Leo, to Flavian, bishop of Constantinople.
We confirm that your beloved’s letters reached Us as soon as We found the opportunity through the arrival of Our honorable son Rodanus, informing Us of the cause stirred by perverse error in your region. It grieves Us that one once considered to be of religious purpose holds beliefs contrary to the faith — deviating from the Catholic tradition he should have upheld and persisting instead in error against the common creed of all believers.
Regarding this matter, We respond more fully through the bearer of your letters, instructing your brotherhood on what must be decided for the entire case. We do not permit that man to persist in his perverse persuasion, nor your beloved, who resists this foolish error with zealous faith, to be troubled by prolonged assault from the opposing side.
We desire that you receive Our aforementioned son, through whom We send these letters, with fitting affection, and write back to Us upon his return. Given on the twelfth day before the Kalends of June, in the consulship of Asturius and Protogenes, most illustrious men.
Footnotes
- ↩ Leo’s “fuller response” through Rodanus is Letter XXVIII — the Tome of Leo, dated the same day as this letter (May 21, 449). Letter XXVII is thus the cover note for the most important doctrinal document of Leo’s pontificate. Rodanus carried both to Constantinople, where the Tome arrived too late to prevent the Council of Ephesus II (August 449) but became the decisive text at the Council of Chalcedon two years later (451).
- ↩ The Latin is non patimur — the same jurisdictional formula Leo used in Letter IX when forbidding Dioscorus of Alexandria to diverge from Roman practice: “We do not permit.” Its reappearance here in the context of the Eutychian controversy shows that the same language of active, governing authority that Leo applied to liturgical discipline in 444 applies equally to doctrinal controversy in 449. The phrase marks Leo as the agent who exercises governance over what is permitted in the Church, not merely an advisor who recommends.
- ↩ May 21, 449 AD — the same date as Letter XXVIII, the Tome of Leo. The consulship of Asturius and Protogenes is 449. Within three months of this date, the Council of Ephesus II (August 8–22, 449) would convene, presided over by Dioscorus of Alexandria, and would condemn Flavian, reinstate Eutyches, and refuse to read the Tome. Leo would call that council a latrocinium — a den of robbers. But the Tome, sealed with this brief cover letter, had been sent. Flavian died shortly after Ephesus II from injuries suffered there. The Tome reached its full authority at Chalcedon in 451, where Paschasinus, Leo’s legate, read it aloud and the bishops declared: “Peter has spoken through Leo.”
Historical Commentary