On those matters which were mooted in the often-quoted council, in unlawful opposition to the venerable canons of Nicæa, we have written to our brother and fellow-bishop, the occupant of the See of Antioch [505] , adding that too which you had given us verbal information about by your delegates with reference to the unscrupulousness of certain monks, and laying down strict injunctions that no one, be he monk [506] or layman, that boasts himself of some knowledge, should presume to preach except the Lord's priests. That letter, however, we wish to reach all men's knowledge for the benefit of the universal Church through our aforesaid brother and fellow-bishop Maximus; and for that reason we have not thought fit to add a copy of it to this; because we have no doubt of the due carrying out of our injunctions to our aforesaid brother and fellow-bishop. (In another hand.) God keep thee safe, beloved brother. Dated 11 June in the consulship of the illustrious Opilio (453).
[489] Ps. cxxiii. 8.
[490] These were, of course, the bishops of Illyricum and Palestine, who raised objections at various points in the reading of Leo's Tome at Chalcedon. They were allowed five days to reconsider the matter, and ultimately yielded their consent. See Introduction, p. x., and Bright's notes to the Tome, who gives their objections and answers in detail, esp. nn. 148, 156, 160, and 173.
[491] S. Mark xvi. 16.
[492] He is thinking especially of the martyred Flavian.
[493] Dioscorus of Alexandria is meant.
[494] S. John viii. 44.
[495] Viz., to human nature.
[496] A reference to Letter XCVIII. (from the Synod of Chalcedon to Leo), chap. ii. shows that Dioscorus had threatened Leo with excommunication; excommunicationem meditatus est contra te qui corpus ecclesiæ unire festinas.
[497] This was of course Flavian. Quesnel quotes Liberatus the deacon (chap. x. of the Breviary) as asserting that no sooner was Dioscorus made bishop of Alexandria than oppressit Cyrilli heredes et per calumnias multas ab eis abstulit pecunias. His accusers at Chalcedon charge him with being an Origenist, an Arian, a murderer, an incendiary, and an evil liver generally.
[498] 1 John iii. 15.
[499] S. Matt. xi. 29, 30.
[500] S. John viii. 38.
[501] 2 Cor. xi. 28, 29.
[502] Inter utrumque hostem novellæ perfidiæ, sc. Nestorianism and Eutychianism.
[503] The Ballerinii remind us that all these allusions to keeping the balance of Truth in this and the last chapter, and here to acting promptissme et evidentissime were intended for Theodoret's especial benefit, who from his former defence of Nestorius and attacks on Cyril had been suspected of the Nestorian taint, but had expressly cleared himself at the Council of Chalcedon. This explains the res ipsæ and the experimenta of the next sentence, and the solemn adjuration of the sentence next but one.
[504] See the Acts of Chalcedon I, ingrediatur et reverendissimus episcopus Theodoretus ut sit particeps synodi, quia et restituit ei episcopatum sanctissimus archiepiscopus Leo, and 8, where the judges ask for a verdict, "sicut et sanctissimus Leo archiepiscopus iudicavit," to which the whole council replied Post Deum Leo iudicavit.
[505] This is Letter CXIX. to Maximus, bishop of Antioch (q.v.).
[506] It must be remembered that monachus esse in those days meant complete withdrawal from all active life in the world, the preaching orders being a much later institution. The Ballerinii suggest that it may have been a certain abbot Barsumas, who with his followers is said (Act. Chalc. 4) totam Syriam commovisse. See also Lett. CXIX., chap. vi.
Letters CXXI. and CXXII.
The former to Marcian Augustus, and the other to Julian the Bishop.
Asking him for further inquiries and information about the proper date for Easter in 455; cf. Letter LXXXVIII. chap. 4, above.
Letter CXXIII.
To Eudocia Augusta [507] , about the Monks of Palestine [508] .
Leo, the bishop, to Eudocia Augusta.
I. A request that she should use her influence with the monks of Palestine in reducing them to order.
I do not doubt that your piety is aware how great is my devotion to the catholic Faith, and with what care I am bound, God helping me, to guard against the Gospel of truth being withstood at any time by ignorant or disloyal men. And, therefore, after expressing to you my dutiful greetings which your clemency is ever bound to receive at my hands, I entreat the Lord to gladden me with the news of your safety, and to bring aid evermore and more by your means to the maintenance of that article of the Faith over which the minds of certain monks within the province of Palestine have been much disturbed; so that to the best of your pious zeal all confidence in such heretical perversity may be destroyed. For what but sheer destruction was to be feared by men who were not moved either by the principles of God's mysteries [509] , or by the authority of the Scriptures, or by the evidence of the sacred places themselves [510] . May it advantage then the Churches, as by God's favour it does advantage them, and may it advantage the human race itself which the Word of God adopted at the Incarnation, that you have conceived the wish to take up your abode in that country [511] where the proofs of His wondrous acts and the signs of His sufferings speak to you of our Lord Jesus Christ as not only true God but also true Man.
II. They are to be told that the catholic Faith rejects both the Eutychian and the Nestorian extremes. He wishes to be informed how far she succeeds.
If then the aforesaid revere and love the name of "catholic," and wish to be numbered among the members of the Lord's body, let them reject the crooked errors which in their rashness they have committed, and let them show penitence [512] for their wicked blasphemies and deeds of bloodshed [513] . For the salvation of their souls let them yield to the synodal decrees which have been confirmed in the city of Chalcedon. And because nothing but true faith and quiet humility attains to the understanding of the mystery of man's salvation, let them believe what they read in the Gospel, what they confess in the Creed, and not mix themselves up with unsound doctrines. For as the catholic Faith condemns Nestorius, who dared to maintain two persons in our one Lord Jesus Christ, so does it also condemn Eutyches and Dioscorus [514] who deny that the true human flesh was assumed in the Virgin Mother's womb by the only-begotten Word of God.
If your exhortations have any success in convincing these persons, which will win for you eternal glory, I beseech your clemency to inform me of it by letter; that I may have the joy of knowing that you have reaped the fruit of your good work, and that they through the Lord's mercy have not perished. Dated the 15th of June, in the consulship of the illustrious Opilio (453).
[507] See Letter CXVII., chap. iii., n. 8.
[508] See Letter CIX. above.
[509] Ratio sacramentorum, it cannot be too often repeated that to Leo and other early Fathers, all nature, and all its phenomena, and all God's dealings with mankind are sacramenta, and capable of a sacramental (i.e. higher, inner) interpretation: the particular sacramentum he is thinking of here is the incarnation, which he speaks of just below, as often elsewhere, as the sacramentum salutis humanæ (the sacrament or mystery whereby man is saved).
[510] Viz., the places in Palestine where these monks themselves lived, which trustworthy history or tradition connects with the various incidents in our Lord's life.
[511] Eudocia had just made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.
[512] Agant poenitentiam: this is the regular and very expressive translation in the Latin Versions and among the Fathers of the Greek metanoein.
[513] They had seized Jerusalem, and deposed Juvenal, the Bishop, setting up a partisan of their own in his stead.
[514] Leo not unfrequently joins these two together as equally responsible (e.g. Lett. CIX. 3).