Leo, bishop of Rome, to Julian, Bishop of Cos.
Chapter I: Leo Laments the Aetius Situation and Explains His Deferred Action Against Anatolius
I recognize in your letters the affection of brotherly charity — that you share our pious sorrow for the many and grievous evils we have endured. May these trials, which the Lord has permitted or willed, lead to the correction of His servants, with adversities ending as offenses cease. This will be God’s great mercy: removing the scourges while turning His people’s hearts to Him. As the hostility raging among us has grieved your brotherhood, I am anxious that — as your letters indicate — the plots of heretics do not rest in the Church of Constantinople, vexing the defenders of the Catholic faith with cunning pretexts. For while Aetius is removed from the archdeaconry under the guise of promotion, and Andrew — rejected for his heretical ties — is installed in his place; while honor is given to the accusers of blessed Flavian’s memory and those pleasing to the pious confessor are crushed: it is too clear what pleases the bishop of that Church. I am deferring action against him for the cause’s sake — awaiting what he is negotiating through his letters, which our son Aetius reported he would send — leaving room for voluntary amendment, by which I desire to ease my sorrow. I have written to the most clement prince and most pious Augusta about ecclesiastical peace, confident that their devout faith will ensure that condemned heresy does not sprout again against the glory of their work.
Chapter II: Leo Assigns Julian the Special Care of Constantinople in His Stead by the Maternal Right of the Apostolic See
Therefore, most beloved brother, let your charity devote pious and necessary care to the solicitude of the Apostolic See — which, nurturing you, commends to you by maternal right action against the Nestorian and Eutychian heretics. With divine aid, do not cease watching from the vantage of Constantinople — lest the impious storm of these doctrines rise anywhere. Given the great faith of the glorious princes, confidently suggest what serves the benefit of the universal Church. When you consult me on doubtful matters, my response will not fail your reports. Setting aside cases to be settled by the bishops of each Church, undertake this special care in My stead — ensuring that neither Nestorian nor Eutychian heresy revives anywhere. The bishop of Constantinople lacks Catholic vigor, caring little for the salvation of souls or for his own reputation. Had he any spiritual zeal, he would consider his ordainers and his predecessor — following blessed Flavian rather than those who authored his honor. Since the most pious princes, at my urging, have deigned to reprove Anatolius for justly lamented matters, let your charity add the diligence needed to correct all scandals fully and to end the injuries to Aetius. For in a Catholic bishop, even if some cause had warranted anger toward the archdeacon, it should have been overlooked out of reverence for the faith — rather than allowing a vile heretic to take a Catholic’s place.
Chapter III: Leo Asks for Fuller Information on the Palestinian Monks’ Disturbances
I am uncertain what spirit still moves the Palestinian monks — long said to be in the tumult of dissension — or what causes they seem to advance for this discord, since no one’s letters have yet clarified this for me. Do they serve Eutychian perversity with such fury? Or do they irreconcilably grieve that their bishop could fall into such impiety, straying from the truth of the Lord’s Incarnation against the testimony of the holy places themselves — which instructs the whole world? Or do they deem what indulgence healed in others to be unpardonable in him? I desire fuller instruction on this, so that their correction may be fittingly pursued — for it is one thing to arm oneself impiously against the faith, and another to be stirred too intensely for it.
Chapter IV: Leo Asks for the Chalcedonian Acts to Be Compiled and Translated Into Latin
The letters that Aetius the presbyter indicated had been sent, and the Breviary of Faith you signify you are sending, have not yet reached me. If a swifter courier’s opportunity arises, I gladly request that whatever instruction is useful be sent to me promptly. I desire to know how peaceable the Egyptian monks are, what their faith is, and what reliable reports reach you about the peace of the Church of Alexandria. I wish you to know what letters I sent to its bishop, or to his ordainers, or to the clergy there — with copies dispatched. The most clement prince and most religious Augusta will learn what I am now writing through the copies sent to them.
I wish to know whether my letter on the faith of the Lord’s Incarnation — which I sent to you through Basilius the deacon while blessed Flavian was still alive — ever reached your brotherhood; for I suspect you never indicated its receipt. The synodal acts, completed on all the days in Chalcedon, are unclear to us on account of the diversity of language. I therefore specially enjoin your brotherhood to compile them into a single codex — translated into Latin with the most precise interpretation — so that we may entertain no doubt about any act, nor may any ambiguity remain, brought to full understanding by your effort.
Dated the fifth day before the Ides of March, in the consulship of Opilio, most illustrious man.
Footnotes
- ↩ Letters CXI (to Marcian) and CXII (to Pulcheria), both dated March 10, 453 — the day before this letter. Leo is coordinating all three letters as a single response to the Aetius crisis, directing the imperial figures through CXI and CXII while briefing his Eastern agent Julian through CXIII. The three-letter sequence on consecutive days shows the administrative precision of Leo’s post-Chalcedon correspondence.
- ↩ The phrase sollicitudo apostolicae sedis, quae tibi apud nos nutrito, catholicam contra Nestorianos et Eutychianos haereticos actionem materno iure commendat — “the solicitude of the Apostolic See, which commends to you by maternal right action against the Nestorian and Eutychian heretics” — is among the most striking formulations of the Roman see’s relationship to its Eastern agents in the entire corpus. The Apostolic See is the mother; Julian has been nurtured by her; and this maternal relationship is the ground of the commission she now gives him. Sollicitudo — the Roman bishop’s defining term for his universal pastoral responsibility — is here named as the Apostolic See’s own attribute, distinct from Leo’s personal authority, and it is extended through Julian by maternal right (materno iure). The commission is not a favor or a personal arrangement; it is a constitutive extension of the Apostolic See’s solicitude into the Eastern field.
- ↩ The phrase hac speciali cura vice mea functus assumas — “undertake this special care in My stead” — is the vice mea vicariate formula applied not to a council but to an ongoing pastoral commission. Julian’s entire presence at Constantinople — his watching, his suggestions to the imperial court, his reporting to Leo — is framed as an exercise of Leo’s own role, carried out in Leo’s place. Compare the same formula in Letters XCII, XCIII, XCIV, CXI, and CXII: wherever Julian acts for Leo, he acts with Leo’s authority, not his own.
- ↩ Juvenal of Jerusalem, already discussed in Letter CIX. He had signed the Latrocinium’s condemnation of Flavian, later corrected himself at Chalcedon, and was then driven from his see by his own former disciples. Leo’s question here — whether the monks grieve that their bishop “fell into such impiety” — reflects his uncertainty about which side of the divide the Palestinian monks are on: are they furious defenders of Eutychianism, or are they rigorists angry that Juvenal’s correction was accepted at all?
- ↩ Alexandria — the ancient patriarchal see founded by St. Mark, the second see of Christendom, now under a post-Dioscorus settlement. The situation in Egypt remained volatile after Chalcedon: Dioscorus’s followers retained significant strength, and the question of who would govern Alexandria and on what terms was still unsettled. Leo’s request for reliable intelligence from Julian about the Egyptian monks and the Alexandrian church reflects the Apostolic See’s ongoing pastoral concern for the Petrine-Markan church that Leo had defended throughout the Eutychian controversy.
- ↩ Chalcedon — ancient Chalkedon, a Greek city on the Asian shore of the Bosphorus, directly across from Constantinople, in the province of Bithynia. It is modern Kadıköy, now part of Istanbul. The acts of the Council of Chalcedon (October–November 451) were conducted in Greek; Leo’s reference to “diversity of language” reflects the practical reality that the Roman church worked in Latin and required a complete Latin translation of the Greek acta to have full access to the council’s proceedings. This is a significant detail for understanding the Apostolic See’s relationship to the council it presided over: Leo is commissioning Julian to produce the authoritative Latin rendering of the Chalcedonian acts for Rome’s use.
- ↩ The commission to produce an authoritative Latin codex of the Chalcedonian acts is itself an exercise of the presidency Leo had claimed over the council. The Roman church — which had presided over Chalcedon through its legates — required a complete and accurate Latin rendering of what its presidency had produced. Julian’s translation work was not incidental scholarship; it was the mechanism by which the council’s acts would be brought into full operative use at the Apostolic See. The PL apparatus notes that Julian did produce such a codex, and that it became the primary Latin source for the Chalcedonian acta in the Western tradition.
- ↩ March 11, 453 — one day after Letters CXI (to Marcian) and CXII (to Pulcheria), both dated March 10. The three-letter sequence on consecutive days — directing both imperial figures and his own Eastern agent on the same situation — is a small but precise illustration of how Leo coordinated the post-Chalcedon settlement across ecclesiastical and imperial channels simultaneously.
Historical Commentary