The See of Peter

The Early Church and Peter's Primacy

Letter CXXVI, from Pope Leo to Emperor Marcian

Synopsis: Leo thanks Marcian for the restoration of Juvenal to the see of Jerusalem and the recall of the Palestinian monks to the faith’s unity, expresses hope that Egypt may yet be freed from the contagion of Dioscorus, and urges Marcian to continue his holy zeal in restoring and pacifying whatever is sick or turbulent anywhere.

Leo, bishop, to Marcian Augustus.

Leo Thanks Marcian for the Restoration of Juvenal and the Pacification of Palestine, and Urges His Continued Zeal for the Universal Church

Gladdened by the double words of your clemency, I respond with due thanksgiving — rejoicing in the mercy of God, who placed glorious protection in the virtues of your providence for the benefit of the Roman republic and the peace of the Catholic Church. I trust that both the salutary cares of your piety will be divinely aided, granting full tranquility to the Christian religion and to your empire. That the peoples of God in Palestine are recalled to the unity of the faith, the motions of error suppressed, and all hearts directed to evangelical and apostolic doctrine — as you deign to indicate — and that our brother and fellow bishop Juvenal could finally return to his priestly see, the people not resisting but desiring it: this is the work of your faith, the fruit of your piety. For the growth of this fruit, concordant prayer multiplies across the churches of Christ — that if any fog remains in Egypt which has not yet received the rays of truth, the prayers of the world may bring it the remedies of illumination; and that the contagion of execrable Dioscorus may burden it no longer — nor may the Lord’s sheep imprudently love the pastoral figure in him whom they experienced as the most savage devastator of morals and faith. May your clemency therefore persevere in holy and wondrous zeal — restoring and pacifying whatever is sick or turbulent found anywhere: as it befits you to preside over human affairs while rejoicing to serve the divine mysteries.

Dated the fifth day before the Ides of January, in the consulship of the most illustrious Aetius and Studius.

Source/Reference

PL 54:1069

Notes / Historical Commentary

Letter CXXVI is a brief thanksgiving letter — the kind that marks a resolution rather than a crisis. The restoration of Juvenal of Jerusalem and the pacification of the Palestinian monks bring to a provisional close the story that had run through Letters CIX, CXVII, CXVIII, CXXIII, and CXXIV. The emperor’s action, directed and sustained by Leo’s persistent correspondence with Marcian, Pulcheria, Julian, and Eudocia, has produced the result Leo sought: the bishop is back in his see, the monks are recalled to the faith, and the Eutychian disturbance in the holy places is at least temporarily contained.

The closing exhortation — “restoring and pacifying whatever is sick or turbulent found anywhere, as it befits you to preside over human affairs while rejoicing to serve the divine mysteries” — is Leo’s characterization of the emperor’s proper role in the Church’s life. The emperor presides over human affairs; he serves the divine mysteries. The distinction is important: Marcian is not defining doctrine or exercising pastoral authority; he is providing the temporal order within which the Church’s pastoral authority can operate. Leo defines and directs; Marcian implements and enforces. The formula is consistent with every interaction in the post-Chalcedon correspondence, and it is restated here in the letter’s most compressed and graceful form.