Leo, bishop, to the most beloved brother Flavian.
The Legates Follow; The Matter Requires No Synodal Treatment
I have received your beloved’s letters along with the acts completed among you concerning the question of the faith. And since the most clement emperor, solicitous for the Church’s peace, wished a synod to be convened — though it is evidently clear that the matter at hand requires no synodal treatment1 — I signify to you, dearest brother, that those whom we deemed fit to send have followed.2
It was not necessary to write further now, since, with God’s favor, you will be more fully instructed concerning what we believe suited to the cause by the writings they will carry with them.
Given on the twelfth day before the Kalends of July, in the consulship of Asturius and Protogenes, most illustrious men.
Footnotes
- ↩ The Latin is quamvis evidenter appareat, rem, de qua agitur, nequaquam synodali tractatu indigere — “though it is evidently clear that the matter at hand requires no synodal treatment at all.” This is one of the most direct assertions of doctrinal authority in the entire June–August correspondence. Leo is not merely excusing his absence; he is stating that the council was unnecessary because the doctrinal question is already settled. The Tome (Letter XXVIII) constitutes the faith’s standard; a council to re-examine what the Roman see has already declared would be superfluous. The same claim appears in Letter XXXVII to the emperor on the same day.
- ↩ June 20, 449 — twelve days before the Kalends of July, in the consulship of Asturius and Protogenes. This letter and Letter XXXVII to Theodosius were dispatched on the same day, seven days after the June 13 cluster. PL footnote (a) notes a textual variant in the date but confirms the Twelfth Kalends of July (June 20). The brevity of this letter signals that the Tome and the accompanying cluster have already conveyed everything substantive; Letter XXXVI is a dispatch notice, not a doctrinal document.
Historical Commentary