Leo, bishop, to Julian, Bishop of Cos.
Leo Gently Reproves Julian’s Silence and Charges Him to Write at Every Opportunity
I have often urged your charity to this care and diligence in my letters — to relieve my solicitude about the affairs of the faith without ceasing. Though I never cease writing with every opportunity, I received no response from your brotherhood to certain writings sent through our son the subdeacon Rodanus, domestic of our son the most illustrious Asparacius — as if the reason of the time prevented you from indicating what followed from my writings. I therefore send this letter through our son Count Rodanus, admonishing you to neglect no opportunity of writing to relieve the heat of my solicitude. As Constantinople holds a portion of me in you, it befits both common friendship and the love of the whole Church for you to foresee with ceaseless vigor that nothing of the state of the faith escapes me. Whatever was set out in my letters to the most glorious prince or to your charity, labor with timely suggestions for its swift fulfillment. Inform me of whatever God’s aid disposes — so that through the execution of what has been reasonably ordered, the peace of the faith and the custody of the canons may be held more secure and firm everywhere.
Dated the seventh day before the Kalends of July, in the consulship of Opilio, most illustrious man.
Footnotes
- ↩ The phrase quoniam tibi in Constantinopolitanis habeant portionem — “As Constantinople holds a portion of me in you” — is the vicariate formula reduced to its most personal and direct expression. Julian is not merely acting in Leo’s stead at a specific event; he is Leo’s very portion — his personal presence — at Constantinople. Whatever Leo would do if he were physically at the imperial court, Julian does. The phrase is consistent with the *vice mea* and *meo nomine* formulas throughout the post-Chalcedon correspondence, but here stripped to its essential logic: Leo is present in Julian, and Julian’s absence from his correspondence is therefore Leo’s own absence from information he needs.
- ↩ June 25, 453 — ten days after the June 15 triple dispatch (Letters CXXI, CXXII, CXXIII). Leo has received no reply from Julian to his previous letters and is pressing for communication. The dateline also confirms that the post-Chalcedon correspondence maintained an almost weekly pace during this period: Leo is tracking multiple Eastern situations simultaneously and expects Julian to be in continuous contact.
Historical Commentary