Leo, bishop of the city of Rome, to the most beloved brother Anastasius, Bishop of Thessalonica.
Chapter I: Providence Kept Anastasius from Ephesus II
From the report of our deacon Hilarus we have learned how great a crime was committed at the instance and execution of the Alexandrian bishop — so that while long-standing jealousies and private hatreds raged against our brother Flavian, neither the faith of the most proven priest of the Christian faith nor the faith of the Christians was spared. We therefore greatly congratulate your beloved that, when you were willing to go to that synod, the divine hand held you back by opportune obstacles — lest, by your absence from so great a crime, you would undoubtedly have suffered unworthy injuries, and been unable to withstand the impious fury armed, as we are told, with soldiers and weapons. Since, therefore, the perversity that had been lurking has now broken out into the open, and the adherents of a most ignorant old man have transferred themselves to the most abominable heresy, we must recognize that the time of our trial has come; and, fortified by heavenly defenses against the assaults of adversaries, we must prepare a steadfast constancy of soul. We know, dearest brother, that the divine protection will attend through the mystery of his great piety.
Chapter II: Resist Impious Constitutions; Those Who Overthrow the Faith Will Not Be in Our Communion
If therefore anything of the impious constitutions is pressed upon your brotherhood, we protest and warn you alike: do not mingle the consent of your heart either in the condemnation of an innocent brother or in the reception of nefarious dogma. For greater is He who is in us than he who is against us (1 John 4:4). Strive rather, as the very receiver and glorifier of our nature has aided you, to confirm the hearts of all our brothers. For it is utterly settled for us, from the Gospel’s account of the generation, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord, that those who attempt to overthrow the ancient foundations of the Catholic faith will not be in the number of our communion.
Given on the third day before the Ides of October, in the consulship of Asturius and Protogenes, most illustrious men.
Footnotes
- ↩ The phrase “mystery of his great piety” renders sacramentum magnae pietatis — the same formula from 1 Tim. 3:16 that appears in Letters XXXVIII and XLIII. Leo uses this formula consistently to describe the Incarnation as the sacred economy of salvation that is now under attack. Anastasius — who as Leo’s vicar in Illyricum has been holding the region for orthodoxy since Letters V and VI — is being reminded that the stakes of the present conflict are nothing less than the mystery that defines the Christian faith.
- ↩ In nostrae communionis numero non futuros eos qui conantur antiqua catholicae fidei fundamenta convellere — “those who attempt to overthrow the ancient foundations of the Catholic faith will not be in the number of our communion.” This is Leo’s communion-exclusion formula applied to those who accept the results of Ephesus II. “Our communion” (nostrae communionis) positions Leo’s communion as the standard of Catholic membership: to be excluded from Rome’s communion is to be outside the Church. Compare the formula in Letter X, Ch. VII — exsors apostolicae communionis — where Leo applied the same principle to Hilary of Arles. The Illyrian bishops are being warned that submission to Ephesus II means exclusion from the Apostolic See’s communion.
- ↩ October 13, 449 — the same day as Letters XLIII, XLIV, and XLV. Anastasius of Thessalonica is the recipient of Letters V and VI, the foundational Illyrian vicariate letters, in which Leo established Anastasius as his vicar for Illyricum. His reappearance in the October 13 dispatch shows Leo ensuring that the Illyrian network — spanning the Balkans and parts of the eastern Mediterranean — is informed and held firm in the post-Latrocinium crisis. The communion threat at the end of Chapter II gives the warning teeth: Illyrian bishops who submit to Ephesus II’s outcomes step outside the Apostolic See’s communion.