Leo, pope, to Julian, Bishop of Cos.
Chapter I: Leo Laments the Violent Eutychian Disturbances Among Palestinian Monks
Grave and deeply lamentable are the things which your brotherhood reports of the tumults of false monks — as Eutyches’s impious fury wages war against evangelical and apostolic preaching, recoiling to the ruin of himself and his allies. God’s forbearance delays this, revealing how greatly the enemies of the cross of Christ serve the devil. Heretical depravity, exceeding the feigned veil of its simulation, can no longer contain itself within the limits of hypocrisy — pouring out all the venom it had long stored up, raging not only with words against the disciples of truth but also with violence, forcibly extorting agreement from the simplicity of the unlearned or the timidity of the fearful. Yet the sons of light ought not so to fear the sons of darkness as to yield to those who rage, nor to deem such men worthy of reverence. If they prefer to perish rather than to repent, we must ensure their impunity does not spread harm — rising to the ruin of many through prolonged tolerance.
Chapter II: Leo Directs Julian to Press the Emperor to Exile the Obstinate Ringleaders
I am not unaware of the charity and grace owed to our holy and true monk sons who do not abandon the modesty of their profession and fulfill in their conduct what they vowed. But the proud and restless — who glory in contempt and injuries to bishops — are to be held not as servants of Christ but as soldiers of Antichrist, and must especially be humbled by those who lead them when they are stirring an ignorant multitude to the defense of their perversity. Since the most clement prince, with the full religious ardor of his heart, cherishes the Catholic faith and is greatly offended — as is widely known — by the audacity of these rebellious heretics: you must act before his clemency to separate the instigators of this sedition from their mad gatherings. Not only Eutyches and Dioscorus, but also any who zealously aid their furious depravity, should be placed in a location where they can have no blasphemous commerce with their allies: so that the simplicity of some may be healed by this remedy and they may be more easily recalled to sound minds when freed from the instigations of pestilent teachers.
Chapter III: Leo Transmits the Letter of Athanasius to Epictetus as a Weapon Against the Heresy
Lest instruction for strengthening pious hearts or for refuting heretics be lacking or hidden, I transmit the letter of Bishop Athanasius of blessed memory to Bishop Epictetus — which Cyril of holy memory used at the Ephesine synod against Nestorius, defending the Incarnation of the Word so lucidly and diligently that it already defeated, in that era’s heretics, both Nestorius and Eutyches. Let the followers of Eutyches and Dioscorus dare accuse this man, of such authority, of ignorance or depravity — who claim that our preaching deviates from the doctrine and understanding of the Fathers. This should serve to confirm the minds of all the Lord’s bishops: since the heretics, long foreseen and condemned in their authors, now openly assert the doctrine of their impiety — lest it seem doubtful, hidden in silence, whether the threefold error of Apollinaris and the mad opinion of the Manichees are sprouting in them. Since they no longer hide but boldly rise against the churches of Christ, we must ensure that all the force of their efforts be removed — with measured severity separating the unconvertible from the peaceable: for evil communications corrupt good manners (1 Cor. 15:33), and when the pestilent is chastised, the wise will be wiser (Prov. 21:11).
Chapter IV: Leo Addresses the Case of Juvenal of Jerusalem
We ought not to be so moved by their insults and vain talk as to neglect care for their correction. But the injuries of Bishop Juvenal are lamentable: for he rashly joined himself to the blasphemies of the heretics, embracing both Eutyches and Dioscorus, leading many of the ignorant by his example to their ruin — though he afterward corrected himself with wiser counsel. Those who had greedily drunk the venom of impiety became his adversaries — once his disciples — causing him to suffer what he had nurtured. It is to be hoped that they imitate the correction he chose, if they repent through the testimony of the holy places around which they dwell. The character of the one who crept into the place of the living bishop is clear from the nature of the act itself — and it cannot be doubted that the one whom the adversaries of the faith have favored is himself perverse. Meanwhile, let your brotherhood continue its pious solicitude — informing me frequently of how matters progress through your writings.
Dated the seventh day before the Kalends of December, in the consulship of Herculanus, most illustrious man.
Footnotes
- ↩ Julian was Leo’s permanent personal representative in Constantinople — his most trusted Eastern agent throughout the Chalcedonian crisis. Cos (modern Kos) is a Greek island in the southeastern Aegean, off the southwestern coast of Asia Minor, part of the Dodecanese chain. As bishop of this relatively small see, Julian’s importance derived entirely from his proximity to the imperial court and his role as Leo’s eyes and ears in the East. He appears in more letters of Leo than any other single correspondent outside Rome.
- ↩ The PL apparatus identifies the scale of the violence in Palestine: monks under the influence of the Eutychian agitator Marcianus (not Emperor Marcian) had killed Severianus, bishop of Scythopolis — modern Beit She’an in northern Israel, in the Jordan Valley south of the Sea of Galilee. The apparatus also notes that these same groups had attacked churches and intimidated or forcibly extracted signatures from bishops, clergy, and monks throughout the Palestinian holy places. The violence was not merely theological: it was a campaign of physical terror directed at the Chalcedonian settlement.
- ↩ Emperor Marcian (450–457), whose religious policy had been the primary institutional support for the Chalcedonian settlement. Leo is directing Julian to bring the Palestinian situation to Marcian’s attention and to press for imperial action against the Eutychian agitators — combining ecclesiastical condemnation with imperial enforcement, the same coordination visible throughout the pre- and post-Chalcedon correspondence.
- ↩ Athanasius of Alexandria (c. 296–373) — the great fourth-century defender of Nicene orthodoxy, whose long conflict with Arianism earned him the epithet *Athanasius contra mundum*. His letter to Epictetus, bishop of Corinth (modern Corinth in southern Greece), addresses Christological errors that anticipated both Nestorianism and Eutychianism. It became a standard patristic proof-text at Ephesus I (431) under Cyril’s use and remained authoritative at Chalcedon. By sending this letter, Leo is arming Julian and the Eastern bishops with a patristic weapon that predates and condemns the Eutychian position before Eutyches himself existed — making the argument from antiquity rather than from contemporary controversy.
- ↩ Juvenal (Juvenalis) was bishop of Jerusalem (d. 458) — the holy city of Palestine, see of the patriarch who presided over the most sacred sites of Christianity. Juvenal had a complex history: at Ephesus I (431) he initially supported Nestorius, then switched to Cyril’s party; at the Latrocinium (449) he sided with Dioscorus and signed the condemnation of Flavian; at Chalcedon (451) he returned to orthodoxy and subscribed to the Chalcedonian definition, for which the monks of Palestine — whom he had previously encouraged in the Eutychian direction — drove him from his see and installed a rival bishop in his place. He eventually returned to Jerusalem with imperial support. Leo’s observation that “those who avidly drank the venom of impiety became his adversaries, once his disciples” is a precise description of this irony: Juvenal’s own Eutychian converts turned on him when he corrected himself.
- ↩ November 25, 452 — approximately six months after the Canon 28 dispatch of May 22, 452 (Letters CIV–CVII). The Palestinian disturbances Leo addresses here are part of the broader post-Chalcedon disorder: Chalcedon had settled the doctrinal question but had not ended the Eutychian party’s capacity to cause violence, particularly in the monasteries of Palestine where it retained a strong foothold. The letter reveals the practical dimension of the Chalcedonian settlement: defining the faith was necessary but not sufficient; its enforcement in the provinces required the coordination of papal instruction, episcopal action, and imperial power that Leo orchestrates throughout this correspondence.
Historical Commentary