From Eutyches to Leo²¹³

213 Contrary to my general plan, I have thought it wiser, in the matter of the Eutychian controversy, to include other than Leo’s own writings, that the reader may fulfil the precept audi alteram partem in what was the most important doctrinal discussion of Leo’s term of office.  This Letter (XXI.) bears the stamp of genuineness upon it, though the Gk. original is not found.  It is from a collection of documents bearing on Nestorianism published ex ms. Casinensi, first by Christianus Lupus (?), and afterwards by Stephanus Baluzius (1630–1718).

I.  He states his account of the proceedings at the Synod.

God the Word is before all else my witness, being confident of my hope and faith in Christ the Lord and God of all, and discerning the proof of my holding the truth in these matters:  but I call on your holiness, too, to bear witness to my heart and to the reasonableness of my opinions and words.  But the wicked devil has exercised his evil influence upon my zeal and determination, whereby his power ought to have been destroyed.  Whereupon he has exerted all his proper power and aroused Eusebius, bishop of the town of Dorylæum, against me, who presented an allegation²¹⁴

214 See Introduction, p. vii.

Their holinesses summoned me to reply to his accusation:  but though I was delayed by a serious illness besides my advanced age, I came to clear myself, knowing well that a faction had been formed against my safety.  And, indeed, together with a writ of appeal²¹⁵

215 Libelli sc. (appellationis ad Leonem):  this is referred to by Flavian (Lett. XXVI., chap. iii.) and denied.

216 Of these four worthies, Athanasius is too well known to need further notice.  Gregorius is either Greg. Nazianzen, Bishop of Constantinople (circ. 380) or Greg. of Nyssa, both great champions of the Church against Arianism (not, as the Ball., Greg. Thaumaturgus, Bishop of Neo-Cæsarea, 244–70):  Julius was a Bishop of Rome (337–52):  an excerpt from one of his letters is printed by the Ball. at the end of this letter as the passage on which Eutyches based his error, though they suspect it (not unnaturally) as being an Apollinarian imposition:  Felix is probably no other than the Arian Bishop of Rome, Felix II. (355–8) whose appointment is characterized by Athanasius as effected “by antichristian wickedness,” but who is yet a canonized saint and martyr of the Roman Church (see Schaff’s Hist., vol. ii. p. 371; iii. 635, 6).

II.  His explanations were allowed no hearing.

But without listening to any thing which I said, they broke up the Synod and published the sentence of my degradation, which they were getting ready against me before the inquiry.  So much slander were they factiously making up against me that even my safety would have been endangered had not the help of God at the intercession of your holiness quickly snatched me from the assault of military force.  Then they began to force the heads of other monasteries²¹⁷

217 Abbots’ signatures are found attached to the condemnation of Eutyches by the synod of Constantinople.

218 Cf. Letter XXVI., chap. ii., propositiones iniuriarum publice ponens et maledictionibus plenas (Gr. προθεμετα ὕβρεως καὶ λοιοορίας ἀνάμεστα) which is Flavian’s account of the matter.

III.  He appeals to Leo for protection.

I take refuge, therefore, with you the defender of religion and abhorrer of such factions, bringing in even still nothing strange against the faith as it was originally handed down to us, but anathematizing Apollinaris, Valentinus, Manes, and Nestorius, and those who say that the flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Saviour, descended from heaven and not from the Holy Ghost and from the holy Virgin, along with all heresies down to Simon Magus.  Yet nevertheless I stand in jeopardy of my life as a heretic.  I beseech you not to be prejudiced against me by their insidious designs about me, but to pronounce the sentence which shall seem to you right upon the Faith, and in future not to allow any slander to be uttered against me by this faction, nor let one be expelled and banished from the number of the orthodox who has spent his seventy years of life in continence and all chastity, so that at the very end of life he should suffer shipwreck.  I have subjoined to this my letter both documents, that which was presented by my accuser at the Synod, and that which was brought by me but not received, as well as the statement of my faith and those things which have been decreed upon the two natures by our holy Fathers²¹⁹

219 Of these four documents (1) Eusebius’ libellus is preserved in Act I Chalcedon; (2) is not forthcoming; (3) is appended below; and (4) a fragment of the testimony of Julius, which is given, does not seem important enough to be added in this edition, especially as its genuineness is denied.

Eutyches’ Confession of Faith.

I call upon you before God, who gives life to all things, and Christ Jesus, who witnessed that good confession under Pontius Pilate, that you do nothing by favour.  For I have held the same as my forefathers and from my boyhood have been illuminated by the same Faith as that which was laid down by the holy Synod of 318 most blessed bishops who were gathered at Nicæa from the whole world, and which was confirmed and ratified afresh for sole acceptance by the holy Synod assembled at Ephesus:  and I have never thought otherwise than as the right and only true orthodox Faith has enjoined.  And I agree to everything that was laid down about the same Faith by the same holy Synod:  of which Synod the leader and chief was Cyril of blessed memory bishop of the Alexandrians, the partner and sharer in the preaching and in the Faith of those saints and elect of God, Gregory the greater, and the other Gregory²²⁰

220 Here we have the two Gregorys mentioned:  cf. n. 7. above.

I, Eutyches, presbyter and archimandrite, have subscribed to this statement with my own hand.

E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH