Leo, bishop, to Marcian Augustus.
Chapter I: Leo Thanks Marcian for His Testimony in Favor of Proterius and Congratulates Proterius’s Faith Profession
The purity of the Christian faith, shining in your clemency, is demonstrated also in these letters brought by our brother and fellow bishop Nestorius — favoring with justice my brother Proterius, the prelate of Alexandria, and making him more acceptable to me in all things. For one whom your piety deigns to testify for is indubitably worthy of approval — even in silence. But grace is added when he is known by his own words, his sincere profession clarifying him as a preacher of the Catholic dogma. I embrace the orthodox brother’s charity with fullest affection — thanking God that, having removed the one who opposed Christ’s Gospel and dissented from the holy Fathers’ understanding, He provided the Church of Alexandria with such a bishop, concordant in faith and life with her prior rectors. As he professes with his whole heart the embrace of my letter to blessed Flavian against the impious Eutyches — what else does he show but that he is the disciple of the apostles? Truth’s doctrine remains in its light, unable to be diverse, being one and indivisible.
Chapter II: Leo Urges Marcian to Support Proterius Against the Heretical Dissenters, and Directs the Alexandrian Faithful to Their Own Patristic Tradition
I have replied to the aforesaid brother as was due, admonishing him to persevere in holy zeal. He will doubtless be more constant if aided by the exhortations of your clemency. Let no dissent of some — made obnoxious by the instigation of a few heretics through ignorance — terrify him. Introduce opportunely to their hearing what their diligence cannot achieve alone. Lest those named seem to be introducing something new and asserting their own, let the writings of the venerable Fathers who presided over the same Church be reread — recognizing what blessed Athanasius, Theophilus, Cyril, and other Eastern masters understood about the Lord’s Incarnation, never deceived by the opposing errors already prostrated by the virtue of the Gospel word. As stated to Proterius himself, the best mode of teaching is to make the lines of the patristic understanding known to the ears of the Alexandrian people and clergy — so that if any are found to waver from ignorance, they may not be drawn further into error by perverse persuasions once truth is found.
Chapter III: Leo Directs Marcian to Commission an Authoritative Greek Translation of the Tome to Be Sent Under the Imperial Seal and Publicly Recited at Alexandria
Since the cunning wickedness of some heretics is reported to disturb our people through corruption of the text — falsifying my letter to blessed Flavian by altering its words or syllables and asserting that I am a receiver of Nestorian error — I beseech your venerable clemency to order my letter translated accurately and completely into Greek, through our brother Bishop Julian or whomever your piety deems fit; and to send it under the impression of your seal, by a suitable bearer, to the judges of Alexandria — to be publicly recited to the clergy and people of that city. — along with the preachings of the aforesaid bishops, which accord with my writings — so that they may recognize they must no longer be deceived by the fraud of fraudulent men, and may prove themselves sincere disciples of the Apostolic See: where neither Eutyches nor Nestorius holds any place, as the universal Church has condemned these with the other heretics.
Dated the sixth day before the Ides of March, in the consulship of the most illustrious Aetius and Studius.
Footnotes
- ↩ Leo frames Marcian’s favorable testimony for Proterius in terms that reinforce the same logic as the Anatolius acceptance of Letter CXI: imperial testimony supports, but does not replace, the episcopal profession of faith. Proterius’s words — his own faith-profession — are what ultimately establish him as “sincere” in Leo’s eyes. Marcian’s testimony aids; Proterius’s profession confirms. The Apostolic See receives both and judges on both.
- ↩ This directive is one of the most striking administrative acts in the post-Chalcedon correspondence. Leo instructs the emperor to commission a new authoritative Greek translation of the Tome, to authenticate it with the imperial seal, to dispatch it through an imperial courier, and to have it publicly recited before the Alexandrian clergy and people by the episcopal authority. The content is Leo’s; the commission is Leo’s; the authentication mechanism (the imperial seal) is the emperor’s; and the audience is the Alexandrian church. Leo is using the imperial apparatus as the instrument of apostolic communication — the same coordination visible throughout the post-Chalcedon correspondence, here applied to the specific problem of a falsified version of his own letter circulating in Egypt.
- ↩ The phrase apostolicae sedis sinceri esse discipuli — “sincere disciples of the Apostolic See” — names the Alexandrian faithful’s proper relationship to Rome. They are disciples of the Apostolic See — not merely adherents of a regional tradition or a council’s definition. The Apostolic See is the standard of which they are disciples, and the test of discipleship is holding what the Apostolic See holds: neither Eutyches nor Nestorius, both condemned by the universal Church. The recitation of the authenticated Tome is the mechanism by which this discipleship is publicly renewed in the face of the Eutychian falsification.
- ↩ March 10, 454 — same day as Letters CXXIX (to Proterius) and CXXXI (to Julian). The PL editor’s note establishes the internal order of the three letters: CXXIX written first (Leo having already replied to Proterius before writing to Marcian — confirmed by Chapter II’s “I have replied to the aforesaid brother as was due”), then CXXX to Marcian, then CXXXI to Julian who is commissioned to carry out the Tome translation directive.
Historical Commentary