Leo to Anatolius, bishop of Constantinople.
Chapter I: Leo Urges Anatolius to Press the Emperor Without Ceasing for the Liberation of the Alexandrian Church
Having again received the letters of your charity, I have learned with great sorrow all the things that have been done most insanely at Alexandria — though indeed no pages of letters could suffice to set forth such atrocious crimes. But it is not now our business to linger over lamenting adversities: it is more useful to provide for what will help and what will at last drive the fury of the heretics away from the peace of the Church. For since divine Providence has given us so great a prince, that his faith almost surpasses the solicitude of priests, the insistence of your charity is most particularly awaited — that you not cease to make supplication to the most venerable emperor for the universal Church, and to press him with constant suggestions that the Alexandrian Church be freed as soon as possible from those who have seized it. For my own part, I have petitioned the most devout prince with as much as lay in my power, that he command the decrees of the holy Council of Chalcedon to remain inviolate, and that the assertions of the heretics be recognized as proceeding from the deepest blindness — and that what the sacrilegious parricides have perpetrated in the seizure of the priesthood may in no way be tolerated by dissimulation; nor can the whole cause be settled in any other way than that the constitutions of the aforesaid synod receive the strength of permanence, and the most insane usurpers be expelled from another’s see, so that the Alexandrian people may at last enjoy their proper peace and quiet, lest they be hurled to the ruin of the Church and the offense of God by the caprice of a few heretics.
Chapter II: Only Four Previously Condemned Egyptian Bishops Joined Timothy Aelurus; The Parricides Have No Place in the Church
I have received much consolation in this: that out of the entire number of bishops who preside over the Egyptian dioceses, only four — previously condemned — could be found who had joined Timotheus in the impiety of heresy and the brigandage of crime — who could in no way be admitted to a synod, even if they were being arraigned on the charge of heresy alone. But since both in seizing the episcopate and in murdering the bishop they have perpetrated an unheard-of crime, what place in the Church is there for them, even if they were to embrace the Catholic faith? To all the priests of the Lord throughout Egypt, therefore, whether more recent ones or those residing there from ancient establishment, one aid and one remedy must be provided: that they be freed from such unworthy persecutions, and that the evil which has thrust itself into the very heart of so great a city be driven out by wholesome authority, so that the Christian people — previously devout in faith and works — may be able to serve in peace according to the traditions of their fathers.
Chapter III: The Apostolic See Will Never Receive Any Novel Council Against Chalcedon; Connivance Constitutes Self-Separation from Catholic Communion
I have not ceased to commend to the emperor by my letters our brothers who have come to Constantinople from the parts of Egypt; and I also admonish you to apply as much effort as you can to the consolation of their exile, since their presence can be of great assistance to your charity before the most merciful prince — lest assent be given to the petition of the heretics for a new synod, which is the enemy of the universal Church. For however firmly the Apostolic See is founded in faith and stability, so that it will in no way receive the assent of this novelty — and if anyone should believe it necessary to connive at the machinations of the adversaries, he would by that very fact separate himself from the communion of the Catholic Church — since, according to the inspiration of God, and in the faith of the Incarnation of Christ, and in the keeping of the Chalcedonian synod, the universal Church has but one mind; and above all in our own ranks the evangelical doctrine must be held so firmly that it would be counted a great sacrilege to deviate from the apostolic tradition even in the slightest degree.
Chapter IV: Leo Rebukes Anatolius for His Failure to Correct the Presbyter Atticus and Demands Immediate Action
I recall having written some time ago to your charity that you should suffer no one in the clergy of your Church to consent to the Eutychian heresy — since the head’s life is at stake if anything diseased is found in the members. But since this has been purged by no correction whatsoever, and I now learn that your presbyter Atticus has progressed to such insolence that he dares to dispute openly in the Church against the Catholic Faith and the Chalcedonian synod, I am compelled to find greater fault with your dissimulation. For what you ought to have done without being admonished, I am astonished to find neglected even after our plain written instructions. And so I warn you more sharply, and protest that you must no longer dissemble, if you intend to keep so pestilent a man any further in your communion. We ourselves, if it can be done, would prefer him corrected rather than lost — so that if he desires to appear corrected and to remain in ecclesiastical fellowship, he should now openly, from that very place where he has argued so much against the Catholic Faith, appear as a preacher of the faith itself, and suppress nothing of the Eutychian doctrine which he does not condemn by the public profession of his own faith before the Christian people: lest, as I have said, this dissimulation greatly stain you — if either this man, who is so dangerous, or Andreas, the ally of impiety, be kept on, neither corrected nor expelled.
Given on the Kalends of December, in the consulship of Constantinus and Rufus.
Footnotes
- ↩ Leo uses the word sollicitudo — his defining term for the Roman bishop’s universal pastoral responsibility, the duty he owes to all the Churches of God — to describe the emperor’s faith. The emperor’s devotion is so great that it approaches the sollicitudo proper to the priestly office. This is high praise, but it also defines the emperor’s role in functional terms: he exercises something approaching priestly solicitude for the faith, and it is on this basis that Leo urges Anatolius to leverage his nearness to the emperor with constant pressing. The emperor’s solicitude is the instrument; Anatolius’s insistence is the mechanism; Leo’s authority is the source from which the whole campaign flows.
- ↩ The Latin is dudum damnati — “previously” or “long since condemned.” The four bishops who joined Timothy Aelurus were not ordinary members of the Egyptian episcopate who wavered under pressure; they were men already under ecclesiastical condemnation before the crisis began. Of the entire legitimate Egyptian episcopate, only already-condemned figures were willing to join the usurper. Leo deploys this as evidence of Timothy Aelurus’s profound isolation within the legitimate episcopal body — which in turn strengthens his argument that the solution lies in removing the usurpers, not in accommodating their demands through a new council.
- ↩ The claim that the Apostolic See is “founded in faith and stability” (ea fide ac stabilitate fundata) is a direct statement of indefectibility: the See of Peter is so constituted that it cannot receive the demand for a novel council against Chalcedon. This is the companion claim to Letter CLVI’s ea quæ a sede apostolica sunt prædicata sufficerent — “what has been proclaimed from the Apostolic See would suffice of itself.” Together the two statements present the Apostolic See as both sufficient in its proclamations and indefectible in its foundation: its proclamations need no supplement from other authorities, and its stability in faith is such that it cannot be moved by heretical pressure.
- ↩ The self-separation clause is not a threat of excommunication but a statement of structural reality. Leo does not say he will excommunicate those who connive at the demand for a new council; he says they separate themselves — ipse se separabit — by that very act. The Apostolic See’s judgment defines the boundary of Catholic communion, and departure from that judgment is ipso facto departure from the Church. This is among the most direct statements in the entire corpus of the principle that communion with the Apostolic See is constitutive of membership in the Catholic Church.
- ↩ The phrase in nostris paribus — “in our own ranks,” among our peers — refers specifically to the episcopate. Leo is distinguishing the standard that applies to bishops from what might be tolerated more broadly: among the episcopate, the evangelical doctrine must be held so firmly that even the slightest deviation from the apostolic tradition would be counted a great sacrilege. The episcopal standard is higher precisely because bishops are the designated transmitters of the apostolic tradition; deviation in them is not merely error but betrayal of the office that makes them what they are.
- ↩ This is the third iteration of the directive concerning Atticus and heretical clergy at Constantinople. In Letter CLI Leo issued the initial command — private examination first, then correction or expulsion. In Letter CLV he rebuked Anatolius for excessive leniency and warned that the dissimulation would stain him. Here, after further noncompliance, Leo’s tone escalates to open exasperation. The escalating pattern — directive, rebuke, sharpened command — is itself evidence for the primacy question: Leo does not defer to Anatolius’s judgment about his own clergy; he repeats and intensifies the command. The presumption throughout is that Leo’s directive is binding regardless of whether Anatolius agrees with it.
- ↩ Leo prescribes not merely expulsion as the remedy but a specific form of public correction as the preferred outcome: Atticus must stand in the very place where he publicly argued against the faith and publicly preach the faith from that same place, condemning every element of the Eutychian doctrine by name before the Christian people. Leo is governing the procedure of pastoral correction in precise detail — including its public character and its specific location. The specificity is as revealing as the private-examination-first directive of Letter CLI: Leo is not leaving Anatolius to determine the manner of correction but prescribing it step by step.
- ↩ The warning that dissimulation will “greatly stain” (plurimum maculet) Anatolius is the same pastoral accountability logic Leo deployed in Letter CLV through the Eli example: the bishop who tolerates scandalous clergy is implicated in their guilt. There Leo cited Scripture; here he states the consequence directly and personally. Anatolius’s episcopal standing is at stake in how he handles his own clergy — and it is Leo who is telling him so.
Historical Commentary