Leo, bishop, to Anatolius, Bishop of Constantinople.
Let Not the Remnants of Heretics Lurking in the City Be Nourished by Excessive Mildness and Revive
I gladly receive the offices of charity from your dilection — and I exhort you to exercise them more frequently: since it pertains to the benefit of the whole Church when We know what is being done.
In what solicitude your charity ought to be vigilant you understand without doubt — since you yourself recognize that some remnants of wicked men have settled among you: to suppress these, or rather — with the Lord’s help — to abolish them entirely, We desire you to press earnestly, lest — which God forbid — through any laziness of mildness, those that have been too slowly destroyed might revive.
Dated the third day before the Ides of March, in the consulship of the Augustus Valentinianus for the eighth time.
Footnotes
- ↩ The phrase quoniam ad totius Ecclesiae pertinet utilitatem, cum quae aguntur agnoscimus — “since it pertains to the benefit of the whole Church when We know what is being done” — is Leo’s explicit claim that knowing what happens in Constantinople pertains to the whole Church’s benefit. The Apostolic See’s universal pastoral responsibility extends to Constantinople’s internal situation: not knowing it would be a deficit for the universal Church, not merely for Leo personally. The papal “We” names the subject: it is the Apostolic See that must know, not merely Leo as an individual correspondent.
- ↩ The phrase cupimus te instanter incumbere — “We desire you to press earnestly” — is Leo directing Anatolius’s internal pastoral governance of Constantinople with the papal “We.” The remnants in question are the Eutychian adherents still present in the city after the Carosus/Dorotheos removals — those who had been corrected formally but perhaps not fully suppressed. Leo is not content with partial compliance; he presses for complete abolition. The directive is issued to the patriarch of Constantinople as a superior’s command, not a collegial suggestion.
- ↩ March 13, 455 — the same day as Letter CXLII to Marcian. The simultaneous dispatch to both the emperor and the patriarch on the same day follows the now-established pattern of the post-Chalcedon correspondence: Leo addresses both the imperial and the ecclesiastical channels simultaneously when the situation requires action from both. CXLII thanked Marcian for executing the Carosus/Dorotheos removal; CXLIII charges Anatolius to press further against the remaining Eutychian remnants in the city.
Historical Commentary