Eutyches, presbyter, to Leo, bishop of the city of Rome.
Chapter I: Eutyches Invokes Your Holiness; His Condemnation by the Synod of Constantinople
Trusting in my hope and faith in our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ, I call first upon God the Word as witness to my convictions, and then invoke Your Holiness to testify to the sincere intent of my heart and the reasoning behind my beliefs and words. The wicked devil, however, set himself against our zeal and purpose — which ought to have destroyed his dominion. Arousing all his household forces, he stirred up Eusebius, bishop of Dorylaeum, to present a petition against me to the holy bishop Flavian of Constantinople and to those gathered there for various purposes, falsely accusing me of heresy, plotting my ruin and disturbing God’s churches.
Called to account before their holinesses, I was prevented by grave illness compounded by old age from attending to clear myself in person, being also aware of the conspiracy being laid against my safety. I promptly submitted written statements bearing my signature, setting forth my faith. Though Flavian neither received my petition nor ordered it read aloud, I declared verbally the faith established at Nicaea and confirmed at Ephesus. When pressed to confess two natures and to anathematize those who denied this, I held back — fearing to deviate from the Nicene synod’s definition, knowing that our holy fathers Julius, Felix, Athanasius, and Gregory had refused the expression “two natures,” and not daring to speculate about the nature of the Word who became flesh in the last days in the womb of the holy Virgin Mary, immutably as He willed and knows, truly becoming man, not a phantom. I would not anathematize the fathers. I requested that this matter be brought to the notice of Your Holiness, and I promised to follow in all things whatever you approve.
Chapter II: The Synod Issues a Sentence Before the Hearing
With none of my representations heeded, the synod abruptly issued a sentence of deposition against me — one evidently prepared before any proper examination had taken place. Their hostile plot so threatened my physical safety that I was swiftly rescued, by God’s providence working through the prayers of Your Holiness, from the violence that was about to be done to me. They then compelled the superiors of other monasteries to subscribe to my condemnation — something without precedent even against proven heretics or against Nestorius himself. When I offered written professions of faith to satisfy the people, they not only refused to receive them but confiscated them, intent on ensuring I be proclaimed a heretic before all.
Chapter III: Eutyches Appeals to Leo for a Judgment on the Faith
I flee to you, defenders of religion and abhorrers of such plots — introducing nothing new against the faith handed down from the beginning. I anathematize Apollinaris, Valentinus, Manes, and Nestorius, and all who say that our Lord Jesus Christ’s flesh descended from heaven rather than from the Holy Spirit and the holy Virgin Mary; and I anathematize all heresies as far as Simon Magus. Yet I am being treated as a heretic. I beseech you: let no prejudice from these treacherous proceedings work against me. Issue a sentence on the faith as you judge right; prevent further injury from those who plot against me; do not expel from the orthodox a man who has lived seventy years in continence and chastity, lest I suffer shipwreck at the very end of my life. I attach herewith both the accuser’s petition to the synod and my own — which was not accepted — along with my profession of faith and the decrees of the holy fathers concerning the two natures.
Eutyches’s Personal Profession of Faith, Appended to the Letter
I call to witness before God, who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus, who gave testimony under Pontius Pilate, that you do nothing for the sake of gratification. From my forebears I have believed as I was taught from childhood: in accordance with what the holy synod of three hundred and eighteen blessed bishops established at Nicaea, confirmed at Ephesus — never departing from the true and orthodox faith. I assent to all that was established at Ephesus under the leadership of the blessed Cyril of Alexandria, sharing the preaching and the faith of Gregory the Great, Gregory, Basil, Athanasius, Atticus, and Proclus. I have held these as orthodox and faithful, honoring them as holy teachers. I anathematize Nestorius, Apollinaris, and all heretics as far as Simon, and those who say that our Lord’s flesh came from heaven. The Word descended from heaven without flesh and became flesh immutably and unchangeably in the Virgin’s womb from her very flesh, as He knows and willed — truly becoming man in the last days, perfect God and perfect man, for us and for our salvation. Let Your Holiness accept this as my full profession.
Eutyches, presbyter and archimandrite, subscribed this petition with his own hand.
A Fragment Attributed to Eutyches, Preserved in Julius’s Copy
I marvel that some who confess our Lord as being in the flesh fall nonetheless into the division wrongly introduced by the Paulianists. Following Paul of Samosata, they hold that the one who descended from heaven is God, and the earthly man another — one uncreated, the Lord; another created, a servant — impiously either worshiping the servant or failing to honor the Redeemer. Those who confess that God descended from heaven and became flesh from the Virgin, united with the flesh as one, fall needlessly into an impious expression when they say, as I hear, “two natures.”
John clearly demonstrates one Lord: The Word became flesh (John 1:14); and Paul: One Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things (1 Cor. 8:6). If Jesus, born of the Virgin, is the one through whom all things were made, then there is one nature — one person, not divided into two — since the body’s nature is not in the flesh distinct from the Deity. As man has one nature, so Christ, made in the likeness of man, has one nature. If they deny the unity through the union, they could divide one body into many natures, since the body comprises bones, sinews, flesh, skin, and blood — all distinct, yet one nature. Thus the Deity’s nature with the body is one, not divided into two.
We, taught by the divine Scriptures, believe in one Lord — both descended from heaven and born on earth. Those who hold “two natures” must worship one and not the other, baptizing in the divine but not the human. Yet if we are baptized into the Lord’s death, we profess one nature of impassible Deity and passible flesh, making our baptism into God and into the Lord’s death. We do not fear those who divide the Lord into two persons, nor those who accuse us of claiming He brought His flesh from heaven. We say He is wholly from heaven by divinity and wholly from the woman by flesh — ignorant of how to divide one person.
Footnotes
- ↩ Dorylaeum is modern Eskişehir in western Turkey. Eusebius of Dorylaeum was the same bishop who had decades earlier accused Nestorius of heresy — and would now accuse Eutyches. His petition to Flavian and the assembled bishops at Constantinople was the formal occasion for the synod that condemned Eutyches in November 448.
- ↩ The phrase profitens omnibus modis me secuturum quae probasse-tis — “promising to follow in all things whatever you approve” — is Eutyches explicitly and formally submitting to Leo’s judgment as the standard he will follow. This is a voluntary act of appeal, made to Rome rather than to any other authority, in the context of a condemnation by the patriarch of Constantinople. The reader should note that Eutyches does not appeal to a general council, nor to the Emperor, nor to the Patriarch of Alexandria — he appeals to Leo. His reasons for doing so may not be purely theological (he was hoping for a friendly hearing), but the act of appeal itself is structurally significant: Leo is the authority to whom appeals against Eastern episcopal condemnations are directed.
- ↩ This section, beginning “I marvel that some who confess our Lord,” is preserved separately in the manuscript tradition as a fragment of a theological letter by Eutyches, transmitted through a copy belonging to Julius (identified in the PL apparatus as the Bishop of Rome). The PL treats it as part of the same letter; many scholars regard it as a distinct document appended to the appeal. Its theological content, in any case, represents Eutyches’s actual theological reasoning with greater precision than the appeal letter itself, and it makes unmistakably clear the one-nature position for which he was condemned. The “Paulianists” he attacks are followers of Paul of Samosata, the third-century bishop condemned for teaching a low Christology in which Christ was a man elevated to divine status rather than the eternal Son incarnate. Eutyches invokes them as examples of the heresy he opposes — but his own conclusion, that Christ has one nature, is the opposite error.
Historical Commentary