講道與書信 第 153 章

If the bishop of the city of Constantinople were as willing to be devout in guarding the ecclesiastical rules as your Clemency is solicitous for the integrity of the evangelical faith, all things — the scandals of dissension being suppressed — would already have returned to their proper state, nor would the depravity of those who do not suffer a cure to be applied to themselves claim anything for itself, while you are set in the empire, who defend all just things and oppose errors. But to your Mildness this palm is reserved, that to you the health of all who are recalled or return to Christ our Lord through the catholic faith is owed.

Just as therefore we glory in you, so we are grieved concerning those against whom, though you are preoccupied by carnal rivalry, we see you to be so solicitous — in a spirit as much Christian as royal — for the state of the Churches and the peace of all the priests, that by your interventions on behalf of those whom you know to be going astray you accommodate me by exhorting through your letters, that I should restore, in brotherly charity, the favour of my heart to my fellow-bishop Anatolius, which I both lovingly (as you recall) bestowed on him, and always desire to grant; if only, as I earlier exhorted, he would depart from that ambition which has weighed him down, and would not keep in his company those who cast a shadow over him.

But to my letters, sent with pious affection, he has thus far been unwilling to make any reply; and since concerning the person of Aetius, or of Andreas, who had been substituted for him, things have followed which ought to be disapproved, it is not without significance that concerning those things which most of all should have been attended to, he keeps silence. I had therefore wished to obey the injunction of your piety, and to send a letter to the aforesaid bishop, if I had found that the earlier ones which I directed to him had availed anything, either by the effect of deeds or by his own writings. But since he was willing to profess nothing of repentance for his ambition, and took no care to reply anything to what was written by me, I have indeed suspended my communications with him, but I have not changed the disposition by which I desire him to be corrected and to become better.

Accordingly, if it please your Clemency — nay rather, since I know that it does please you — let him give satisfaction to the canons, and write back that he will preserve the goodwill of all the priests with peaceable humility, and let him signify that he has cast off his culpable ambition; I for my part pledge that I will receive him back into that favour, so that in all things which will be pleasing to the Lord I may embrace his fellowship: for that peace is true, that charity will be firm, in which we shall together strive to preserve both the catholic faith and the decrees of the Nicene canons. Given the seventh day before the Ides of March, in the consulship of Aetius and Studius, most distinguished men.

1. Why, in publishing the three following letters, we have followed an order different from that of Quesnel, must be said in a few words. Quesnel had first published, as letter 131 in this edition, the letter to Julian with the date of the seventh day before the Ides of March; then letter 129, to Proterius, with the date of the sixth day before the Ides; and at last, after inserting Proterius's letter 133 to Leo, he subjoined letter 130, to Marcian, with the date of the fifth day before the Ides of the same month, the sixth-before-the-Ides date being relegated to the margin. These differing dates demanded this order. But since in the letter to Julian, chapter 1, the holy pontiff testifies that he is sending to him copies of the letters which he had directed to the most clement emperor and to the bishop of the city of Alexandria himself

(that is, Proterius) — by which he refers to the two letters delivered to Marcian and Proterius — these are now known to have been written before he penned the letter to Julian; and accordingly a manifest error of the chronological notations which Quesnel preferred is recognized, by which he was led to establish that order. We have therefore better corrected the chronological notes from our Ratisbon manuscript, from which it is gathered that all these letters were dated on the same day, the sixth before the Ides of March. 2. As to the order, however: since from the aforesaid testimony of letter 131, chapter 1, it is clear that the holy pontiff wrote the letters to Marcian and Proterius before he wrote to Julian, and then also from the beginning of chapter 2

of letter 130, to Marcian, where Leo testifies that he has written back to Proterius, it becomes plain that the letters to Proterius preceded the letter to Marcian. And so, although all these letters are marked with the same day, yet from their very context Leo wrote first to Proterius, then to Marcian, and at last to Julian; and we shall preserve this order in the edition. Chapter 1. — The letters of your Charity, which our brother and fellow-bishop Nestorius brought with pious service, gladdened me.

For it was fitting that from the prelate of the Church of Alexandria such writings should be sent to the apostolic see as would show that, by the teaching authority of the most blessed Apostle Peter, the Egyptians learned this from the beginning through the blessed Mark his disciple — the very thing which the Romans are agreed to have believed: namely, that besides the Lord Jesus Christ there is no other name given to men under heaven, in which we must be saved (Acts 4:12).

But because not all men have faith, and that insidious tempter delights to wound the hearts of men with no wounds more than to infect unguarded minds with those errors which are enemies of the evangelical truth, we must strive with great instruction of the Holy Spirit, that Christian understanding may not be violated by diabolical falsehoods. Against which danger it especially befits the rulers of the Churches to keep watch, and to turn away from the minds of the simple people lies coloured with a certain semblance of truth. For narrow and steep is the way that leads to life (Matthew 7:14).

Nor does danger lie so much in the observance of snares of actions as it lurks amid the distinctions of meanings, while the force of statements is corrupted by the briefest addition or alteration, and the confession which was working salvation sometimes, by a subtle passage, turns into death. But since the Apostle says: 'There must be heresies, that they who are approved may be made manifest among you' (1 Corinthians 11:19), it tends to the profit of the whole Church, as often as the impiety of contrary meanings betrays itself, lest things which are harmful be hidden and injure the safety of others who cannot be recalled to salvation. Whence let them impute to themselves their ruins and their blindings, who by imprudent obstinacy have preferred to lie in their own guilt rather than to take up the remedy offered.

By whose desert their obstinacy rightly displeases your Fraternity, and laudably you embrace that teaching which has flowed down to us from the blessed apostles and the holy Fathers. Chapter 2.

— For my letter, by which I replied to the report of Flavian of holy memory against Eutyches concerning the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, is not of any new preaching, departing in nothing from that rule of faith which has been evidently defended by our forefathers and yours. If Dioscorus had been willing to follow and imitate them, he would have remained in the body of Christ, having both in the works of Athanasius of blessed memory whence he might be instructed, and in the sermons of Theophilus and Cyril of holy recollection whence he might laudably oppose the dogma once condemned, rather than choose the fellowship of Eutychian impiety. This therefore, most dear brother, I admonish out of solicitude for the common faith, that since the enemies of the cross of Christ lie in wait for all our words and syllables, we should give them not even the slightest occasion by which they might falsely pretend that we agree with the Nestorian meaning.

But your diligence ought so to exhort the people and clergy and the whole brotherhood to the profit of the faith, that you show yourself to be teaching nothing new, but to be instilling into the hearts of all those things which the Fathers of venerable memory taught with harmonious preaching, with whom our letter agrees in all things. And this is to be shown not only by your own words, but also by the very recitation of the preceding expositions: so that the people of God may know that those things are being instilled into them by the present teaching, which the Fathers both received from their predecessors and handed down to their successors. Whence, the assertions of the aforesaid priests being first read, then at last let my own writings also be recited:

so that the ears of the faithful may prove that we preach nothing other than what we have received from our elders. And because for discerning these things they have less exercised senses, let them at least learn from the writings of the Fathers how ancient this evil is, which now by us — as much in Nestorius as in Eutyches, who blushed to preach the Gospel of Christ according to the doctrine of the Lord Himself — is condemned. Chapter 3. — In all things therefore, both in the rule of faith and in the observance of discipline, let the norm of antiquity be preserved, and let your Charity exercise the constancy of a provident ruler;

so that it may profit the Church of Alexandria, that I solicitously opposed the wicked ambition of certain persons, the right of the ancient privileges being preserved, and that I willed the dignity to remain unharmed for all the metropolitans, as you will learn from the tenor of my letters which I sent to the holy synod, or to the most Christian prince, or to the bishop of Constantinople; and you will plainly perceive that this is the special object of my solicitude, that neither may there be a deviation from the rule of faith in the Churches of the Lord, nor may anything be diminished in the privileges of anyone by the wickedness of another.

Since these things are so, let your Fraternity hold to the custom of your predecessors, and by suitable authority keep in check your co-provincial bishops, who by ancient constitution are subject to the see of Alexandria: so that they may not resist ecclesiastical usage, but may not defer to come to your Charity, either at the appointed times, or when the reason of some cause requires it; and if anything is to be treated by common conference, which will be profitable to the interests of the Church, let it be ordained unanimously, the brotherhood being gathered into one.

For there is no cause which ought to recall them from this obedience, since your Fraternity has become known to us as such, both in faith and in morals, that we shall suffer nothing to be diminished for you of the authority of your preceding predecessors, nor you to be contemned with impunity. Given the sixth day before the Ides of March, in the consulship of Aetius and Studius, most distinguished men.