Leo, bishop, to Marcian Augustus.
Chapter I: Leo Thanks Marcian, Explains Why a New Letter Was Necessary, and Names Anatolius’s Deliberate Concealment
Your clemency’s letters give me much cause for joy — as I experience, through the great mercy of divine providence, that you deign to aid ecclesiastical peace with most pious zeal, glorious Augustus: peace which is preserved only by the unity of evangelical preaching. Your faith’s glory grows not only through the republic’s benefit but also through religion’s advancement. I give ineffable thanks to God, who, foreseeing the scandals of heretics, placed you at the height of empire — where royal power and priestly zeal flourish together for the salvation of the world. Through your chief work the synodal council condemned the defenders of impious doctrine, stripping sacrilegious error of all its strength. It pertains to the same palm of devotion to ensure that evil, suppressed in its leaders, is eradicated in whatever remnants remain.
Your clemency deems this more easily accomplished if the definitions of the Chalcedon synod are known to be pleasing to the Apostolic See. There was no cause for doubt about this, since the agreement of all who subscribed had joined my faith, issued in accordance with apostolic doctrine and paternal tradition. Through my brother Bishop Lucianus I wrote to your glory and to the bishop of Constantinople, making clearly evident that I approve the Catholic faith defined in that synod. But since I also reproved in those same letters the things wrongly attempted under the synod’s pretext, that bishop preferred to suppress my expression of gratitude rather than publicize the rebuke of his ambition.
Chapter II: Marcian’s Letter Confirms His Pleasure at Leo’s Observance of the Paternal Canons; Leo Sends the Formal Approval and Delegates Julian
Your piety’s words confirmed my confidence — through God’s work in you — that you approved my observance of the paternal canons. My joy is doubled in knowing that I please you most religiously by this: that the faith of Nicaea holds its strength and the privileges of the churches remain unviolated. Although your piety reported nothing of this noble work of your faith, my brother Bishop Julian — your special venerator and mine — informed me that you deigned to restrain and instruct the minds of the ignorant monks with a pious response, so that, if divine mercy has not wholly abandoned them, they may learn what they ought to believe and fear.
As I must fully comply with your most religious will, I gladly added my assent to the synodal constitutions — pleasing to me for the confirmation of the Catholic faith and the condemnation of the heretics — and your clemency’s command will ensure these reach all the bishops and churches. I believe and hope that God’s grace will grant this holy care of so great a prince its fullest desired fruit — that with all occasions of dissent severed, the peace and truth of apostolic doctrine may reign everywhere.
Let your clemency know that I have specially delegated to my brother Bishop Julian to suggest confidently to your piety whatever he judges to pertain to the custody of the faith, acting as my own trustworthy representation before your serenity — since I am certain that, with God’s aid, you are sufficient to amend or defend these matters.
Dated the twelfth day before the Kalends of April, in the consulship of Opilio, most illustrious man.
Footnotes
- ↩ Leo’s formulation here is precise: the agreement of all the subscribing bishops “joined my faith” — not the other way around. The bishops subscribed to what Leo had defined; their assent is framed as an addition to his prior position rather than as a collective deliberation he subsequently endorsed. This is the same structure Marcian himself had named in Letter C (“all assented to the exposition in accordance with the letter of your holiness”) and that the Chalcedonian synod had stated in Letter XCVIII (“established as the interpreter of the voice of blessed Peter for all”). The confirmatory letter being described here — sent through Lucianus to Marcian and to the bishop of Constantinople — is Letter CXIV, dated the same day as this letter (March 21, 453).
- ↩ This is Leo’s own description of what the PL apparatus had identified in Letter CXIV: Anatolius deliberately withheld Leo’s previous letter from the assembled bishops because it condemned Canon 28. Leo names Anatolius’s motive explicitly — he preferred to hide Leo’s congratulations on the faith rather than allow the condemnation of his ambition to become public. This is the reason Letter CXIV was directed to all the assembled bishops simultaneously and the emperor was asked to circulate it: to bypass Anatolius’s filtering of Leo’s correspondence.
- ↩ This sentence is the imperial acknowledgment of the Canon 28 nullification in its most explicit form. Marcian has written to Leo confirming that he approved Leo’s “observance of the paternal canons” — the very observance that consisted in nullifying Canon 28 as contrary to Nicaea. Leo now reports this approval back to Marcian with evident satisfaction: “My joy is doubled in knowing that I please you most religiously by this.” The emperor who had pressed for Canon 28’s confirmation in Letter C, and who had praised Leo’s canonical firmness in Letter CX, here completes the arc: he has explicitly approved Leo’s canonical judgment. Leo’s response registers this as the natural outcome — the Apostolic See’s guardianship of the Nicene canons pleases the emperor precisely because it is the foundation of the settlement’s stability.
- ↩ Leo here describes the formal act of his confirmation of Chalcedon’s faith definition — the substance of Letter CXIV — as something he “gladly” gave, framing it explicitly as assent to the synodal constitutions “pleasing to me.” This is the positive side of the same act whose negative side was the Canon 28 nullification. Leo confirms what pleases him; he nullifies what violates the Nicene canons. Both acts proceed from the same Apostolic See authority. The emperor’s role in ensuring the confirmation letter reaches “all the bishops and churches” is described as a command — Marcian is the instrument of circulation, Leo the source of the act.
- ↩ The phrase fidei custodiam pertinere probaverit, meo nomine vestrae fidei fiducialiter suggerat pietati — “whatever he judges to pertain to the custody of the faith, let him suggest confidently to your piety in my name” — is the vicariate formula in its most personal form directed at the emperor. Julian speaks “in my name” — not in his own name as bishop of Cos, not as an independent adviser, but as Leo’s named representative. The phrase “in my name” (*meo nomine*) is more direct even than the standard *vice mea* formula: Julian’s suggestions to the emperor are Leo’s suggestions, and Marcian is being instructed to receive them as such.
- ↩ March 21, 453 — the same date as Letter CXIV to the assembled bishops of Chalcedon. Leo dispatches both letters simultaneously: CXIV to the episcopal body giving the formal public confirmation, CXV to the emperor reporting the same act and its context. Together the two letters complete the public confirmation process that Marcian had requested in Letter CX.
Historical Commentary