Leo, bishop, to Gennadius, bishop of Constantinople.
Chapter I: Leo Complains of Aelurus’s Presence at Constantinople and Directs That He Be Denied All Contact
From the letters of your charity, and from the account of our brother co-bishops Domitianus and Germinianus, I have learned that Timothy — after being expelled from the city of the Alexandrian Church — has been permitted to come to Constantinople through the efforts of some who are enemies of the faith. This was arranged so that, since he is constrained by the unanimous sentences of all the Lord’s priests, he might at least show unwillingly some appearance of conversion to the Catholic faith — and so that, being condemned as someone ejected on account of heretical perversity, he might seem to be returning to Alexandria having consented to apostolic doctrine. But this he will never do willingly — since it stands powerfully against him that, while the legitimate bishop was still living, he was the invader of so great a see, and proved to be the author of crimes hitherto unheard of.
Therefore your charity must strive and labor — renowned as you are — that no conversation with so evil a man be permitted, whether privately or publicly; and that no assembly be given occasion under the pretext of correcting him, lest he gain freedom to return, about whom the most Christian emperor has already issued his edicts. Work with all your effort and watchful attention to serve the unity of the Church, dearest brother, so that the support of his backers may be taken from him, and an orthodox bishop may be consecrated for the Alexandrians from among the Catholic clergy according to the ancient custom — since the parricide cannot otherwise be abandoned by his defenders unless the Alexandrian Church, which must be restored to the honor of the Fathers and to its own liberty, receives a shepherd for the healing of all.
Given on the fifteenth day before the Kalends of July, in the consulship of Magnus and Apollonius. Through Philoxenus, agent in affairs.
Footnotes
- ↩ Gennadius succeeded Anatolius as Archbishop of Constantinople upon the latter’s death on July 3, 458. He held the see until 471 and was known for his orthodox sympathies and his vigorous opposition to simony within his own clergy. This letter is Leo’s first communication to him in the surviving corpus — the Alexandrian correspondence had run throughout Anatolius’s tenure, and now in its final phase it reaches his successor.
- ↩ Domitianus and Germinianus were the two Western bishops Leo had dispatched as his personal legates to the imperial court in Letter CLXIV (August 17, 458) — nearly two years before this letter. Their report to Leo here closes the loop from that dispatch: they have remained at or near Constantinople throughout the intervening period, monitoring the situation, and now report to Leo that Aelurus has arrived. The continuity of their mission across almost two years confirms Leo’s practice of maintaining permanent Roman agents at the eastern court as an instrument of ongoing governance.
- ↩ The canonical ground for Aelurus’s permanent exclusion, first stated in Letter CLXIX Chapter III, is here repeated to the Archbishop of Constantinople. Even if Aelurus were to profess the Catholic faith in full, the fact that he seized the Alexandrian see while the legitimate bishop Proterius was still alive is itself a permanent disqualification — the criminal acquisition of a see while its rightful occupant lives cannot be remedied by subsequent doctrinal conversion. This repetition of the ground across two same-day letters (CLXIX to the emperor, CLXX to Gennadius) is characteristic of Leo’s coordinated campaigns: the same canonical determination deployed simultaneously to both the imperial authority that enforces it and the patriarchal authority that must implement it locally.
- ↩ Leo prohibits both private conversations and public assemblies. The concern is precise: a gathering ostensibly convened to examine whether Aelurus has truly corrected his faith would imply that the question of his restoration is still open — which Leo has already definitively ruled it is not. The phrase sub specie correctionis — “under the pretext of correction” — identifies the mechanism of the expected manipulation: Aelurus’s supporters would use the language of charitable examination to create a forum for his rehabilitation campaign. Closing both private and public access simultaneously removes even the back-channel routes through which such momentum could be built.
- ↩ The phrase secundum morem veterem per orthodoxos Egyptios consecretur — “be consecrated by orthodox Egyptians according to ancient custom” — is jurisdictionally precise. Leo is not claiming the right to appoint the Bishop of Alexandria himself; the traditional right of consecration belongs to the Egyptian suffragan bishops. What Leo is claiming is the right to define the conditions of legitimacy that any appointment must meet — conditions he has specified throughout this correspondence: the candidate must be orthodox, untainted by Eutychian error, and approved by the Apostolic See. The appointment belongs to the Egyptian bishops; the norm against which it is measured belongs to Rome. This is the precise architecture of ordinary and immediate jurisdiction: Rome defines the standard; the local church acts within it.
- ↩ June 17, 460 — the same date as Letter CLXIX to Emperor Leo I. The coordinated two-letter dispatch — to the emperor and to the Archbishop of Constantinople simultaneously — continues the pattern visible throughout the Alexandrian correspondence. Philoxenus, the imperial agent (agens in rebus), appears here for the third time as carrier of Leo’s letters (previously in Letters CLXII and CLXIX), confirming Leo’s consistent use of the imperial courier system as a channel of communication with the eastern court across the whole 458–460 period.
Historical Commentary