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| To Pulcheria Augusta.
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Letter
XXXI.
To Pulcheria Augusta316
| 316 This was the Emperor
Theodosius the younger’s sister, a woman of noted zeal in the
cause of the Church: for many years she had practically ruled the
empire owing to her brother’s youthfulness. When the
intrigues of Chrysaphius had brought about a quarrel between brother
and sister, she retired for a time from public life. But becoming
the virgin wife of Marcian, she, through him, helped to effect the
victory of the Catholic cause at the Council of Chalcedon (451). | .
Leo to Pulcheria Augusta.
I. He reminds Pulcheria of her former
services to the Church, and suggests her interference in the Eutychian
controversy.
How much protection the Lord has extended to His Church through your clemency, we
have often tested by many signs. And whatever stand the
strenuousness of the priesthood has made in our times against the
assailers of the catholic Truth, has redounded chiefly to your
glory: seeing that, as you have learnt from the teaching of the
Holy Spirit, you submit your authority in all things to Him, by whose
favour and under whose protection you reign. Wherefore, because I
have ascertained from my brother and fellow-bishop Flavian’s
report, that a certain dispute has been raised through the agency of
Eutyches in the church of Constantinople against the integrity of the
Christian faith (and the text of the synod’s minutes has shown me
the exact nature of the whole matter), it is worthy of your great name
that the error which in my opinion proceeds rather from ignorance than
ingenuity, should be dispelled before, with the pertinacity of
wrong-headedness, it gains any strength from the support of the
unwise. Because even ignorance sometimes falls into serious
mistakes, and very frequently the simple-minded rush through unwariness
into the devil’s pit: and it is thus, I believe, that the
spirit of falsehood has crept over Eutyches: so that, whilst he
imagines himself to appreciate the majesty of the Son of God more devoutly, by denying in Him the real presence of
our nature, he came to the conclusion that the whole of that Word which
“became flesh” was of one and the same essence. And
greatly as Nestorius fell away from the Truth, in asserting that Christ
was only born man of His mother, this man also departs no less far from
the catholic path, who does not believe that our substance was brought
forth from the same Virgin: wishing it of course to be understood
as belonging to His Godhead only; so that that which took the form of a
slave, and was like us and of the same form317
| 317 Quod nostri
similis fuit atque conformis. | ,
was a kind of image, not the reality of our nature.
II. Man’s salvation required the
union of the two natures in Christ.
But it is of no avail to say that our Lord, the Son of the blessed Virgin Mary, was true and
perfect man, if He is not believed to be Man of that stock which is
attributed to Him in the Gospel. For Matthew says, “The
book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of
Abraham318
:” and follows the order of
His human origin, so as to bring the lines of His ancestry down to
Joseph to whom the Lord’s mother was
espoused. Whereas Luke going backwards step by step traces His
succession to the first of the human race himself, to show that the
first Adam and the last Adam were of the same nature. No doubt
the Almighty Son of God could have appeared
for the purpose
of
teaching, and justifying men in exactly the same way that He appeared
both to patriarchs and prophets in the semblance of flesh319
| 319 Gen.
xxxii. 24 and xviii 1.
It will be noticed that Leo unhesitatingly pronounces these and similar
appearances to be manifestations of the Second Person in the
Trinity. | ; for instance, when He engaged in a
struggle, and entered into conversation (with Jacob), or when He
refused not hospitable entertainment, and even partook of the food set
before Him. But these appearances were indications of that Man
whose reality it was announced by mystic predictions would be assumed
from the stock of preceding patriarchs. And the fulfilment of the
mystery of our atonement, which was ordained from all eternity, was not
assisted by any figures because the Holy Spirit had not yet come upon
the Virgin, and the power of the Most High had not over-shadowed
her: so that “Wisdom building herself a house320
| 320 Prov. ix. 1. Cf. Letter XXVIII. (The Tome),
chap. ii., towards the end. | ” within her undefiled body,
“the Word became flesh;” and the form of God and the form of a slave coming together into one
person, the Creator of times was born in time; and He Himself through
whom all things were made, was brought forth in the midst of all
things. For if the New Man had not been made in the likeness of
sinful flesh, and taken on Him our old nature, and being consubstantial
with the Father, had deigned to be consubstantial with His mother also,
and being alone free from sin, had united our nature to Him the whole
human race would be held in bondage beneath the Devil’s
yoke321
| 321 Sub iugo diaboli
generaliter teneretur humana captivitas: for the word
generaliter, cf. Letter XVI., chap. iv., no. 3. | , and we should not be able to make use of
the Conqueror’s victory, if it had been won outside our
nature.
III. From the union of the two natures
flows the grace of baptism. He makes a direct appeal to Pulcheria
for her help.
But from Christ’s marvellous sharing of the
two natures, the mystery of regeneration shone upon us that through the
self-same spirit, through whom Christ was conceived and born, we too,
who were born through the desire of the flesh, might be born again from
a spiritual source: and consequently, the Evangelist speaks of
believers as those “who were born not of bloods, nor of the will
of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God322
.” And of this
unutterable grace no one is a partaker, nor can be reckoned among the
adopted sons of God, who excludes from his
faith that which is the chief means of our salvation. Wherefore,
I am much vexed and saddened that this man, who seemed before so
laudably disposed towards humility, dares to make these empty and
stupid attacks on the one Faith of ourselves and of our fathers.
When he saw that his ignorant notion offended the ears of catholics, he
ought to have withdrawn from his opinion, and not to have so disturbed
the Church’s rulers, as to deserve a sentence of
condemnation: which, of course, no one will be able to remit, if
he is determined to abide by his notion. For the moderation of
the Apostolic See uses its leniency in such a way as to deal severely
with the contumacious, while desiring to offer pardon to those who
accept correction. Seeing then that I possess great confidence in
your lofty faith and piety, I entreat your illustrious clemency, that,
as the preaching of the catholic Faith has always been aided by your
holy zeal, so now, also, you will maintain its free action.
Perchance the Lord allowed it to be thus
assailed for this reason that we might discover what sort of persons
lurked within the Church. And clearly, we must not neglect to
look after such, lest we be afflicted with their actual
loss.
IV. His personal presence at the council
must be excused. The question at issue is a very grave
one.
But the most august and Christian Emperor, being
anxious that the disturbances may be set at rest with all speed, has
appointed too short and early a date for the council of bishops, which
he wishes held at Ephesus, in fixing the first of August for the
meeting: for from the fifth of May, on which we received His
Majesty’s letter, most of the time remaining has to be spent in
making complete arrangements for the journey of such priests as are
competent to represent me. For as to the necessity of my
attending the council also, which his piety suggested, even if there
were any precedent for the request, it could by no means be managed
now: for the very uncertain state of things at present would not
permit my absence from the people of this great city: and the
minds of the riotously-disposed might be driven to desperate deeds, if
they were to think that I took occasion of ecclesiastical business to
desert my country323
| 323
Patriam. I can see very little ground for pressing this
quite general expression to mean that he was a native of Rome, or even
a native of Italy. The most that can be said is that it does not
forbid the supposition. | and the
Apostolic See. As then you recognize that it concerns the public
weal that with your merciful indulgence I should not deny myself to the
affectionate prayers of my
people, consider that in these my
brethren, whom I have sent in my stead, I also am present with the rest
who appear: to them I have clearly and fully explained what is to
be maintained in view of the satisfactory exposition of the case which
has been given me by the detailed report, and by the defendant’s
own statement to me. For the question is not about some small
portion of our Faith on which no very distinct declaration has been
made: but the foolish opposition that is raised ventures to
impugn that which our Lord desired no one of
either sex in the Church to be ignorant of. For the short but
complete confession of the catholic creed which contains the twelve
sentences of the twelve apostles324
| 324 Let the reader
beware of accepting the plausible account here suggested of the
formation of the Apostles’ Creed, and still more so of accepting
the popular derivation of the word symbolum (σύμβολον)
as the twelve Apostles’ twelve “contributions” (one
each) to the Church’s rule of faith. | is so well
furnished with the heavenly panoply, that all the opinions of heretics
can receive their death-blow from that one weapon. And if
Eutyches had been content to receive that creed in its entirety with a
pure and simple heart, he would at no point go astray from the decrees
of the most sacred council of Nicæa, and he would understand that
the holy Fathers laid this down, to the end that no mental or
rhetorical ingenuity should lift itself up against the Apostolic Faith
which is absolutely one. Deign then, with your accustomed piety
to do your best endeavour, that this blasphemous and foolish attack
upon the one and only sacrament of man’s salvation may be driven
from all men’s minds. And if the man himself, who has
fallen into this temptation, recover his senses, so as to condemn his
own error by a written recantation, let him not be denied communion
with his order325
| 325 Communio sui
ordinis. | . Your
clemency is to know that I have written in the same strain to the holy
bishop Flavian also: that loving-kindness be not lost sight of,
if the error be dispelled. Dated 13 June in the consulship of the
illustrious Asturius and Protogenes (449).E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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