To the holy and most blessed Father Leo, Eusebius, bishop of Milan.
Chapter I: Eusebius Rejoices at the Legates’ Return and Acknowledges That God Has Placed Leo as Bishop in the See of His Apostle
With the Lord’s favor, our brothers have returned — those whom your provident Beatitude diligently sent to the East for the cause of the faith — and the letters your holiness sent through them have lifted me with all exultation in Christ, since your writing confirms that they brought back the effect of the legation entrusted to them. Nor is it any wonder that our Lord Jesus Christ has granted to the Catholic faith, which we hold, the protection and custody of His majesty — since He has placed you, as worthy champions of His worship, as bishop in the see of His Apostle: one who both thinks rightly about the mystery of the Lord’s Incarnation and guards it all the more powerfully and justly.
Chapter II: The Synod of Milan Reads and Approves Leo’s Letter to Flavian
Having summoned my brothers and fellow bishops and convened an assembly, we kept the form of your letters. For your Beatitude’s letter, brought by our holy brother and fellow bishop Abundantius and my fellow presbyter Senator, was reviewed in the council of the Lord’s bishops; and at their account, as your writing had indicated, the sequence of events was sought out and read continuously — including the letter which your holiness had long ago sent in its fullness to the East, composed with the full assertion of the faith, which had reached us through your admonition, conveyed by our holy brother and fellow bishop Ceretius. It shone with the simplicity of the faith, radiant with the prophetic proclamations, the evangelical authorities, and the testimonies of apostolic teaching, gleaming with the splendor of truth — in full accord with what the blessed Ambrose, stirred by the Holy Spirit, wrote in his books about the mystery of the Lord’s Incarnation.
Chapter III: The Assembled Bishops Subscribe in Condemnation of the Eutychians, Following the Preceding Sentence of Leo’s Authority
And since all these things are in full conformity with the faith of our ancestors handed down to us from antiquity, holy and most blessed Father, it pleased all — as the names subscribed below will be able to declare — that those who think impiously about the mystery of the Lord’s Incarnation, departing through the depravity of their understanding from the truth of the Catholic faith and rendering themselves worthy of rejection, should be pursued with fitting condemnation, following the preceding sentence of your authority.
Following the form of your letters, we demonstrate by these — sent through our brother and fellow bishop Cyriacus — that we have observed the rule of the prescribed ordinance. It remains, with the Lord’s favor, that when all things have been brought to completion, holding in unbroken peace the palm of the faith and the crown of a finished struggle, you leave this to be remembered by future ages: that the contumacy of this impious sect arose in our time to be prostrated forever by your championship.
In another hand: May the supreme Divinity protect and keep safe the health of your Beatitude, holy and most blessed Father.
I, Eusebius, bishop of the Church of Milan, have consented and subscribed to all the above, saying anathema to those who have thought impiously about the mystery of the Lord’s Incarnation.
I, Faventius, bishop of the Church of Reggio, have consented and subscribed to all the above, saying anathema to those who have judged impiously about the mystery of the Lord’s Incarnation.
I, Majorianus, bishop of the Church of Piacenza, have consented and subscribed to all the above, saying anathema to those who have thought impiously about the mystery of the Lord’s Incarnation.
I, Cyprianus, bishop of the Church of Brescello, have consented and subscribed to all the above, saying anathema to those who have thought impiously about the mysteries of the Lord’s Incarnation.
I, Quintus, bishop of the Church of Tortona, have consented and subscribed to all the above, saying anathema to those who have thought impiously about the mystery of the Lord’s Incarnation.
I, Crispinus, bishop of the Church of Pavia, have consented and subscribed to all the above, saying anathema to those who have thought impiously about the mystery of the Lord’s Incarnation.
I, Floreius, presbyter, by the command of my holy bishop Eulogius of the Church of Ivrea, who is himself unable to subscribe because of infirmity, have subscribed to all the above with his consent, saying anathema to those who have thought impiously about the mystery of the Lord’s Incarnation.
I, Maximus, bishop of the Church of Turin, have consented and subscribed to all the above, saying anathema to those who have thought impiously about the mystery of the Lord’s Incarnation.
I, Gratus, presbyter, sent by my bishop Euthasius of the Church of Aosta, have consented and subscribed to all the above in his stead, saying anathema to those who have judged impiously about the mystery of the Lord’s Incarnation.
I, Cyriacus, bishop of the Church of Lodi, have consented and subscribed to all the above, saying anathema to those who have judged impiously about the mystery of the Lord’s Incarnation.
I, Abundantius, bishop of the Church of Como, have consented and subscribed to all the above for myself and for my absent holy brother Asinione, bishop of the Church of Chur in First Raetia, saying anathema to those who have thought impiously about the mystery of the Lord’s Incarnation.
I, Paschasius, bishop of the Church of Genoa, have consented and subscribed to all the above, saying anathema to those who have thought impiously about the mystery of the Lord’s Incarnation.
I, Pastor, bishop of the Church of Este, have consented and subscribed to all the above, saying anathema to those who have thought impiously about the mystery of the Lord’s Incarnation.
I, Simplicianus, bishop of the Church of Novara, have consented and subscribed to all the above, saying anathema to those who have thought impiously about the mystery of the Lord’s Incarnation.
I, Joannes, bishop of the Church of Cremona, have consented and subscribed to all the above, saying anathema to those who have thought impiously about the mystery of the Lord’s Incarnation.
I, Optatianus, bishop of the Church of Brescia, have consented and subscribed to all the above, saying anathema to those who have thought impiously about the mystery of the Lord’s Incarnation.
I, Justianus, bishop of the Church of Vercelli, have consented and subscribed to all the above, saying anathema to those who have thought impiously about the mystery of the Lord’s Incarnation.
I, Quintius, bishop of the Church of Albenga, have consented and subscribed to all the above, saying anathema to those who have thought impiously about the mystery of the Lord’s Incarnation.
I, Præstantius, bishop of the Church of Bergamo, have consented and subscribed to all the above, saying anathema to those who have thought impiously about the mystery of the Lord’s Incarnation.
Footnotes
- ↩ The phrase in apostoli sui sede præsulem collocavit — “placed you as bishop in the see of His Apostle” — is Eusebius’s explicit identification of Leo’s see as the see of Peter. The acknowledgment is all the more significant for coming from the archbishop of Milan, whose see occupied a position of considerable importance in the Latin West and whose predecessor Ambrose had been one of the dominant figures of Western Christianity. Eusebius does not describe Leo as the bishop of Rome in administrative terms; he describes him as the occupant of the Apostle’s see — the see that belongs to Peter and through which the custody of the faith is exercised. Compare the formula in Letter IX, where Leo himself grounds his authority over Alexandria in Peter’s primacy received from the Lord.
- ↩ Vestrarum formam tenuimus litterarum — “we kept the form of your letters.” The Italian synod’s action is structured by Leo’s written directives: the bishops gather, read the Tome aloud in council, and then subscribe in the terms Leo has prescribed. The Tome is not simply an authoritative opinion being evaluated by an independent synod; it is the normative document that gives the synod’s action its form and content. Eusebius presents this explicitly as conformity to Leo’s instructions, not as an independent judgment.
- ↩ Auctoritatis vestræ præcedente sententia — “the preceding sentence of your authority.” This phrase is among the most direct acknowledgments of papal judicial authority in the entire corpus of letters addressed to Leo. The Italian bishops are not rendering an independent verdict; they are following Leo’s judgment, which is prior and governing. Their subscription ratifies what Leo has already decreed; it does not originate a new condemnation. The structure is identical to the pattern Eusebius describes in Chapter II: the form, the terms, the sentence are all Leo’s. The synod acts in conformity with them.
- ↩ The Latin is Ecclesiæ Brixillianæ — “the Church of Brixillum/Brixella,” which is modern Brescello in Emilia-Romagna, not to be confused with Brixia (Brescia), whose bishop Optatianus appears separately later in this list. The PL apparatus records Brixillensis as the variant form of the see name.
Historical Commentary