Leo, bishop, to Faustus and Martinus, presbyters and archimandrites. Through Maximinus, count.
Chapter I: Leo Declares It Intolerable That Ephesus Acted Against the Faith; By God’s Favor the Liberty of Catholics Has Greatly Increased
Embracing every occasion to write, I do not cease to address your charity with episcopal affection — so that from the very frequency of my letters you may recognize how much care we have for the universal Church, whose most pious faith your devotion must also zealously defend by sharing our labors. Through our brother bishops and presbyters — sent for the state of the Christian religion and whom we trust are with you — you could fully discern from our instructions how intolerable all the bishops of our regions find what the profane folly of certain persons sought to impose against the mystery of human redemption.
Now, through our son Maximinus the count, we continually exhort you — since by the propitious Lord the liberty of the Catholics has greatly increased — to take up spiritual constancy against the precursors of Antichrist, as the blessed John says: Every spirit that confesses Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God; and every spirit that dissolves Jesus Christ is not from God, and this is Antichrist (1 John 4:2–3).
Chapter II: Nestorius and Eutyches Both Serve Antichrist; The Church Confesses One Person, Not One Nature
Nestorius and Eutyches, under different forms of error but the same spirit of falsehood, sought to serve this Antichrist — though the Catholic faith, imbued with apostolic and evangelical doctrines, detests and condemns both. For since the coeternal Word became flesh (John 1:14), the Church believes Him who is the Son of God and also confesses Him as the Son of Man; and in the one true God and true man, our Lord Jesus Christ, it professes to adore one person, not one nature. United with us in this faith inseparably and indistinguishably, stand firm and act manfully. If any delays arise in ordering what we seek, inform our charity through the opportunities that divine grace provides — for it is great solace when anxious minds hear of the progress of desired actions.
We desire that these letters of ours, sent to your charity, be made known to other Catholics as well — so that they may understand that they too are stirred by these our exhortations to the defense of the faith.
Given on the sixth day before the Ides of November, in the seventh consulship of Valentinian Augustus and in the consulship of Avienus.
Footnotes
- ↩ The solicitude formula in its most direct form — “how much care we have for the universal Church” — combined immediately with the enrollment of the archimandrites as co-laborers in that care. Leo’s solicitude for the universal Church is not merely a pastoral attitude but the defining obligation of his office; and those whom he addresses are drawn into participation in that solicitude rather than simply receiving its benefits. Compare Letter V to Anastasius of Thessalonica and the Illyrian correspondence throughout, where the same structure governs the vicariate relationship.
- ↩ This phrase — propitio Domino multum catholicorum est aucta libertas — is the letter’s historical marker. It refers to the changed political situation following Theodosius II’s death on July 28, 450 and the accession of Marcian, whose convictions aligned with Leo’s and who had immediately moved to reverse the pro-Eutychian court policy. Chrysaphius had been executed. The pressure that had made discretion necessary (visible in Letter LXXII’s careful register) was gone. Leo can now address the archimandrites with open confidence about the changed situation — a confidence he could not have expressed three months earlier.
- ↩ Non unam naturam, sed unam se profitetur adorare personam — “it professes to adore one person, not one nature.” This is Leo’s most compressed statement of the Chalcedonian Christological formula, stated here as the Church’s own confession more than a year before Chalcedon would formally define it. The two errors are precisely named: Nestorius divided the person while affirming two natures; Eutyches merged the natures into one while notionally affirming one person but denying the reality of one of them. The Catholic confession holds both the duality of natures and the unity of person — exactly as the Tome had argued and as Chalcedon’s definition would confirm. Leo is writing this to Constantinople archimandrites in November 450 so that when the council meets they know what the faith is and what it has always been.
- ↩ Leo’s directive to circulate his letters beyond the immediate addressees is a recurrent exercise of universal pastoral authority. He directs Faustus and Martinus to disseminate his teaching to the broader Catholic community of Constantinople — not as a request but as an expressed desire that carries the weight of his office. The same pattern appears in Letters LXVI–LXVII (Leo using Ravennius to distribute the Tome through Gaul) and in the legate network throughout the corpus. The Roman bishop’s teaching reaches the whole Church not only through direct correspondence but through the commissioned distribution of those he has enrolled in his solicitude.
- ↩ November 8, 450. The legates Abundius and Asterius had returned from Constantinople and reported to Leo — which is why he can now write with full confidence about the changed situation. The letter was dispatched through Maximinus the count, a sign that Leo is now using imperial channels to reach the Constantinople monastics, where before he had relied on ecclesiastical couriers alone. The new emperor Marcian would write to Leo within days — Letter LXXVI, visible on the next page of the PL, is Marcian deferring to Leo on the location of the council that would become Chalcedon.
Historical Commentary