Leo, bishop, to Pulcheria Augusta.
Chapter I: Leo Laments Anatolius’s Appointment of Andrew Over Aetius
With the many proofs by which your piety’s love for God’s Church has been made manifest, your aid is rightly sought whenever scandals arise — so that the faith, defended by your efforts against the inventions of heretics, may hold the lasting strength of secure peace. What does it profit to suppress the enemies of truth abroad if they revive within the Lord’s sheepfold? I am greatly anxious — and reasonably fear regret for having trusted, at your urging, that the bishop of Constantinople, ordained by opponents of the faith, held better intentions, supported by the testimony of your piety, so that the weakness of his ordination might not burden him where your intervention had aided. I had begun to rejoice that he honored blessed Flavian’s memory and opposed the efforts of heretics. Yet I grieve — as Aetius’s tearful complaint makes evident — that he has turned for the worse, appointing as archdeacon the one he had publicly professed to reject: the one who revealed himself to us as a defender of Eutyches’s heresy. By placing him over ecclesiastical affairs, he demonstrates his favor toward this heretical perversity — and even if Andrew could merit indulgence by great satisfaction, he ought not to have been preferred over those who stand firm in the faith.
Chapter II: Leo Directs Pulcheria to Recall Anatolius to His Profession, and Commends Julian as His Delegated Solicitude
Since your clemency knows how much danger is nourished by shameful sloth or deceitful wickedness, deign to recall the bishop to the profession of his faith with your authority. Let him not heap further stains upon himself nor scorn the reputation he gained by your favor. Let him sever all connection with the heretic he once removed, and cease persecuting the one he ought to have held all the dearer. I rejoice that your piety has aided Aetius’s innocence with worthy consolation.
As for my brother Julian, your venerator — judge by the estimation of the Apostolic See how greatly your favor toward him ought to grow. Trusting in the sincerity of his faith, in the cause of the faith which your glory serves, I delegated to him My role — so that he might not depart from your reverence nor cease presenting my piety to you, fulfilling my solicitude in guarding the faith and ecclesiastical discipline, and suggesting what is profitable to the universal Church. In him, neither your aid to the Catholics we wish to support, nor my service to you, fails.
Dated the sixth day before the Ides of March, in the consulship of Opilio, most illustrious man.
Footnotes
- ↩ Leo is writing to Pulcheria on the same day as Letter CXI to Marcian — March 10, 453 — about the same situation. That he addresses both imperial figures simultaneously, and in terms of equal directness, is itself notable: Leo is coordinating both the emperor and the empress as agents of correction for a matter Leo regards as his own to resolve. The administrative content is identical to CXI: Anatolius has appointed Andrew the Eutychian as archdeacon, demoted Aetius the Chalcedonian, and thereby placed Constantinople’s ecclesiastical administration in Eutychian hands. As in CXI, the reader should observe that Leo is specifying the internal personnel arrangements of the Church of Constantinople and directing the imperial court to correct them. This is not collegial correspondence between peers; it is a superior directing the correction of a subordinate’s administration through the secular authority. Letter CXXXII will confirm that Anatolius complied.
- ↩ The phrase apostolicae sedis aestimatione — “by the estimation of the Apostolic See” — sets the Apostolic See’s judgment as the standard by which Julian’s worth and the favor owed him are to be measured. Pulcheria is being directed to value Julian according to how the Apostolic See values him — which is to say, as Leo’s delegated representative, whose counsel is Leo’s solicitude made present at court.
- ↩ The phrase omnem sollicitudinem meam in custodia fidei et ecclesiasticae disciplinae — “my entire solicitude in guarding the faith and ecclesiastical discipline” — is delegated to Julian in its fullness. This is the same sollicitudo formula that defines the Roman bishop’s universal responsibility throughout the corpus, here deployed as the ground of Julian’s authority at Constantinople: what Julian recommends is Leo’s solicitude in action, not Julian’s personal counsel. Compare the identical structure in Letter LXXXI, where Julian is commissioned to act with nostra auctoritas — “Our authority” — behind him.
- ↩ March 10, 453 — the same date as Letter CXI to Marcian, making CXII part of a coordinated same-day dispatch to both imperial figures. Leo addresses the emperor and empress simultaneously on the same matter, directing both to apply their authority to correct Anatolius’s conduct — the ecclesiastical question and the imperial action required to resolve it divided between the two letters without loss of content in either.
Historical Commentary