Leo, bishop, to Anatolius, bishop.
Chapter I: Leo Praises Anatolius’s Recovery From Disorderly Beginnings but Reproves His Ambition
With the light of evangelical truth disclosed, as We had hoped, through God’s grace, and the universal Church freed from the night of most pernicious error, We rejoice beyond all telling in the Lord that the labor of the stewardship entrusted to Us has reached the desired outcome — as the text of your letter itself declares. So that, according to apostolic doctrine, we all say the same thing, and there are no divisions among us — perfected in the same understanding and the same knowledge (1 Cor. 1:10). We rejoice that your charity shares in the devotion of this work: that you aided correction and purged yourself from fellowship with deviants. For since your predecessor of blessed memory, Flavian, had been driven into exile for defending the Catholic truth, it was not unjustly believed that your ordainers — against the constitutions of the holy canons — seemed to have consecrated one like themselves. But God’s mercy was present, directing and confirming you in this, so that you made good use of evil beginnings and showed that your advancement came not by human judgment but by the generosity of God — which is true only if you do not lose the grace of this divine gift through other offenses. For a Catholic man, and especially a bishop of the Lord, ought neither to be entangled in error nor corrupted by ambition. For as holy Scripture says: Do not follow your desires, and refrain from your will (Sir. 18:30). The many allurements and vanities of this world must be resisted, so that the integrity of true continence may be obtained; whose first stain is pride — the beginning of transgression and the origin of sin. For a mind greedy for power knows neither to abstain from the forbidden nor to take pleasure in what is permitted; with disordered and depraved advance, the excesses of unpunished transgressions grow, and faults multiply — faults which had been tolerated for love of restoring the faith and in the interest of concord.
Chapter II: Anatolius Has Violated the Prerogatives of the Nicene Canons — No Assembly of Any Size May Override the Three Hundred and Eighteen
After those disorderly beginnings of your ordination, then, and after the consecration of the bishop of Antioch — which you arrogated to yourself against the canonical rule — I grieve that your charity has also fallen in this: by trying to violate the most sacred constitutions of the Nicene canons — as though an opportune time had presented itself to you, when the see of Alexandria has lost the privilege of second honor and the Church of Antioch has forfeited the prerogative of third dignity, so that with these places subjected to your authority, all metropolitan bishops would be deprived of their proper honor. With such unheard-of and never before attempted excesses, you drew the holy synod — assembled by the most Christian prince solely for the extinction of heresy and for the confirmation of the Catholic faith — into an occasion for ambition, pressing it to yield to your connivance: as though a multitude’s illicit desire could not be refuted, or as if the constitution of the Nicene canons, truly ordained by the Holy Spirit, could be dissolved in any part. Let no synodal councils flatter themselves by the multiplication of their gathering, nor let any number of priests, however large, dare to compare itself to those three hundred and eighteen, or to prefer itself to them — since the Nicene synod is consecrated with so great a divine privilege that whatever has been attempted otherwise, by fewer or by more, is entirely without authority, as contrary to their constitution.
Chapter III: The Holy Synod Was Misused; Leo’s Legates Rightly Opposed the Claims in His Stead
These things are therefore excessively wicked, excessively perverse — found to be contrary to the most sacred canons. The entire Church is disturbed by this proud ambition’s tendency, which so wished to abuse the synodal council that it drew the brothers — convened for the cause of the faith alone and having completed the definition of that cause — either by corruption to consent, or by intimidation to be compelled. Hence our brothers, directed from the Apostolic See, who presided at the synod in My stead, probably and steadfastly opposed these illicit attempts, openly protesting that the presumption of a reprobate novelty must not rise against the institutes of the Nicene council. Nor can there be any doubt about their contradiction — of which even you yourself complain in your letter, that they chose to oppose your endeavors. In writing this to me, you greatly commend them; but you accuse yourself — for refusing to yield to them while pursuing what is unlawful, vainly seeking what is not conceded and unhealthily desiring what opposes you, which can never gain Our agreement.
Chapter IV: Leo Will Never Consent to Illicit Acts Against the Nicene Council; Its Laws Live in the Whole World Until the End of Time
Far be it from my conscience that so perverse an ambition should be aided by my efforts — rather than opposed by them, along with all who do not think lofty thoughts but agree with the humble. The holy and venerable Fathers who assembled at Nicaea — with Arius and his impiety condemned — established the laws of ecclesiastical canons to endure until the end of the world; and they live in us and throughout the whole world in their constitutions. And if anything is anywhere attempted otherwise than they decreed, it is without delay nullified: so that what was universally established for perpetual benefit may not be altered by any change, and what was set for the common good may not be drawn to private advantage. With the limits that the Fathers established remaining firm, let no one intrude on another’s rights; but within his own proper and lawful boundaries, let each exercise himself in the breadth of charity as far as he can. The bishop of Constantinople can acquire charity’s abundant fruits if he strives for the virtue of humility rather than the spirit of ambition.
Chapter V: The Constantinople Synod’s Canons Were Never Sent to the Apostolic See; Anatolius’s Support Is Without Foundation
Do not think lofty thoughts, brother, but fear (Rom. 11:20) — and cease to trouble the most pious ears of the Christian princes with disorderly petitions, by which I am certain they will be more pleased with your modesty than with your elation. For your persuasion receives not the least support from the subscription of certain bishops made, as you claim, sixty years ago — a subscription never transmitted to the notice of the Apostolic See by your predecessors: now long collapsed and useless — to which you wished to apply late and futile props, eliciting from the brothers a mere semblance of consent, which a wearied modesty furnished them to their own harm. Remember what the Lord threatens against the one who scandalizes even the least (Matt. 18:6; Mark 9:42), and wisely consider what divine judgment awaits one who does not fear to bring scandal upon so many churches and so many bishops. I confess, then, that my love for the universal brotherhood binds me to deny assent to anyone who seeks what harms him — and you can clearly perceive that I oppose your charity with goodwill, that you may be held back by a wiser counsel from disturbing the universal Church.
Chapter VI: Let the Ranks of the Apostolic Sees Stand; Let Anatolius Embrace Charity
Let the rights of the provincial primates not be shaken, and let the metropolitan bishops not be deprived of their ancient privileges. Let the see of Alexandria lose nothing of the dignity which it merited through holy Mark the Evangelist, the disciple of the most blessed Peter. Let the Church of Antioch — in which the name Christian first arose through the preaching of the blessed Apostle Peter — persist in the order of its paternal constitution, and, placed in the third rank, never diminish itself. For sees are one thing and those who preside over them are another; and each’s great honor is its own integrity — which, preserving its proper ornaments in whatever places, can be all the more glorious in the magnificence of Constantinople, if through your observance and defense of the paternal canons many bishops gain from you an example of uprightness.
Writing these things to you, brother, I exhort and warn you in the Lord: lay down the desire of ambition and burn rather with the spirit of charity, adorned proficiently in its virtues according to apostolic doctrine. For charity is patient and kind; it does not envy, does not act perversely, is not puffed up, is not ambitious, seeks not its own (1 Cor. 13:4–5). If charity seeks not its own, how greatly does the one sin who covets what is another’s? I urge you to abstain entirely — mindful of that sentence: Hold what you have, lest another take your crown (Rev. 3:11). For if you seek what is not granted, you will by your own act and judgment deprive yourself of the peace of the universal Church. Our brother and fellow bishop Lucianus, and our son the deacon Basilius, were diligent in attending to what you had enjoined, as far as in them lay; but justice denied effect to their action.
Dated the eleventh day before the Kalends of June, in the consulship of Herculanus, most illustrious man.
Footnotes
- ↩ The principle stated here — Nulla sibimet de multiplicatione congregationis synodalia concilia blandiantur, neque trecentis illis decem atque octo episcopis quantumlibet copiosior numerus sacerdotum vel comparare se audeat, vel praeferre; cum tanto divitus privilegio Nicaena sit synodus consecrata, ut sive per pauciores, sive per plures ecclesiastica judicia celebrentur, omni penitus auctoritate sit vacuum, quidquid ab illorum fuerit constitutione diversum — is the fullest statement of the Nicene priority argument in the entire Leo corpus. Its logic is categorical: the number of bishops assembled at a later council is not a relevant consideration. Nicaea’s three hundred and eighteen established the ecclesiastical constitution under the Holy Spirit’s authority; any decree by any assembly — whether smaller or larger — that contradicts that constitution is void. Five hundred bishops at Chalcedon cannot override three hundred and eighteen at Nicaea. This is the same principle stated in Letter CV (the formal nullification) but here directed personally to Anatolius.
- ↩ The phrase fratres nostri ab apostolica sede directi, qui vice mea synodo praesidebant, probabiliter atque constanter illicitis ausibus obstiterunt, aperte reclamantes — “our brothers, directed from the Apostolic See, who presided at the synod in My stead, steadfastly opposed illicit attempts, openly protesting” — is Leo’s formal validation of his legates’ Chalcedon opposition. Anatolius had complained about the legates’ resistance in Letter CI. Leo’s response here inverts the complaint entirely: the legates presided in his stead and acted faithfully. Their opposition is not a deficiency to be corrected but a faithful execution of the vicariate to be commended.
- ↩ The phrase quae nullum umquam poterint nostrum consensum obtinere — “which can never gain Our agreement” — should be read carefully. Leo does not say “which Nicaea forbids” or “which the canons prevent.” He says the Canon 28 claim will never obtain his agreement. The refusal is personal and volitional, not merely the mechanical application of an external rule. The same register appears in Leo’s letter to Julian of Cos (Letter CVII), where he states that no amount of urging or pleading will persuade him to undermine the Church’s order. In both cases Leo presents his refusal as an act of his own will — rooted in the Nicene canons, but not reducible to them. It is Leo who will not yield, not only Nicaea that prevents him.
- ↩ Absit enim a conscientia mea ut tam prava cupiditas meis studiis adjuvetur, ac non potius et meo et omnium qui non alta sapiunt, sed humilibus consentiunt, opere subruatur — “Far be it from my conscience that so perverse an ambition should be aided by my efforts, rather than subverted by mine and all who agree with the humble.” This is not the language of canonical constraint; it is the language of personal moral commitment. Leo’s conscience is engaged; his own efforts are pledged against Canon 28. Read alongside “which can never gain Our agreement” in Chapter III and the declaration in Letter CVII to Julian of Cos, these passages together show that Leo’s refusal is an act of will rooted in his office — not merely passive deference to Nicaea’s superior authority.
- ↩ The phrase et si quid usquam aliter quam illi statuere praesimitur, sine cunctatione cassatur — “and if anything is anywhere attempted otherwise than they decreed, it is without delay nullified” — states the canonical ground on which Leo acts. But the reader should resist reading this as automatic or impersonal: Nicaea’s constitutions do not nullify Canon 28 by themselves. Leo nullifies it — by his conscience (“far be it from my conscience,” Ch. IV), by his will (“which can never gain Our agreement,” Ch. III), and by the authority of the blessed Apostle Peter (Letter CV). The Nicene principle is the ground; Leo is the agent who applies it. The phrase sine cunctatione — “without delay” — names the speed and certainty of the judgment, not its impersonality. A judge who acts immediately on a clear principle is still the one acting.
- ↩ The phrase numquam a praedecessoribus tuis ad apostolicae sedis transmissa notitiam — “never transmitted to the notice of the Apostolic See by your predecessors” — is Leo’s direct confirmation, from his own pen and in a letter to the bishop of Constantinople, that the canonical decrees of the Council of Constantinople I (381) — including Canon 3 — were never sent to Rome and therefore never formally received. This is the historical datum the Commentary to Letter XCVIII identifies as decisive: the Creed was received; the disciplinary canons were not. Leo does not claim to be rejecting something that was offered; he establishes that it was never offered at all. The “sixty years” Anatolius cites refers to the approximately sixty years between 381 and 451.
- ↩ Leo defends Alexandria’s dignity on specifically Petrine grounds — it is the see of Mark, Peter’s disciple — repeating the argument first made to Dioscorus himself in Letter IX and applied to the condemnation of Dioscorus in Letter CII. The Petrine-Markan derivation argument serves the same function here as it did at the beginning of the corpus: Rome’s solicitude extends to Alexandria precisely because Alexandria’s apostolicity derives from Peter through Mark, and Rome is the custodian of that tradition.
- ↩ May 22, 452 — the same date as Letters CIV, CV, and CVII, completing the four-letter coordinated response to the Canon 28 campaign. Letter CVI is addressed to Anatolius specifically and carries the canonical-historical argument: the Constantinople I canons were never received; no assembly overrides Nicaea; Leo’s legates were right; Alexandria and Antioch retain their apostolic ranks. Together with CIV (stewardship argument to Marcian), CV (formal apostolic nullification to Pulcheria), and CVII (to the Synod of Chalcedon), CVI completes the comprehensive four-angle response dispatched on a single day.
Historical Commentary