Synod of Nicaea, can be overturned by no wickedness, violated by no innovation. In this work (let not our reader neglect to mark the weight of the words that follow), with Christ's help, faithfully carrying it out, I must show myself persevering in my service: for the stewardship entrusted to me tends also to my own guilt, if the rules of the paternal sanctions which in the Synod of Nicaea, by the instruction of the Spirit of God, were established for the governance of the whole Church should be violated through my connivance (which God forbid), and if the will of a single brother should weigh more with me than the common benefit of God's whole house. 7.

But truly, if in composing these matters I were not too much pressed by a zeal for brevity, a most ample field would be opened to me for overturning the whole system of those who fabricate that the Roman pontiffs are subject to the sanctions of councils, as Quesnel too wished to judge, slyly noting in the margin of that passage: 'The Roman pontiff is bound by the canons, and must serve them in dispensations.' For neither is the universal authority of the Roman pontiffs limited, nor are the Roman pontiffs themselves said to be subject to councils, if, in those things that pertain to the universal governance of the Church, they will that the rules of the sanctions established by the instruction of the Spirit of God be kept, and strive that they be faithfully committed to execution.

Yet the Roman pontiffs are able to do in the Church what general councils have been authorized to do. Indeed they are able to abolish, render void, reform, and declare as nothing those decrees of synods that conflict with the ecclesiastical rules, and that have been ordained to subvert the order and economy of discipline; which things assuredly supply no argument that they are subject to general councils, but rather that the councils themselves obtain their force and authority from the Roman pontiffs alone.

And indeed, since the dispensation of the canons, on the authority of Leo himself, has been entrusted to the Roman pontiff alone, and tends to his guilt if, the benefit of the whole Church being set aside, the will of a single brother prevails with him, together with ambition and the lust for domineering over the rest—now the question no longer turns on whether the Roman pontiff holds authority over councils, but on the circumstances and cases in which he ought to use it, lest his dispensations tend to his own guilt; for the rest, in those things that pertain to ecclesiastical governance, he is subject only to the most just judgment of the Lord God, who would never permit without some guilt that the rules inspired by the Holy Spirit should by him be violated and perverted. 8.

Nevertheless let us pass over these matters, which can be more fully expounded by those who are accustomed to treat such arguments in the schools. We add only one further point, which pertains to the keeping and observance of the canons; from which, when Anatolius had departed, despising the mandates of the Fathers, he had displayed fresh proofs of his ambition in the ordination of Maximus, bishop of Antioch, which he had usurped for himself without any precedent. This new crime, as contrary to peace and priestly concord, St. Leo wished to overlook; and he affirms that he did not annul this ordination out of love for repairing the faith and zeal for peace, since otherwise it had by no means been permitted to Anatolius, without any precedent and against the institutions of the canons, to ordain a bishop for the Church of Antioch.

For he affirms that he could without any difficulty have declared this ordination void and null by right. But this he forbore to do solely from zeal for faith and peace. Having therefore brought forward these and other most weighty reasons, he reverently entreats the emperor Marcian not to take such a refusal amiss; and he adjures him that by his diligent prompting he should remove from all assent of your piety (he says) the wicked attempts opposed to Christian unity and peace, and that he should wholesomely restrain the ambition of my brother Anatolius, which will harm him himself if he persists. Finally he testifies that the bishop Lucianus and the deacon Basil, who had brought the imperial writings to him, had fulfilled the duties of the embassy they had undertaken.

For (he says) one ought not to be reckoned to have failed in the business who was rather forsaken by the cause. With these words he closed the letter on the eleventh day before the Kalends of June, as we have said, in the year 452. Quesnel, in the second volume of his edition, adorned this letter with notes and observations. And, having first reviewed the various readings that occur in the printed editions and manuscript codices of others, he raises a question concerning those words of chapter 3, namely: 'He will not disdain the royal city, which he cannot make an apostolic see.' Now sees, or apostolic Churches, are not so called for one reason only, he says.

But that the ancient writers were accustomed to attribute this appellation to Churches chiefly for six reasons, he affirms from Tertullian, Theodoret, and Augustine, without at all indicating the chief reason for which the Roman Church was everywhere called the apostolic see by St. Leo. He says therefore: The Roman see is called apostolic because it was founded by the chiefs of the apostles and consecrated by the blood of both. He adds that this denomination belongs for other and various reasons to the Churches of Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, Ephesus, and to certain others, according to the diverse formulas of speech of the Fathers, which he there describes. But what he meant to insinuate to his readers out of so incongruous an apparatus of erudition, I am wholly ignorant.

Nay, if I might be permitted to suspect, I would conjecture that he meant thereby to diminish the prerogatives of the Roman pontiffs, since he is silent about the more principal reason on account of which the Roman see is called apostolic. Granted therefore that the Churches of others were called apostolic by the ancients, for various and diverse acceptations, by way of honor, yet none was so called more principally and with full propriety, except the Roman see alone, in which St. Leo himself in countless places confessed that the authority of holy Peter lives and is to endure perpetually, and which the Roman pontiffs, the successors of Peter himself, by hereditary right diffuse into the whole body of the Church, so that there can be absolutely nothing in the other members which does not flow from that head.

This special prerogative neither Alexandria, nor Antioch, nor any other Church whatever—to which according to various acceptations that apostolic name has been attributed—could ever possess, as may be seen from Leo himself, whether in the sermons delivered on the anniversary day of his assumption to the pontificate, or in the letter to Anastasius of Thessalonica, or to the emperor Theodosius, or to the bishops of Gaul, and in the letter to the empress Pulcheria, in the cause of which we are treating, as we shall presently see. 9. Not, therefore, was the Roman Church called the apostolic see merely because it was founded and consecrated by the blood of the apostles;

but because the authority of the holy apostle Peter and his primacy in the universal Church still lives and endures in the Roman pontiffs, as St. Leo himself also affirms in letter 79 to Pulcheria. For in those things that pertain to ecclesiastical governance, the Roman pontiffs do nothing without the authority of holy Peter—a privilege certainly given to no other bishop, since to themselves it was granted by hereditary succession that they should preside over the rest of the bishops. Hence therefore St. Pope Leo, wonderfully consistent with himself in all his writings, willed to use this authority of holy Peter, when he rendered void and utterly annulled that canon concerning the primacy of the bishop of Constantinople, wrongfully usurped by Anatolius for himself.

For indeed, after he had said that that canon could by no means support the see of Constantinople—a canon issued sixty years before in the time of the elder Theodosius, to which Anatolius with much boasting appealed: For (he says) it is boasted that there is now almost the sixtieth year of this connivance, by which the aforesaid bishop deems himself helped, vainly desiring that to profit him which, even if anyone has dared to wish it, none has nevertheless been able to obtain—he proceeds to repress the spirit of arrogance that dominated Anatolius. Therefore he sets before him for imitation the modesty and humility of Flavian: Whose virtues if (he says) he be willing to shine with, he will be praiseworthy, and in every place will acquire very much love, not by courting human things, but by meriting divine ones.

And by this observance I promise that my mind too shall be joined to him, and that the love of the apostolic see, which we have ever shown to the Church of Constantinople, shall be violated by no inconstancy. Hence at last, coming to that canon issued by the consent of the bishops, with the papal legates protesting against it, he renders it utterly void, and (he says) by the authority of the blessed apostle Peter we annul it by a wholly general definition, in all ecclesiastical causes obeying those laws which the Holy Spirit established for the peaceful observance of all priests through three hundred and eighteen bishops. Quesnel foresaw that a grave inconvenience was brought upon him by these words. To diminish and avoid it he employed very much labor.

Wherefore, dissembling and utterly neglecting those former words, 'by the authority of the blessed apostle Peter, by a wholly general definition'—in which the whole most weighty force of this sentence resides, and which manifest without any ambiguity with how great an authority the Roman pontiffs prevail in the administration of ecclesiastical affairs—he judged that attention should be paid only to this word, 'We annul,' saying: 'He uses this same word in the following letter, and also in letter 73, chapter 1, and 99; of which word the meaning is not always the same. For most often it is the same as to make void; but sometimes to be annulled is the same as to be void and empty of all authority;

and sometimes also to annul is the same as to declare void, and to declare empty, and to pronounce empty; and in this way it seems to me to be taken in the present passage by the divine Leo.' But that this assertion of Quesnel is frivolous and fictitious is proved first of all by the whole text of that sentence. That Leo employed that word 'we annul' not in the sense indicated by Quesnel is clearly evident from the manner and mode of acting of the holy pontiff himself, who says he is playing the person of the blessed Peter, and using his authority to proscribe and utterly abolish that canon, already issued by the council and proposed to the holy apostolic see in order that it might confirm and ratify it. Who then does not see that Leo then discharged the true office of supreme judge?

For when it was a matter of preserving the rights of the Churches, it was for him to weaken, abolish, and by all his powers deprive of force that solemn compact celebrated by the mutual consent of the parties in the council, by which the bishop of Constantinople claimed for himself those prerogatives which the bishop of Antioch willingly ceded to them, and those which belonged to the Church of Alexandria—then having no prelate—for which none of the Eastern bishops was seen to plead, either because they coveted the glory, amplitude, and power of the royal city, or because they persuaded themselves that, once the ordinations of the provinces of Pontus, Asia, and Thrace had been adjudged to the bishop of Constantinople, the tranquility and peace of those Churches would be better provided for.

But to that compact, so solemn, none of those Fathers opposed himself, if we except the papal legates. Indeed one of these, namely Julian, bishop of Cos, vicar of the apostolic see among the Easterns, going over to the opinion of the rest, adjudged to the bishop of Constantinople the primacy after the Roman; so that the Fathers of the council were not only solemn witnesses of that entered transaction of rights, but also judges, and ordered it to be entered into the public records of the councils, and willingly, without coercion or fear, subscribed to it. Therefore we judge that it is not to be called merely void of force and authority in the sense employed by Quesnel, who, doing violence to Leo's words, adds:

'But that which is utterly empty of all authority, which without delay is annulled as soon as it is presumed; that which from its very beginning is invalid and long since collapsed, needs by no sentence, by no authority, to be made void and null, but only to be declared and pronounced void and annulled. This is what Leo does here as the guardian and executor of the canons, joined together with the imperial piety in the faith.' But what follows from this weak and merely fictitious reasoning? He ought first to have noted, or not dissembled, the holy Pontiff's formula of speech, who affirms that he is using the aforesaid authority of holy Peter when he pronounces: 'By a wholly general definition we annul it.'

These words certainly are employed by judges among the jurisconsults to indicate a definitive sentence, which is given last and concludes the whole matter, as is read in the Code 'On Sentences.' Whence it could be lawful for no one any longer either to institute a new judgment, or to interpret the pontifical definition otherwise; which, since it was general, affected each and every person of whatever order, rank, and quality, and to it, under the penalty of schism, all were bound to submit. 10. Nor truly can it be objected to me that the praised canon conflicted with the Nicene sanctions, lest a wound be inflicted on which St. Leo, as guardian and executor of the canons, could by no means permit. For I will ask Quesnel whether the Fathers of Chalcedon were ignorant of this.

That they were not ignorant is plain. For the Nicene canons, and the sixth in particular, at the urging of Paschasinus, was read clearly and again in the synod, and was heard by all. Therefore those Fathers either indicated that that sixth Nicene canon could thenceforth no longer support the patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch on account of various and diverse circumstances of affairs and times, or they judged that they had authority to make obsolete and to antiquate the old canons and to establish new ones, which would pertain to the better and safer administration and tranquility of the Churches, in those things that refer to discipline and economy. But whatever their judgment was, Leo abolished it, annulled it, made it void.

Since therefore he did this not as a particular but as a universal bishop, reforming, annulling, and abolishing the judgment of a general synod, he has now most evidently made plain that he himself is neither subject to the decrees of synods, nor do the decrees of synods have any force or vigor without his suffrage and confirmation. 11. But now we must shake out the trifling interpretations of Launoy, just as long ago we were accustomed to do in the schools of the Urban College of the Propagation of the Faith, treating arguments of this kind. Launoy therefore, undertaking to examine that question which pertains to the pontifical confirmation of universal synods, gravely assails Cardinal Bellarmine, because in book II On Councils, chapter 17, he wrote that the Roman

pontiff is simply and absolutely above the universal Church and the general council, so that he acknowledges no judgment above himself. Now among the other arguments brought forward by Bellarmine in defense of this cause, that one holds a place which is gathered from this letter of Leo to Pulcheria. But Launoy denies that the proposition can be proved. Indeed he accuses Bellarmine of fraud, because he mutilated the testimony of the holy Pontiff, those words being removed, 'united with us in the piety of your faith,' which pertain to Pulcheria, and then, those things being subtracted from the middle of the oration which follow, 'by a wholly general definition we annul,' he was entirely silent. 'Therefore, proceeding to reason (he says), Bellarmine

removed the former words, lest what was Leo's should seem to be common with Pulcheria, and lest Pulcheria should be believed to have come into a share of the abrogated canon by which the prerogative of the Church of Constantinople was sanctioned; and, these things being thus established, he might more easily conclude that the pope is above the council.' And below, Launoy assigns the reason why the holy Pontiff, in abrogating the canon, wished to have the piety of Pulcheria's faith united to himself, adding: 'But the pontiff added those words for this reason, that he knew the care of guarding the canons fell upon the princes. For this he writes in letter 74 to Leo Augustus.' Finally our critic, inquiring why Bellarmine cut off the latter words, concludes:

'Lest he should see, and set before his reader, the pontiff as obedient to the ecclesiastical laws, lest it should be established that what the pontiff was doing, he was doing by the authority of the Nicene synod. Wherefore that author mutilated Leo not indeed in conformity with the truth of the matter, but to the aim of the work he had undertaken.' But in the end, as though fleeing he wished to excuse Bellarmine, he says that the latter wrote this at Rome, not indeed for the reproach of the apostolic see, but in such a way that he incurred no slight censure of the curia, and would be assigned to the prohibitory index. Thus far Launoy, as in the letter to Jacobus Bevilaqua, subjoining certain other things which may be seen in part II, letter 4, page (in my copy) 53. 12. That this censure against Bellarmine is grave, all understand;

yet I do not know whether they would condemn it as unjust. This latter point, however, we shall easily attain, by noting that Bellarmine's aim was not to transcribe the whole and entire letter of St. Leo and turn it to his own use, but only to report those words which pertained to the question instituted and proposed to himself. And chiefly those which indicated ecclesiastical authority and jurisdiction. Who therefore among the theologians, even of the lowest note, has hitherto fabricated that women of whatever condition and rank, endowed with whatever supreme power of the age, obtained jurisdiction in the Church and exercised it by right?

Nor have the heterodox (if we except the Montanists and Cataphrygians) even in a dream thought that women could use the authority of the apostle Peter in protecting, establishing, and abolishing ecclesiastical laws. By the piety of faith indeed they can obey and submit to the laws of the Church, and expend their own labor that they may be committed to execution, restrain by penalties the wicked attempts of rebels, and afford to ecclesiastical judges those aids which are ordained for the conservation of the canons.

For the rest, who in a dream could suppose, or even think, that any woman could have exercised even the slightest authority and jurisdiction, judging concerning the prerogatives, rights, canons, ordinations, and other things of that kind of the Church, about which the question was then being raised? Certainly all this would follow, if, as Launoy trifles, 'what was Leo's had been common with Pulcheria, and Pulcheria were believed to have come into a share of the abrogated canon by which the rights of the Church of Constantinople were sanctioned.' Therefore, if women must by divine law be wholly devoid of rights of this kind, the passage of Bellarmine, that most learned and Catholic man, would make common to the empress that authority and jurisdiction on account of which the supreme pontiff writes:

'United with us in the piety of your faith, we render it void, and by the authority of the blessed...'—therefore Launoy wished to reason thus; but let him attend that St. Leo asked Pulcheria to come into a share of the abrogated canon on only a twofold ground, neither of which supports his own system. For the first ground was the piety of the empress's faith, by which in many and diverse ways she had always lent her effort that Leo's wishes might be fulfilled, both in those things which regarded the causes of Flavian and all the orthodox, and in the rest which were ordained for the destruction and condemnation of the Eutychians.

But the other ground was that of preserving ecclesiastical peace and tranquility, which without doubt would have been wholly wounded and disrupted if the sixth Nicene canon, which had been issued for the pacification of all priests, had at length remained wrongfully abolished. Wishing to indicate this, the holy pontiff immediately subjoined: 'Obedient in all ecclesiastical laws, which the Holy Spirit established for the pacification of all priests through three hundred and eighteen bishops.'

And so he appeals to Pulcheria that, the cause of Anatolius being abandoned—whose cause she had begun with much zeal to favor—and the wonted piety of faith being preserved by which she was joined to the apostolic see, she should not take it amiss if he rendered void the agreements of the bishops of Chalcedon that conflicted with the rules of the holy canons established at Nicaea, and annulled them by the authority of the blessed apostle Peter through a wholly general definition. 13. That this indeed is the genuine sense of Leo's words, no one will deny who notes that Pulcheria and Marcian had been made arbiters and mediators between Anatolius and the Roman pontiff, that that canon 28 might be ratified and confirmed.

For that Marcian and Pulcheria had been prepossessed in Anatolius's favor, Leo himself had very well learned from their letters: but trusting most of all in the piety of Pulcheria's faith, by which she was united to the apostolic see, he did not fear most humanely to deny what she herself was asking; nay, utterly to beat back and frustrate the importunate ambition of Anatolius, by withdrawing from him the supports by which he had sought to plead his own cause. That St. Leo had the greatest confidence in the piety of the empress Pulcheria is known from this, that he entrusted to her to restrain and repress the ambition of Anatolius, closing his letter with these words:

And because it is your custom to labor for the peace and unity of the Church, may my brother Anatolius the bishop—dear to me from your recommendation—just as he is magnified in those things which concern the faith restored, so be proclaimed concerning the ambition repressed. The other things that could be deduced from these words, for the more and more overturning of Launoy's system, we ourselves pass over in silence, since any one of our readers may clearly understand how and in what matters the apostolic see was ever united to the piety of Pulcheria's faith. 14. That the attempts of Anatolius of Constantinople remained wholly frustrated—by which he flattered himself that he had obtained most effective supports from the powers of the age that would profit his ambition—we have already amply explained in the preceding.

Of which matter indeed he was made more certain not only from the reports of the emperor Marcian, the empress Pulcheria, and Julian, bishop of Cos, but also from the letters of the holy pontiff himself, who wrote back to him in a somewhat sharp style, that he might curb and repress his ambition. For then Anatolius ought thoroughly to have recognized the strength and fortitude of St. Leo's spirit, who was by no means moved to infringe and abrogate those ecclesiastical laws which were most conformable to justice and equity, and which the Fathers, led by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, wholesomely established at Nicaea for the good of the whole Church. First therefore the holy pontiff calls back to Anatolius's mind that ecclesiastical admonition (Ecclus. 18):

'Go not after your concupiscences, and turn away from your own will'—which words present a grave kind of rebuke. Then with a gentle arm he gradually approaches him, on the one side casting up to him his preceding misdeeds into which he had fallen, and on the other side commemorating the mildness and indulgence shown toward him, by which he tolerated the defects of his ordination and the fault he had incurred by wrongfully claiming for himself the ordination of the bishop of Antioch. But these faults he says he tolerated out of zeal for repairing the faith and love of concord.

Yet he affirms that he could not so patiently endure a new fault, by which he attempted to infringe the most holy constitutions of the Nicene canons, seizing the occasion from the opportuneness of the time when the see of Alexandria had lost the privilege of the second honor, and the Church of Antioch had lost the property of the third dignity; so that, by subjecting these places to your right, all the metropolitan bishops should be deprived of their proper honor. Hence therefore he reproaches Anatolius as guilty of a new schism;

namely because, having awaited a favorable time, when the see of Alexandria was vacant of a pastor on account of the deposition of Dioscorus, and when he held the bishop of Antioch joined to himself on account of the sacred ordination recently conferred on the latter, he had attempted things utterly unheard of and unwonted, drawing into an occasion for ambition a synod gathered only for the extinguishing of heresy and the confirmation of the Catholic faith.

Wherefore, to forestall those excuses which he brought forward—contending that the synod of Chalcedon was twice as numerous as that of Nicaea—he affirms that the former is neither to be compared nor preferred to the latter, since the synod of Nicaea is consecrated by so great a divine privilege that, whether ecclesiastical judgments are celebrated by fewer or by more, whatever has been different from their constitution is utterly void of all authority. He does not, moreover, dissemble to indicate how he had impelled that multitude of the Chalcedonian Fathers into his own opinion, gained over by a certain connivance, blandishments, and services—which were a proof that the Fathers

had been seduced by arts to assent to the exceedingly depraved and wicked attempts of that same Anatolius. Whence the holy pontiff says: 'Into the perturbation of the whole Church this proud elation tends, which wished so to abuse the council of the synod that the brethren, convoked only in the business of the faith and having discharged the definition of that cause which was to be attended to, it might lead away to consenting to itself, either by corrupting through depravity or by compelling through terror.'

But meanwhile, when he cast all these things up to Anatolius, in order to proscribe that canon as void of all force, inasmuch as it had been effected by those who lacked authority, and by those who, either seduced by evil arts or deterred by threats, by no means enjoyed perfect liberty, he wished to indicate to us that bishops, even when gathered in general synods, can treat and define no other causes than those which the apostolic see of Peter had proposed for discussion. For led by this reason, the pontifical legates used protestations and reclamations, that they might guard themselves; this was wholly repugnant to their commonitorium and instructions. Concerning whose protestations, when Anatolius himself, in a letter to St. ...

had wished to complain to the pontiff, he repelled the complaint by replying: 'In this indeed you commend them greatly to me by writing these things; but you accuse your own self, in that you were unwilling to obey them while you contrive unlawful designs, superfluously coveting things that ought not to be granted and things contrary and unprofitable to yourself, which can never obtain any consent of ours.' 2. But now it is needful for me to dwell a little upon these matters, that we may grasp the ancient doctrine of those times, and may understand whether to the legates of the pontiff there was conceded in the general synods merely the first place of honour, or also of jurisdiction; and whether it is lawful for synods to enact anything by right while the legates of the Roman pontiffs cry out against it and protest;

and finally whether the general synod itself prevails in power above the Roman pontiff. But who does not see that these three questions, which have sometimes been wont to torment the minds of theologians on account of certain new doctrines wrongly scattered among the common people, are here clearly defined by St. Leo? For to them it is given to preside over the other bishops not merely by a title of honour, but in such wise that the rest of the bishops are bound to obey them; since we are bound to obey no one by private jurisdiction, nor can anything be valid and ratified by right against which the pontifical legates themselves set themselves with protestations and remonstrances.

Nay rather, the more evidently is it explained that the Roman pontiffs prevail in authority above the general councils, the more strongly both Anatolius and the Chalcedonian Fathers strove to adhere to and to insist upon the decree of another general synod drawn up sixty years before, to which the Orientals themselves had assented, for the favour of the elder Augustus Theodosius and the honour of the great Nectarius, for the increasing of the honour, privileges, and prerogatives of the see of Constantinople. Moreover the holy Father asserts that this canon was even then void of all effect, because Leo's predecessors did not approve it, nor did the Fathers of Constantinople transmit it to the Apostolic See in order to obtain its confirmation. 'For to your persuasion' (writes St.

Leo) 'is in nothing whatever supported by the drawing-up made by certain bishops sixty years ago (as you allege), never transmitted by your predecessors to the notice of the Apostolic See; to which, fallen and long since collapsed from its very beginning, you have now wished too late and uselessly to apply props, eliciting from the brethren a semblance of consent which wearied modesty would grant you to its own injury.' All writers laboured, inquiring why this canon of which we speak, drawn up sixty years ago in the Council of Constantinople, had been void of all effect; and they went off into diverse opinions, reasoning in one way and another, especially since our holy pontiff affirms:

'Never transmitted by your predecessors to the notice of the Apostolic See,' and from another source it is made known that the first Council of Constantinople was received by the Apostolic See. Among the others who raised this question was Paschasius Quesnel, but he could have settled it in few words had he attended to the holy Father's manner of speaking. For he says that the canon, when drawn up, had fallen from its very beginning and had long since collapsed; namely so as to indicate that the chief bishops of the East, whose rights were being violated, had been unwilling to support this sanction or enactment.

Nay, perhaps we might suppose that they had protested with remonstrances, although at some time they gave their assent, which at length, wearied by the long-lasting and most grievous goadings of Anatolius, they granted in the Chalcedonian synod, with injury to their own sees. 3. This indeed, and no other, I judge to be the genuine interpretation of the words of St. Leo, which will easily be able to loose all the knots into which the preceding writers fell. For it cannot be affirmed that the Roman pontiffs did not have notice of the first general Council of Constantinople, since there still survives the synodical letter of those one hundred and fifty Fathers,

written to Pope Damasus, to Ambrose of Milan, to Britto of Trier, and to the other Western bishops, in which they make mention only of the heresies condemned in that synod; but they have not a single word about that third canon which they had drawn up for the favour and honour of the archbishops of Constantinople. Who then will reckon that they wished, or were able, to keep silent the decree of this canon from the Apostolic See and the other Western bishops, to whom the said synodical letter was addressed, if they had drawn it up by unanimous consent, without the noise of protestations and remonstrances?

Therefore if, on the authority of Leo, they held that canon from its very beginning as fallen and collapsed, then even among the Orientals it was utterly void of all effect; nor did the Alexandrians and Antiochenes suffer the rights of their Churches to be infringed and violated, nor did they then grant a semblance of consent. But this our interpretation utterly overturns the opinion of Quesnel, who reasons otherwise, and who preferred to imagine that they had not made even a single word in the said synodical letter about the canon concerning the rights and privileges of the see of Constantinople, which they knew would by no means please the Westerners:

'Either persuaded that, when the Eastern bishops decreed anything concerning the ordination of the Eastern Churches, the consent of the Westerners was by no means necessary, and that it sufficed moreover (he adds) if they took care that whatever concerned the symbol of faith against heretics should come to their notice; because, since the cause of faith is common to all, not only to bishops but also to catholic laymen, and is the proper matter of an ecumenical council, it is necessary that all things which pertain to it be made known to all, and first of all to the head of all the bishops, whose office it especially is, from the watchtower of the Apostolic See, to keep watch over the custody and sincerity of the faith.' But with how many and what manner of fallacies this reasoning of Quesnel is stuffed, there is no one who does not perceive.

To refute these one by one we deem superfluous at present; since we have everywhere in these our writings proved that the decrees even of general synods, whatsoever they be, are void of force if they are not approved and confirmed by the consent of the Apostolic See; that the Apostolic See alone can dispense above the ancient canons established by the Church; and finally that the same Apostolic See, even in those things which pertain to discipline and ecclesiastical government, has a special care and diligence for all the Churches of the East, as is most evidently made manifest from the six hundred examples set forth in these our Exercitations, and likewise from others yet to be added. 4. Indeed, observing St.

that Anatolius, besides the second place which he had usurped to the injury of the bishops of Alexandria and Antioch, had wished also to tear down the rights of the provincial primacies, and had defrauded the metropolitan bishops of privileges anciently instituted, to the disturbance of the universal Church; and therefore he commands that this part of ecclesiastical discipline and government be restored to its entirety and preserved, ordering: 'Let not the rights of the provincial primates be torn down, nor let the metropolitan bishops be defrauded of the privileges anciently instituted. Let nothing perish of the dignity of the Alexandrian see, which it deserved through St. Mark the Evangelist, the disciple of blessed Peter;'

'nor, while Dioscorus falls by the obstinacy of his impiety, let the splendour of so great a Church be obscured by another man's darkness.' And straightway discoursing about the rights of the see of Antioch, he prescribes: 'Let the Church of Antioch also, in which first, by the preaching of the blessed apostle Peter, the Christian name arose, persevere in the order of the paternal constitution, and, placed in the third rank, let it never make itself inferior.' Let the reader now, I pray, compare these things which we have transcribed from Leo with those which Quesnel feigned, and let him judge whether the synodal decrees of the Orientals, pertaining to the discipline and government of those Churches, were subject to the approbation, annulment, and judgment of the Roman pontiffs. Let him see what and how great trust is to be placed in Quesnel's fabrications.

Especially since he, labouring under inconstancy, was compelled to confess that the rights of the provincial primates remained utterly abolished: 'Unless St. Leo had strongly resisted the undertakings, whereby he at least achieved this, that the unbridled ambition of that bishop should reach no further.' 5. But now other most evident arguments of this authority of the Roman pontiffs over the discipline and administration of the Churches of the East have been supplied to us from the epistles of our holy Father Leo, written in the following year in the case of Aetius and Andrew, deacons of the Church of Constantinople. Anatolius himself, then, was overmuch eager for novelties, not only by usurping for himself the rights of others, but also by casting down most approved orthodox men from their offices.

For under the colour of honour he degraded Aetius, the archdeacon of the Church of Constantinople, and transferred the dispensation of the whole charge and ecclesiastical care to Andrew, a Eutychianist. For that Aetius had been one of those Constantinopolitan clerics who had constantly contended against the Nestorians and the Eutychians, and who always adhered to St. Flavian, the same St. Leo testified in his epistle to Marcian and Pulcheria. Moreover, the piety of Aetius himself in matters of faith, and his industry in conducting affairs, had long since become known to the whole world, from the offices not only of archdeacon but also of primicerius of the notaries of the city of Constantinople, which he had discharged, as the Acts of the Council of Chalcedon testify.

Therefore under the show of honour he ordained this man a priest; and not finding (says the holy Father) what he might accuse in his faith, nor what he might reprove in his morals, he deputed him to perform the sacred mysteries in a cemetery set far from the city, that he might undergo a kind of penalty of exile. This man therefore St. Leo commended to the imperial piety, that he might not be further burdened with harmful snares, 'whom the Lord, as I have learned,' he says, 'has placed under your defence.' Moreover, that the ordination of Andrew had been altogether irregular, not only on account of the Eutychian heresy to which he had adhered, but also on account of the false accusations framed against St. Flavian, no one could deny.

On this account it was not lawful for Anatolius to promote him to higher grades and to set him over the other catholic clerics. Wherefore the holy Father beseeches the emperor Marcian that 'you would deign to rebuke Anatolius, dissonant from his own profession, and too forgetful, as he says, of your testimony and of your favour. Let him cease (he adds) to persecute catholics; let him cease to crush those who pleased Flavian of holy memory, and to choose the fellowship of those (understand the Eutychians) whom he had condemned.'

Finally, lest he should seem in the remaining matters which might arise in course of time to dismiss the care of Eastern affairs, as though it did not pertain to himself to fulfil the part of a watchman, both in causes of faith and in others pertaining to the tranquillity and to the discipline of the Churches, he appointed Julian the bishop as vicar of the Apostolic See, whom he desires to be held in the affection of the emperor Marcian and of the empress Pulcheria, 'by whose services the image of my presence may be rendered to you. For, confiding in the sincerity of his faith, I have delegated to him my place against the heretics of our time; and, for the custody of the Churches and of peace, I have required that he be not absent from your court.' The holy pontiff is wholly consistent with himself,

the pontiff [is consistent] in the two subsequent epistles written on the same day, one of which he directed to the empress Pulcheria, the other to Julian of Cos. In this latter he added only two things, of which he makes no mention in the preceding ones: the one pertained to the Egyptian and Palestinian monks who were rioting, of whom he did not know whether they were serving at the instigation of the Eutychians, or whether they grieved implacably that their bishop could have been led into that impiety, by which they had learned that he had fallen away from the truth of the Lord's incarnation. 'But in a matter of so great moment (he says) I desire to be more fully instructed, that the correction of such men also may be fittingly attended to.'

He adds also that 'concerning the peace of the Alexandrian Church he desires that something be brought to you by trustworthy messengers'; and he wished Julian himself to know, by copies that were sent, what manner of writings he had directed to its bishop Proterius, recently ordained, and to his ordainers, that is, his clergy. The other thing which he judged should be added to this epistle to Julian pertained to the epistle concerning the Lord's incarnation, already written four years before to Flavian, and to the synodal acts of the Council of Chalcedon. For the holy pontiff was led by a suspicion that the said epistle, which he had sent through Basil the deacon, had not been delivered to him; and from another cause, since he had found the synodal acts little clear on account of the diversity of language, he therefore enjoined upon the same man:

'That you cause all things to be gathered into one codex, namely translated into the Latin tongue by a most complete interpretation; that we may not in any part of the proceedings be able to doubt, nor in any way may there be any ambiguity in that which has been brought to full understanding by your diligence.' 6. Quesnel, in the second volume of the Works of St. Leo, skilfully noted that from this office imposed upon Julian, bishop of Cos, is derived the origin and custom of the pontifical nuncios, which some perhaps will not be reluctant freely to concede. But since he adds that these, following not ill the learned men, are to be compared with the apocrisiarii of the Oriental patriarchs—various distinctions, however, being preserved between the two—we cannot at all assent to him.

1° (He says), the apocrisiarii were appointed by the patriarchs to the court of the Eastern emperor, when the seat of the empire was transferred to Byzantium; but the vicars were instituted a little after, or a little before, the Chalcedonian synod. 2° The apocrisiarii of the patriarchs lingered at the court not for the cause of faith, but for the special affairs of the Church or diocese; but the Roman nuncios were ordered to reside there for caring for matters of faith. 3° Those were for the most part taken from the order of deacons or presbyters for an office of this kind, but these were sometimes taken even from the episcopal order, namely for the dignity of the Apostolic See, as appears in the case of Julian. The same Quesnel moreover adds:

'In the institution, therefore, of this vicar Leo emulated the custom of the Oriental patriarchs, distinguishing himself, however, in many things from them by his own prerogative, and completing and adorning this office with certain increments and additions. To inspect this thoroughly will not, I think, be idle, nor foreign to this place.' 7. This Quesnellian doctrine, however, although it may seem to present a certain appearance of truth, in many points indeed wavers; nor does it indicate to Julian the reason of the pontifical offices, nor are the pontifical offices delegated to Julian of Cos explained as they ought to be. It wavers in the first place, nay it utterly falls, as regards the origin of the apostolic nuncios.

For if we confound the vicars of the Apostolic See with the apostolic nuncios, the epistles of the Roman pontiffs—namely of Pope Damasus, of Siricius, of Innocent I, of Zosimus, and of Celestine—show that the origin of both is to be sought higher up. This question concerning the vicars of the Apostolic See, their ancient institution and power, D. Franciscus Antonius de Simeonibus has treated with great apparatus of erudition; and, following the Roman collection of Holstenius, he proves from the epistle of Pope Innocent I to Rufus that already before Pope Damasus Acholius, and afterwards Anysius, had discharged this office of vicar among the Illyrians. But whence does Quesnel deduce that the name and office of apocrisiarius were indicated by the ancients at that time?

Then the preceding doctrine wavers, if we compare the apostolic vicars with the apocrisiarii. For what had that word apocrisiarius to signify among the writers of the middle age, save any legate, but a minister sent by the pontiff, or by the bishops, as is held in the Constitutions, Novel 123? On the contrary, however, the name and office of apostolic vicar, since it imports acting the part of another person, concerned those to whom this office had been delegated by the Roman pontiffs, that they should preside over the Churches of those regions which lay far from the city of Rome, and should suddenly go to meet all the evils that arose. This notion of the pontifical vicars we gather from many ecclesiastical monuments, which to recount one by one we deem superfluous.

But lest we should seem to dwell merely upon Leo's manner of acting—concerning which Quesnel wrongly affirmed that our holy pontiff emulated the institutions of the Oriental patriarchs—it does not displease us to subjoin the words of St. Pope Innocent I to Rufus, his vicar in Illyricum: 'This grace, therefore, running forth from on high, so determines that provision must be made for the Churches set apart from me by long intervals, that I judge the care and the causes, if any should arise throughout the Churches of Achaia, Thessaly... should be committed to your prudence and gravity, Christ the Lord granting it. For truly, by his most sacred admonitions, we enjoin this solicitude upon the providence and the virtue of your most choice sincerity.'

Nor is it true that the apostolic vicars were instituted by the Roman pontiffs merely for matters of faith; but also for certain faults not light, which 'are brought to us,' says Pope Celestine, 'since we are farther off, not as they were done, but with an interval of time interposed; all of which we wish to be cut away by the intervention of our brother and fellow-bishop Rufus, whose proven experience in all causes and in the acts of life is clear.' But that by these words true and legitimate power for transacting the pontifical business was delegated to vicars of this kind, no one of sound mind will deny; whereas that the apocrisiarii ever obtained it can be established by no certain testimony.

Finally, what offices the holy pontiff Leo the Great had delegated to be fulfilled by Julian, bishop of Cos, we have already indicated in the prior book of this history, chapter 13, page 444; and we shall demonstrate it more fully from those things which we are about to say in the following chapter. 1. The ambition of Anatolius, bishop of Constantinople, and his crafty manner of acting, would have made the sacrilegious audacity of the Eutychians—already suppressed in the Council of Chalcedon and by the sanctions of the holy pontiff—revive, had not the emperor Marcian and Julian, bishop of Cos, legate of the Apostolic See, disclosed to the holy pontiff Leo, with great solicitude, the new disturbances and machinations again stirred up in the East. There was not, however, one single cause of these disturbances and commotions, but several.

Of these, the one arose from the protestation of the pontifical legates, by which Anatolius was strenuously trying to usurp to himself the privileges of the sees of the East; another was a rumour scattered everywhere through the East, that the Chalcedonian synod had not been received by St. Leo, since it had already become known that its twenty-eighth canon had been declared null and void of force, and that the metropolitan primates of the provinces had been restored to their former right. From the abolition, therefore, of this canon, very many suspected and contended that equally all the synodal acts had been invalidated, so that they should not obtain force even in those matters which pertained to the sanctions of faith. The third cause, finally, was Anatolius's manner of acting, who, since he had borne very ill the holy

pontiff's rebukes and grave repulse—by which he both reproached him with the crimes he had perpetrated and repressed his ambition—being driven by anger and impelled by shame, strove to forestall the public disgrace by concealing those letters of St. Leo in which he confessed that he embraced with his whole heart those synodal acts which had been enacted in the city of Chalcedon for the confirmation [of the faith], but [refused] whatever wicked ambition had coveted against the Nicene canons, with the diminution of the rights of the principal Churches. Nevertheless, the said rebukes and repulses of the holy pontiff did not dislodge Anatolius himself from the hope of the desired honour. Nay rather, the holy pontiff, writing to Julian of Cos, says: 'This also we wish you to know,'

'that Anatolius the bishop, after our coercion, persists so far in the rashness of his presumption, that he approached the Illyrician bishops to subscribe to him.' This new act of daring so moved the mind of the holy pontiff, that he had now resolved henceforth by no means to send his epistles to the same Anatolius, 'although (he says) he himself should ask this to be done, because we have perceived that he is unwilling to be corrected.' 2. But I judge that St.

Leo suffered a greater commotion of mind when, having received new epistles from the emperor Marcian, he understood that the whole East was disturbed and seized with amazement, because the pontifical rescripts upon the Chalcedonian acts had not arrived there—by the lack of which all hearts hung wavering, doubting whether the acts of that council had been confirmed by the Apostolic See. 'We greatly (says the emperor) marvel that, the synod having been celebrated at Chalcedon, and letters of the venerable bishops having been sent to your piety, through which they set forth the whole series of the things done in the synod, those letters were by no means sent forth by your sanctity—letters which, nevertheless, being read in the holy Churches, ought to have come to the notice of each one.'