I, O Emperor beloved of Christ the Lord, perceiving in my mind that most wise admonition by which it was said, 'Know thyself,' wished to rest in silence and to await the judgment of the greater Fathers. For an equality of summons does not preserve an equal effect of things; but when one who is compelled agrees with the summons, then the likeness of names has also the unchangeable truth of things.
Nevertheless, since Your Tranquillity has commanded us to give counsel concerning each article contained in the petitions of the God-beloved fellow-priests of the Egyptian diocese, I make manifest the will of my littleness—being sorrowful, and drenched with showers of tears, not knowing what to say, mourning indeed the captivity and destruction of piety, and that unexpected slaying of the bishop. For those things which were committed in the city of Alexandria declare, by the very narration, the suffering of the soul, and summon to the vengeance of so great a crime Your Equity alone.
For, appointed that you should govern the world of the lands, hastening with the utmost zeal to heal the sickness of indiscipline that leads to destruction—not by unsheathing the sword unto slaughter, but by the word of threatening leading the undisciplined back, according to rule, to the will of obedience. The sentence, therefore, which the abominable Timothy exacts against himself, the holy canons have more openly explained—canons which by his tyranny he has often denied, confounding ecclesiastical discipline and inflicting injuries, having become, I know not how, the enemy of all Christianity. For, caught in such deeds, he ought to experience only Your Justice:
since, to match the magnitude of his crimes, as is contained in the petitions, the power of ecclesiastical sanctions does not suffice. I disclose indeed to Your Power what I am known to think concerning the holy Council of Chalcedon. For this in no way disagrees with the truth: since it confirmed, by a harmonious will and by divine inspiration, the faith handed down by the holy and blessed three hundred and eighteen Fathers; it celebrated no vain exposition, no duality of the only-begotten Son of God, nor any novelty; but in all things it agrees also with the sacred Council of the one hundred and fifty holy Fathers alike, and with that of Ephesus, over which presided the thrice-blessed and most holy Fathers, Celestine pontiff of the Roman city, and Cyril bishop of Alexandria.
We beseech, therefore, Your Power, that you may inviolably preserve those things which by Christ, through Him, concerning Him, have been well established. For where so great a multitude of pontiffs was gathered together, and the holy Gospels present, and frequent prayer withal, there we believe that the Maker of all creation was present by His invisible power. For then there was no terror of imperial authority: because Marcian, of holy and pious memory, crowned with the diadem of divine love, taking up also spiritual care, hastened that the doctrines of the apostles should be confirmed by the prelates of the Church, kindled with desire of the orthodox faith. And when Your Piety imitates him, you both obtain victory against the barbarians, and destroy the enemies of truth as well.
Julian, humble bishop, defining, have subscribed. The letter of Eutyches to St. Leo—among the Leonine letters, number 21—together with the other documents annexed to it, after the death of Flavian, that is, after the year 449, was sent by a certain nobleman to some skilled man (I know not whom), that he might set forth what he thought concerning these things. These things this man judged were to be refuted, and, together with his own censure, they were added as it were an Appendix to the documents pertaining to the Nestorian heresy, which Lupus and Baluze printed from the Casinese codex, and which are found reprinted in volume IV of the Councils, page 499. The letter of Eutyches and the other fragments, which are called into examination by the anonymous author, we have already presented in letter 21.
Now we bring forth the refutation itself, which, since it makes no mention of the Synod of Chalcedon, seems to have been written before that Council, namely about the year 450. The title itself we present from the same Casinese codex.