The See of Peter

The Early Church and Peter's Primacy

Letter LXXIV, from Pope Leo to Presbyter Martinus

Synopsis: Leo writes to Martinus the presbyter to praise the vigor of his charity and Catholic brotherhood in the spirit of faith, assure him that though great distances separate them they are united in confessing Jesus Christ true God and true man, exhort him to persevere in constancy as the Apostle says that suffering for Christ is granted to the faithful, and report that his brothers and legates sent for the liberty of the apostolic faith are already with them — noting that further writing is unnecessary since sufficient letters have already been sent through them by which the whole Catholic brotherhood is abundantly instructed.

Leo, bishop, to his most beloved Martinus, presbyter.

Leo Praises Martinus’s Faith; True God and True Man Confessed; Legates Sent for the Liberty of the Apostolic Faith

We give thanks to God and take great confidence in pious joy, knowing that your charity and Catholic brotherhood thrive so vigorously in the spirit of faith that no heretical temptation can weaken your hearts. To destroying this, as you know, our solicitude has not failed and will not fail — until the almighty right hand of God shatters all the weapons of the devil, which he is permitted to wield so that the faithful of Christ may overcome him with greater glory.

If difficulties or delays arise, they must be borne with equanimity — for where truth is the teacher, divine consolations never fail, most beloved brothers. Though great distances of space divide us, we are united with you in the unity of faith, confessing with our whole heart Jesus Christ our Lord, true God and true man — suffering no loss in you as we glory in the concord of your profession. May your constancy endure, with the Lord’s aid, as the Apostle says: For to you it has been granted for Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for Him (Phil. 1:29).

To strengthen the fortitude of holy minds, we believe our brothers and legates — whom we dispatched for the liberty of the apostolic faith, and whom we trust are already among you — will be of the greatest benefit, as you learn the whole tenor of our action and join your care and counsel to this pious work.

It is not necessary to write more fully now, since we have already sent sufficient letters through the aforementioned, by which the entire Catholic brotherhood is most abundantly instructed. It will be of divine power and grace that the Son of God — who made human nature His own — may assert, more than we see or understand, the great mystery of piety (1 Tim. 3:16): which impious rashness has defrauded itself of, but cannot take from upright hearts.

Given on the Ides of September, in the consulship of Valentinian and Avienus, most illustrious men.

Source/Reference

PL 54:899

Notes / Historical Commentary

Letter LXXIV is addressed to Martinus the presbyter — one of the two archimandrites, alongside Faustus, who had been Leo’s primary personal contacts in the Constantinople monastic community throughout the crisis. The letter belongs to the transitional period between the old Theodosian dispensation and the new order under Marcian: dated September 13, 450, it was written after Theodosius’s death (July 28) and Chrysaphius’s execution, but before Leo had fully assessed what the change of emperor meant for the resolution of the Eutychian controversy. That assessment would come in Letter LXXV (November 8), which Leo addressed to both Faustus and Martinus with the explicit acknowledgment that “by God’s favor the liberty of the Catholics has greatly increased.”

The doctrinal center of the letter — brief though it is — is the confession: “confessing with our whole heart Jesus Christ our Lord, true God and true man.” This formula, stated not as a quotation from a council or a citation from the Fathers but as Leo’s own direct confession in a pastoral letter to a friend, is the Chalcedonian definition before Chalcedon has met. Leo has been holding and proclaiming this formula since the Tome (Letter XXVIII, June 13, 449), and he repeats it here as the common ground between himself and Martinus — the bond that unites them across the distance that separates Rome from Constantinople.

The phrase “for the liberty of the apostolic faith” — Leo’s description of his legates’ mission — is worth noting. The apostolic faith is not simply the correct doctrinal position on the Incarnation; it is the faith whose custodian the Apostolic See specifically is. Its “liberty” — its freedom to be proclaimed and maintained — is what Ephesus II had suppressed and what Leo’s legates are dispatched to restore. The mission is simultaneously doctrinal and jurisdictional: the faith cannot be free if the institution charged with holding it is overridden by an Eastern council convened under court pressure.