Leo, bishop, and the holy Synod convened in the city of Rome, to Pulcheria Augusta.
Chapter I: Leo Sends Copies of the Suppressed Letters; The Integrity of the Catholic Faith Must Not Be Violated
If the letters directed to your piety for the cause of the faith through our clergy had reached you, it is certain that, with the Lord inspiring you, you would have been able to provide the remedy for what was done against the faith. For when have you ever failed the priests, the Christian religion, or the faith? But since those who were sent were so completely unable to reach Your Graciousness that only one of them — our deacon Hilarus, fleeing — barely made his way back to us, we attach herewith copies of those writings that did not reach your clemency; entreating you with still more earnest prayers that, the more bitter the deeds against which your royal piety ought to stand up for the faith, the more gloriously you exercise care for the religion in which you excel — lest the integrity of the Catholic faith be violated by any occasion of human contention.
For those things which, when the synod was gathered at Ephesus, were believed to be remedies for quieting and healing the peace, have advanced not only to greater losses for that peace but — what is less to be grieved — even to the overthrow of the very faith by which we are Christians.
Chapter II: The Pseudo-Synod’s Disastrous Acts; Flavian Persists in Universal Communion; The Italian Council
And indeed those who were sent — one of whom, fleeing the violence of the Alexandrian bishop who was claiming everything for himself, faithfully reported to us the sequence of events — protested in the synod, as was right, against the fury rather than the judgment of one man; declaring that what was done under force and fear could not prejudice the sacraments of the Church and the very Creed handed down by the apostles, nor could they be separated by any injury from that faith which, most fully expounded and set forth, they had brought from the See of the blessed Apostle Peter to the holy synod.
When its reading was not permitted — even though the bishops demanded it — so that the faith which had crowned the patriarchs, prophets, apostles and martyrs, and the confession of Jesus Christ our Lord’s generation according to the flesh and of His true death and resurrection, might — which we shudder to say — be dissolved: we wrote about this matter, as best we could, to the most glorious and — what is of supreme importance — Christian emperor, a copy of whose letter we also attach herewith, that he might not allow the faith in which, reborn, he reigns by God’s grace to be corrupted by any novelty: because Bishop Flavian persists in the communion of us all, and no reason permits what was done — without consideration of justice and contrary to all canonical discipline — to be considered valid.
And since the Ephesine synod has not removed but increased the scandal of dissension, by a council held within Italy a place and time would be established with all the complaints and prejudices of both parties suspended: so that all the things that generated offense might more diligently be reconsidered, and those priests who were compelled through inability to subscribe might return, without injury to the faith and without harm to religion, to the peace of Christ, and errors alone be removed.
Chapter III: Pulcheria Commissioned with a Legation from the Most Blessed Apostle Peter
So that we may merit to obtain this, your piety — of faith most fully proven to us — which has always aided the labors of the Church, may deign to press our supplication before the most clement emperor: with a legation specially entrusted to her from the most blessed Apostle Peter, that, before this civic and destructive war grows stronger within the Church, he may grant, with God’s help, the opportunity for unity to be restored — knowing that whatever his kind disposition has devoted to Catholic freedom will profit the strength of his empire.
Given on the third day before the Ides of October, in the consulship of Asturius and Protogenes, most illustrious men.
Footnotes
- ↩ The deacon Hilarus — later Pope Hilarius (461–468) — is described throughout the post-Latrocinium letters as the sole Roman witness to escape Ephesus II. Leo had sent three legates; only Hilarus returned. His flight from the council, and his message back to Rome, are the evidentiary foundation of everything Leo argues in the October 13 letters. The copies Leo is attaching here are the letters originally sent with the legates that Dioscorus had suppressed — including, presumably, the Tome (Letter XXVIII).
- ↩ A sede beati apostoli Petri ad sanctum synodum detulissent — “they had brought from the See of the blessed Apostle Peter to the holy synod.” The Tome — Leo’s comprehensive doctrinal letter (Letter XXVIII) — is here described as having been brought FROM the See of Peter to the council. The phrase is the exact counterpart of Letter XLIV’s “letters sent to the See of the blessed Apostle Peter”: in Letter XLIV, Theodosius had written to the See; in Letter XLV, the See sent its teaching to the synod. The Apostolic See is both the place where doctrinal questions are rightly addressed and the source from which authoritative doctrinal teaching goes out. Dioscorus’s refusal to allow the Tome to be read was therefore not merely a procedural irregularity but a refusal of Peter’s voice.
- ↩ Flavianus episcopus in nostra omnium communione persistit — “Bishop Flavian persists in the communion of us all.” The phrase “nostra omnium” — “of us all” — positions Leo’s communion as the universal standard. Flavian has not been legitimately deposed; he remains in communion with Leo and with the whole Church. The council’s sentence of deposition is therefore void: a bishop cannot be removed from the Church’s communion by a process that the Apostolic See will not receive. Leo’s communion is the test of ecclesial standing.
- ↩ Sibi specialiter a beatissimo Petro apostolo legatione commissa — “with a legation specially entrusted to her from the most blessed Apostle Peter.” This is one of the most remarkable phrases in the post-Latrocinium letters. Leo is not simply asking Pulcheria to intercede with her brother the emperor as a personal favor; he is commissioning her with a legation that belongs to her as a function she holds from Peter. Her characteristic role of defending the Catholic faith before imperial power is here given its theological ground: it is a Petrine commission, not a personal virtue. The parallel to Letter XXXIII is instructive: there, the emperor was described as having brought to bear the authority of the Apostolic See “as if wishing to have declared by the most blessed Peter himself what is praised in his confession.” Here, Pulcheria is given a similar structural role — she is Peter’s commissioned agent at the imperial court.
- ↩ October 13, 449 — the same day as Letters XLIII and XLIV. The triple October 13 dispatch covers all three critical parties: Theodosius himself (twice — once from Leo alone, once from Leo and the Synod), and now Pulcheria. Just as Leo on June 13 had written simultaneously to Flavian, the emperor, Pulcheria, the archimandrites, and the council, the October 13 dispatch follows the same logic of simultaneous comprehensive coverage. PL footnote (f) confirms: “Scripta 13 Octobr. an. 449.” The consulship of Asturius and Protogenes confirms 449.