Leo to Basil, bishop of Antioch.
Chapter I: Leo Admonishes Basil Concerning the Alexandrian Crisis, and Urges Steadfast Resistance to the Eutychians
We should indeed have learned of your charity’s ordination in the proper ecclesiastical manner, whether through your own account or that of our provincial brothers the bishops. But since there was no lack of causes which could have impeded this diligence, and the prince of holy memory, Marcian, made your consecration known to us through his own writings, so that we need have no just cause to doubt one whom we know — we admonish your charity, as we have admonished certain of our other brothers by our letters, in view of the present necessity. For having learned of those things which have been committed at Alexandria by the fury of the Eutychians — which I do not doubt have become fully known to your brotherhood — by virtue of the duty of solicitude which I owe to all the Churches of God, I have directed these writings, by which I believed your charity ought to be admonished, that you may resist their wicked attempts with holy steadfastness, lest in any of ours the common faith be found either anxious or lukewarm. With the Lord’s favor, who does not desert His Church in any tribulation, we have in the most devout emperor so religious and so Catholic a spirit that nothing different is to be believed of him than what we proved of Marcian of august memory.
Chapter II: Leo Praises the Emperor’s Rejection of Heretical Demands, and Instructs Basil to Circulate This Exhortation to All Bishops
For even while our own action was still pending, the most faithful emperor was so horrified by the parricidal crime that he granted no access to the action of the heretics, who — after the enormity of the deed they had perpetrated — believed it possible that, with the definitions of the holy Chalcedonian synod dissolved, an episcopal council might be summoned for other proceedings. Because this, dearest brother, is manifestly and abruptly hostile to the Christian faith, and is demanded with such wickedness for no other reason than that the preaching of the Gospel and the mystery of the Lord’s Incarnation might be subverted, I beseech your charity that you relax your minds in nothing from the definitions of the Council of Chalcedon, and suffer not those things which were composed by divine inspiration to be violated by any novelty. For I am certain that the most merciful emperor and the magnificent Patricius, together with all the assembly of the illustrious powers, will permit the heretics to gain nothing for the disturbance of the Church, if they shall see that pastoral minds waver in nothing. But in order that this exhortation may reach the notice of all our brothers and fellow bishops, let your charity’s diligence take care — for, as must often be said, the whole Christian religion is thrown into confusion if anything from what was decreed at Chalcedon should be overturned.
Given on the Kalends of September, in the consulship of Constantinus and Rufus.
Footnotes
- ↩ The established custom by which Rome expected to be informed of episcopal consecrations at the major sees was not administrative courtesy — it was the practical expression of Rome’s immediate jurisdiction over episcopal succession throughout the Church. That this expectation applied to the see of Antioch — one of the five patriarchal sees recognized at Chalcedon — is itself significant: the obligation of notification ran from every bishop, including patriarchs, to Rome. The Ratisbon manuscript reads debueramus — the stronger “we ought to have” — making clear this was an expected observance, not a preference. That the notification came instead through Emperor Marcian’s own writings is noted without rebuke but also without concealment: the proper ecclesiastical channel had not been used.
- ↩ The Latin is pro ea sollicitudine quam omnibus Ecclesiis Dei debeo — “by virtue of the solicitude which I owe to all the Churches of God.” The word debeo — “I owe,” “it is my duty” — is the key. Leo does not describe his universal pastoral responsibility as a charism he happens to exercise or a burden he generously takes up; he describes it as a debt owed by his office. This is the sollicitudo formula that runs throughout the Leo corpus — visible in Letters V, VI, and X in the Illyrian and Gallic contexts — here stated in its most explicit and theologically precise form. The universal pastoral responsibility of the Roman bishop is an obligation constitutive of his office, not a discretionary extension of it. It is the pastoral face of the ordinary and immediate jurisdiction he holds over every church.
- ↩ The phrase quæ divina inspiratione composita sunt — “composed by divine inspiration” — applies to Chalcedon’s definitions the same ground of authority deployed in Letters CXLV and CXLVII. Across the entire 457 cluster, Leo grounds the inviolability of Chalcedon not in conciliar authority as such but in divine inspiration — the same basis on which the Roman pontiff’s own definitions of faith are irreformable. The connection is not incidental: what makes Chalcedon’s definitions irreformable is that they were confirmed by the Apostolic See, whose confirmatory act carries the divine authority of Peter’s succession. What God has inspired through that succession cannot be revised by any subsequent assembly.
- ↩ Patricius here refers to Aspar (full name: Flavius Ardabur Aspar), the dominant military commander of the Eastern Empire and holder of the rank of patrician. Though himself sympathetic to Arianism, Aspar wielded enormous political influence at the court of Emperor Leo I.
- ↩ This closing directive is structurally significant. Leo is not merely writing to Basil for Basil’s own edification; he is using the Patriarch of Antioch as a conduit through which his exhortation reaches the broader eastern episcopate. The parallel with Anatolius of Constantinople is exact: in the July 11 cluster, Leo directed Anatolius both to press the emperor and to keep Leo informed; here he directs Basil to distribute Leo’s own letter throughout the eastern episcopate. Both patriarchs are instruments through which Rome’s ordinary and immediate jurisdiction reaches the wider Church.
Historical Commentary