Leo, bishop, to Marcian Augustus.
Chapter I: Anatolius Will Find in Leo a Disposition of Sincere Grace If He Fulfills His Promises — But Greater Freedom of Opposition If He Persists
How greatly the most holy study of your piety around the Christian religion perseveres and grows in glorious advances — and how this faith of your clemency consoles and strengthens not only me but all the Lord’s priests — is made known by many and frequent proofs, while in the most Christian prince the priestly affection is felt and experienced. If the priests of the Eastern parts study to imitate this, neither peace nor the Christian faith will suffer any scandals. Since the bishop of Constantinople is being instructed toward the full advancement of piety by the example of your present clemency — if he faithfully yields to your exhortations, he finds in me a disposition of sincere grace: only let him fulfill in deed what he promises in words. But if he persists with stubborn intention in what is displeasing to God and to your piety — with your reverence’s mildness preserved — I will use, with all and for all, and with your concurrence as well, a greater freedom against the one who is proud: whom I would rather embrace with fraternal charity for holy conduct — as must often be said — most glorious emperor.
Chapter II: Eutyches Is Still Spreading His Poison From Exile; Leo Asks for His Transfer to a More Remote Location
Since you readily receive my suggestions for the tranquility of the Catholic faith, let it be known to you — as was signified to me by the report of our brother and fellow bishop Julian — that the impious Eutyches, though justly exiled for his own merits, is in that very place of his condemnation pouring out more desperately the many poisons of blasphemies against Catholic integrity; and what the whole world shuddered at and condemned, he is vomiting forth with greater impudence, so as to be able to deceive the innocent. I therefore judge it entirely reasonable that your clemency command him to be transferred to more distant and more remote places. As for his monastery established at Constantinople — in which the monk inhabitants are to be more often and more fully strengthened by evangelical and apostolic doctrine — it will be beneficial, as I judge, if the one placed in charge of that monastery is not said to withdraw from the company of your venerator Julian the bishop, whom I have established at the watch there on account of the faith: so that by his assiduous visitation the progress of God’s servants dwelling there may be increased.
Chapter III: Leo Thanks Marcian for the Paschal Inquiry and Asks Him to Protect the Catholics at Constantinople From the Bishop’s Power to Harm Them
I rejoice that my petition about the Paschal feast has been so received by your piety — that you sent immediately an agent to Alexandria to admonish about the error which the constitution of Theophilus of holy memory appears to introduce. Concerning this matter, as you deign to write, let me know whatever shall have come to your piety’s notice — so that concerning the observance which may not be diverse, the universal Church may recognize what is above all to be held. I beseech moreover, as befits your well-known clemency, that you guard above all against all snares those whom you know are pleasing to me and to your mildness on account of love of the faith — so that the bishop of Constantinople may not have the power to harm them.
Dated the seventeenth day before the Kalends of May, in the consulship of the most illustrious Aetius and Studius.
Footnotes
- ↩ The Latin is habet in me sincerae gratiae animum — “he finds in me a mind/disposition of sincere grace.” Leo is describing his own disposition toward Anatolius: well-disposed, ready to embrace. But this is conditional — the grace is there, available to Anatolius, if he fulfills what he has promised. The phrase is not about Anatolius’s own confidence but about what Leo offers him. The conditional structure of the whole passage is precise: comply, and you have my sincere grace; persist, and I use greater freedom against you.
- ↩ The continued activity of Eutyches from his place of exile is further evidence of what Letters CIX, CXVII, and CXVIII had described: the canonical condemnation and imperial exile had not silenced the heresy’s source. Leo’s request for a more remote transfer is a request to close down the avenue through which Eutyches continues to proselytize — physical containment of the heresiarch as the complement to canonical condemnation.
- ↩ This closing petition is directed at protecting Aetius and the other Chalcedonian faithful at Constantinople from Anatolius’s potential retaliation. Leo has secured Aetius’s restoration (CXXXII) but is not confident that Anatolius’s compliance is permanent or wholehearted. He therefore asks Marcian to maintain protective oversight — specifically naming the bishop of Constantinople as the threat. This is Leo directing the emperor to constrain a patriarch: the same pattern visible throughout CXI, CXII, and CXXVIII, here applied to ongoing protective oversight rather than a specific administrative directive.
- ↩ April 15, 454. This is approximately five weeks after the March 10 triple dispatch (CXXIX–CXXXI). Leo’s conditional framing in Chapter I — Anatolius finds in Leo a disposition of sincere grace if he fulfills his promises — places this letter after CXXXII’s compliance report but before Leo’s formal acknowledgment in Letter CXXXVI (May 29, 454). The closing petition asking Marcian to prevent Anatolius from harming the Catholics suggests Leo’s satisfaction with the compliance is provisional: the directives have been carried out, but the power relationship at Constantinople remains a concern.
Historical Commentary