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| To Anatolius, Bishop of Constantinople, in rebuke of his self-seeking.
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Letter CVI.
To Anatolius, Bishop of Constantinople,
in rebuke of his self-seeking.
Leo, the bishop, to Anatolius, the bishop.
I. He commends Anatolius for his
orthodoxy, but condemns him for his presumption.
Now that the light of Gospel Truth has been
manifested, as we wished, through God’s
grace, and the night of most pestilential error has been dispelled from
the universal Church, we are unspeakably glad in the Lord, because the difficult charge entrusted to us has
been brought to the desired conclusion, even as the text of your letter
announces, so that, according to the Apostle’s teaching,
“we all speak the same thing, and that there be no schisms among
us: but that we be perfect in the same mind and in the same
knowledge452
.” In
devotion to which work we commend you, beloved, for taking part:
for thus you benefited those who needed correction by your activity,
and purged yourself from all complicity with the transgressors.
For when your predecessor Flavian, of happy memory, was deposed for his
defence of catholic Truth, not unjustly it was believed that your
ordainers seemed to have consecrated one like themselves, contrary to
the provision of the holy canons. But God’s mercy was present in this, directing and
confirming you, that you might make good use of bad beginnings, and
show that you were promoted not by men’s judgment, but by
God’s loving-kindness: and this
may be accepted as true, on condition that you lose not the grace of
this Divine gift by another cause of offence. For the catholic,
and especially the Lord’s priest, must
not only be entangled in no error, but also be corrupted by no
covetousness; for, as says the Holy Scripture,
“Go not after thy lusts, and
decline from thy desire.453
” Many
enticements of this world, many vanities must be resisted, that the
perfection of true self-discipline may be attained the first blemish of
which is pride, the beginning of transgression and the origin of
sin. For the mind greedy of power knows not either how to abstain
from things forbidden nor to enjoy things permitted, so long as
transgressions go unpunished and run into undisciplined and wicked
excesses, and wrong doings are multiplied, which were only endured in
our zeal for the restoration of the Faith and love of harmony454
| 454 Cf. Letter CIV., chap.
v. | .
II. Nothing can cancel or modify the
Nicene canons.
And so after the not irreproachable beginning of
your ordination, after the consecration of the bishop of Antioch, which
you claimed for yourself contrary to the regulations of the canons, I
grieve, beloved, that you have fallen into this too, that you should
try to break down the most sacred constitutions of the Nicene
canons455
| 455 The wording of Canon 6
is as follows: mos antiquus perduret, in Ægypto vel Libya
et Pentapoli, ut Alexandrinus episcopus horum omnium habeat potestatem,
quoniam quidem et episcopo Romano parilis mos est. Similiter
autem et apud Antiochiam ceterasque provincias (ἐπαρχίας) honor suus
unicuique servetur ecclesiæ: where, it will be noticed,
no mention is made of Constantinople at all, so that its position is
not explicitly defined either way. | : as if this opportunity had expressly
offered itself to you for the See of Alexandria to lose its privilege
of second place, and the church of Antioch to forego its right to being
third in dignity, in order that when these places had been subjected to
your jurisdiction, all metropolitan bishops might be deprived of their
proper honour. By which unheard of and never before attempted
excesses you went so far beyond yourself as to drag into an occasion of
self-seeking, and force connivance from that holy Synod which the zeal
of our most Christian prince had convened, solely to extinguish heresy
and to confirm the catholic Faith: as if the unlawful wishes of a
multitude could not be rejected, and that state of things which was
truly ordained by the Holy Spirit in the canon of Nicæa could in
any part be overruled by any one. Let no synodal councils flatter
themselves upon the size of their assemblies, and let not any number of
priests, however much larger, dare either to compare or to prefer
themselves to those 318 bishops, seeing that the Synod of Nicæa is
hallowed by God with such privilege, that
whether by fewer or by more ecclesiastical judgments are supported,
whatever is opposed to their authority is utterly destitute of all
authority.
III. The Synod of Chalcedon, which met
for one purpose, ought never to have been used for
another.
Accordingly these things which are found to be contrary
to those most holy canons are exceedingly unprincipled and
misguided. This haughty arrogance tends to the disturbance of the
whole Church, which has purposed so to misuse a synodal council, as by
wicked arguments to over-persuade, or by intimidation to compel, the
brethren to agree with it, when they had been summoned simply on a
matter of Faith, and had come to a decision on the subject which was to
engage their care. For it was on this ground that our brothers
sent by the Apostolic see, who presided in our stead at the synod with
commendable firmness, withstood their illegal attempts, openly
protesting against the introduction of any reprehensible innovation
contrary to the enactments of the Council of Nicæa. And
there can be no doubt about their opposition, seeing that you yourself
in your epistle complain of their wish to contravene your
attempts. And therein indeed you greatly commend them to me by
thus writing, whereas you accuse yourself in refusing to obey them
concerning your unlawful designs, vainly seeking what cannot be
granted, and craving what is bad for your soul’s health, and can
never win our consent. For may I never be guilty of assisting so
wrong a desire, which ought rather to be subverted by my aid, and that
of all who think not high things, but agree with the lowly.
IV. The Nicene Canons are for universal
application and not to be wrested to private
interpretations.
These holy and venerable fathers who in the city of
Nicæa, after condemning the blasphemous Arius with his impiety,
laid down a code of canons for the Church to last till the end of the
world, survive not only with us but with the whole of mankind in their
constitutions; and, if anywhere men venture upon what is contrary to
their decrees, it is ipso facto null and void; so that what is
universally laid down for our perpetual advantage can never be modified
by any change, nor can the things which were destined for the common
good be perverted to private interests; and thus so long as the limits
remain, which the Fathers fixed, no one may invade another’s
right but each must exercise himself within the proper and lawful
bounds, to the extent of his power, in the breadth of love; of which
the bishop of Constantinople may reap the fruits
richly enough, if he rather relies on the
virtue of humility than is puffed up with the spirit of
self-seeking.
V. The sanction alleged to have been
accorded 60 years ago to the supremacy of Constantinople over
Alexandria and Antioch is worthless.
“Be not highminded,” brother,
“but fear456
,” and cease
to disquiet with unwarrantable demands the pious ears of Christian
princes, who I am sure will be better pleased by your modesty than by
your pride. For your purpose is in no way whatever supported by
the written assent of certain bishops given, as you allege, 60 years
ago457
| 457 Cf. Letter CV., chap.
ii. (end). | , and never brought to the knowledge of the
Apostolic See by your predecessors; and this transaction, which from
its outset was doomed to fall through and has now long done so, you now
wish to bolster up by means that are too late and useless, viz., by
extracting from the brethren an appearance of consent which their
modesty from very weariness yielded to their own injury. Remember
what the Lord threatens him with, who shall
have caused one of the little ones to stumble, and get wisdom to
understand what a judgment of God he will have
to endure who has not feared to give occasion of stumbling to so many
churches and so many priests. For I confess I am so fast bound by
love of the whole brotherhood that I will not agree with any one in
demands which are against his own interests, and thus you may clearly
perceive that my opposition to you, beloved, proceeds from the kindly
intention to restrain you from disturbing the universal Church by
sounder counsel. The rights of provincial primates may not be
overthrown nor metropolitan bishops be defrauded of privileges based on
antiquity. The See of Alexandria may not lose any of that dignity
which it merited through S. Mark, the evangelist and disciple of the
blessed Peter, nor may the splendour of so great a church be obscured
by another’s clouds, Dioscorus having fallen through his
persistence in impiety. The church of Antioch too, in which first
at the preaching of the blessed Apostle Peter the Christian name
arose458
, must continue in the position assigned
it by the Fathers, and being set in the third place must never be
lowered therefrom. For the See is on a different footing to the
holders of it; and each individual’s chief honour is his own
integrity. And since that does not lose its proper worth in any
place, how much more glorious must it be when placed in the
magnificence of the city of Constantinople, where many priests may find
both a defence of the Fathers’ canons and an example of
uprightness in observing you?
VI. Christian love demands self-denial
not self-seeking.
In thus writing to you, brother, I exhort and
admonish you in the Lord, laying aside all
ambitious desires to cherish rather a spirit of love and to adorn
yourself to your profit with the virtues of love, according to the
Apostle’s teaching. For love “is patient and kind,
and envies not, acts not iniquitously, is not puffed up, is not
ambitious, seeks not its own459
.” Hence
if love seeks not its own, how greatly does he sin who covets
another’s? From which I desire you to keep yourself
altogether, and to remember that sentence which says, “Hold what
thou hast, that no other take thy crown460
.” For if you seek what is not
permitted, you will deprive yourself by your own action and judgment of
the peace of the universal Church. Our brother and fellow-bishop
Lucian and our son Basil the deacon, attended to your injunctions with
all the zeal they possessed, but justice refused to give effect to
their pleadings. Dated the 22nd of May in the consulship of the
illustrious Herculanus (452).E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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