The Tome of Saint Leo

Leo, the bishop, to his dearest brother Flavian. [a]

We have read your affection’s letter, and we are surprised that it reached us so late. We have also gone through the record of the bishops’ proceedings. Now at last we have a clear view of the scandal that has risen up among you against the soundness of the faith, and what at first seemed obscure has now been brought to light and explained. By this means Eutyches, who seemed to deserve honor under the title of presbyter, is now shown to be exceedingly thoughtless and sadly inexperienced. So to him too we may apply the prophet’s words: “He refused to understand, so as to act well; he plotted unrighteousness on his bed.” For what is more unrighteous than to hold ungodly thoughts and not to give way to people wiser and more learned? But this is the folly of those who, when some obscurity keeps them from grasping the truth, turn not to the words of the prophets, not to the letters of the apostles, nor to the authority of the Gospels, but to themselves. They become teachers of error just because they have not been disciples of the truth. For what learning has he gained from the sacred pages of the New and the Old Testament, when he does not even understand the very beginning of the Creed? What is spoken all over the world by the voices of all who come for the new birth is still not grasped by the mind of this old man. [b]

If, then, he did not know what he ought to think about the incarnation of the Word of God, and was not willing to search laboriously through the whole length of the Holy Scriptures to gain the light of understanding, he should at least have received with careful attention that general confession common to all, in which the whole body of the faithful profess that they “believe in God the Father Almighty, and in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord, who was born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary.” By these three clauses the siege engines of almost all the heretics are shattered. For when God is believed to be both “Almighty” and “Father,” it is proved that the Son is everlasting together with him, differing in nothing from the Father. For he was born as “God from God,” Almighty from Almighty, coeternal from eternal: not later in time, not lower in power, not unlike him in glory, not divided from him in essence. And the same only Son, the everlasting Son of an everlasting Parent, was “born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary.” This birth in time took nothing away from that divine and everlasting birth, and added nothing to it. It was spent wholly on the work of restoring man, who had been deceived, so that it might overcome death and by its power “destroy the devil, who had the power of death.” For we could not have overcome the author of sin and of death unless he, who could neither be stained by sin nor held by death, had taken our nature on himself and made it his own. For in fact he was “conceived of the Holy Spirit” within the womb of a virgin mother, who bore him as she had conceived him, without loss of her virginity.

But suppose Eutyches was not able to draw a true understanding from this pure fountain of Christian faith, because by his own blindness he had darkened for himself the brightness of so clear a truth. Then he should have submitted to the teaching of the Evangelist. After reading what Matthew says, “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham,” he should also have sought instruction from the apostle’s preaching. After reading in the Letter to the Romans, “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he had promised beforehand through the prophets in the Holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was made for him of the seed of David according to the flesh,” he should have given some devout study to the pages of the prophets. He would have found God’s promise to Abraham, “In your seed all nations will be blessed.” Then, to avoid all doubt about the proper meaning of this “seed,” he should have paid attention to the apostle’s words: “The promises were made to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, ‘and to seeds,’ as of many, but as of one, ‘and to your seed,’ which is Christ.” He should also have heard with his inner ear the declaration of Isaiah, “Look, a virgin will conceive and bear a son, and they will call his name Emmanuel, which means, God with us.” And he should have read with faith the words of the same prophet, “To us a child has been born, to us a son has been given, whose power is on his shoulder; and they will call his name Angel of great counsel, Wonderful, Counselor, Strong God, Prince of Peace, Father of the age to come.” And he should not have talked idly, as if the Word was made flesh in such a way that the Christ brought forth from the virgin’s womb had the form of a man, but did not have a body truly derived from his mother’s body.

Perhaps his reason for thinking that our Lord Jesus Christ was not of our nature was this: the angel sent to the blessed and ever-virgin Mary said, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you, and therefore the holy one who will be born of you will also be called the Son of God.” He reasoned as if, because the virgin’s conception was brought about by an act of God, the flesh of the one she conceived was not of the nature of the woman who conceived him. But we are not to understand that birth, uniquely wonderful and wonderfully unique, as though the newness of the way it came about did away with the proper character of the kind. It was the Holy Spirit who made the virgin fruitful, but it was from a body that a real body was derived. And “when Wisdom was building herself a house,” “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us”: that is, in the flesh which he took from a human being, and which he brought to life with the spirit of rational life.

So the distinct character of both natures and substances was preserved, and both met in one person. Lowliness was taken on by majesty, weakness by power, mortality by eternity. To pay the debt of our condition, the nature that cannot be harmed was united to the nature that can suffer. So, as the fitting remedy for our ills, one and the same “mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus,” could die by the one nature and could not die by the other. So true God was born in the whole and perfect nature of true man, complete in what was his own, complete in what was ours. By “ours” we mean what the Creator formed in us at the beginning and what he took on in order to restore. For of what the deceiver brought in, and what man, so deceived, let in, there was not a trace in the Savior. And his taking on himself a share in our weaknesses did not make him a sharer in our sins. He took on “the form of a servant” without the stain of sin, enriching what was human without lessening what was divine. For that “emptying of himself,” by which the invisible made himself visible, and the Creator and Lord of all things chose to be one among mortals, was a stooping down in compassion, not a failure of power. So the same one who, remaining in the form of God, made man, was made man in the form of a servant. For each nature keeps its own character without loss; and just as the form of God does not take away the form of a servant, so the form of a servant does not lessen the form of God. [h]

The devil was boasting that man, deceived by his cunning, had lost the gifts of God and, stripped of his endowment of immortality, had come under the heavy sentence of death. He boasted that he himself, amid his own miseries, had found a kind of comfort in having a transgressor for his companion, and that God, as the principle of justice required, had changed his own purpose toward man, whom he had created in so high a position of honor. So there was need of an arrangement made in secret counsel. In this way the unchangeable God, whose will could not be robbed of its own kindness, would fulfill his first plan of loving-kindness toward us by a more hidden mystery; and man, who had been led into wrongdoing by the wicked cunning of the devil, would not perish against God’s purpose. So the Son of God comes down from his seat in heaven, without leaving the glory of the Father, and enters this lower world, born in a new order, by a new kind of birth. In a new order, because he who is invisible in his own realm became visible in ours. He who could not be contained in space chose to be contained. Continuing to be before all times, he began to exist in time. The Lord of the universe let his infinite majesty be overshadowed and took on himself the form of a servant. The God who cannot suffer did not disdain to be a man who can suffer, nor the immortal one to be made subject to the laws of death. And born by a new kind of birth, because untouched virginity, knowing nothing of lust, supplied the material of his flesh. What was taken from the Lord’s mother was nature, not fault. Nor does the wonder of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, born of a virgin’s womb, mean that his nature is unlike ours. For the very same one who is true God is also true man. There is no illusion in this union, where the lowliness of man and the height of the Godhead meet together.

For just as “God” is not changed by the compassion he shows, so “man” is not swallowed up by the dignity he is given. Each “form” does what is proper to it, in fellowship with the other: the Word does what belongs to the Word, and the flesh carries out what belongs to the flesh. The one shines out in miracles; the other gives way under injuries. And as the Word does not withdraw from equality with the Father in glory, so the flesh does not abandon the nature of our kind. For, as we must say again and again, he is one and the same, truly Son of God and truly Son of Man. He is God, since “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” He is man, since “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” He is God, since “all things were made by him, and without him nothing was made.” He is man, since he was “made of a woman, made under the law.” The birth of the flesh shows his human nature; the virgin’s giving birth is a sign of the power of God. The infancy of the baby is displayed in the lowliness of swaddling clothes; the greatness of the Most High is declared by the voices of angels. The one whom Herod wickedly plots to kill is like humanity in its beginnings; but the one whom the Magi rejoice to worship on their knees is Lord of all. Now when he came to the baptism of John, his forerunner, the voice of the Father thundered from heaven, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased,” so that the Godhead, covered with a veil of flesh, would not stay hidden. So the one who, as man, is tempted by the devil’s cunning is the same one whom, as God, angels serve with devotion.

To be hungry, to be thirsty, to be weary and to sleep are plainly human. But to feed five thousand men with five loaves; to give the Samaritan woman that living water which, once drawn, keeps the one who drinks it from ever being thirsty again; to walk on the surface of the sea with feet that do not sink; and to calm the “uplifted waves” by rebuking the storm: these are beyond question divine. To pass over many points, then: it does not belong to the same nature to weep with feelings of pity over a dead friend, and, after the heavy stone had been taken away from the grave where he had lain four days, to raise him to life again with a word of command. Nor does it belong to the same nature to hang on the wood, and to make all the elements tremble after daylight had been turned into night; or to be pierced with nails, and to open the gates of paradise to the robber’s faith. In the same way, it does not belong to the same nature to say, “I and the Father are one,” and to say, “The Father is greater than I.” For although in the Lord Jesus Christ there is one person of God and man, yet the source of the shame that belongs to both is one thing, and the source of the glory that belongs to both is another. From what is ours he has the manhood that is less than the Father; from the Father he has a Godhead equal with the Father. So, because of this unity of person, which is to be understood as existing in both natures, we read on the one hand that “the Son of Man came down from heaven,” since the Son of God took flesh from the virgin of whom he was born. On the other hand, the Son of God is said to have been crucified and buried, since he underwent this not in his Godhead itself, in which the only Son is coeternal with the Father and of one substance with him, but in the weakness of human nature. That is why all of us confess in the Creed itself that “the only Son of God was crucified and buried,” in keeping with the apostle’s saying, “For if they had known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of majesty.”

When our Lord and Savior himself was instructing the faith of the disciples by his questions, he said, “Who do people say that I, the Son of Man, am?” When they had mentioned various opinions held by others, he said, “But who do you say that I am?” That is: “I who am the Son of Man, whom you see in the form of a servant and in the reality of flesh, who do you say that I am?” Then the blessed Peter, inspired by God, and about to benefit all nations by his confession, said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Not without reason, then, was he called blessed by the Lord. From the original Rock he drew the firmness that belonged both to his strength and to his name, since through revelation from the Father he confessed the very same one to be both the Son of God and the Christ. For one of these truths accepted without the other would not help toward salvation. It was equally dangerous to believe that the Lord Jesus Christ was only God and not man, or only man and not God. [m]

After the Lord’s resurrection, which was in truth the resurrection of a real body, for no one else was raised again than the one who had been crucified and had died, what else was done during those forty days than to make our faith complete and clear of all darkness? He talked with his disciples, lived with them and ate with them. He let those who were troubled by doubt handle him with careful and searching touch. For this purpose he came in to the disciples when the doors were shut, gave them the Holy Spirit by his breath, and, after giving them the light of understanding, opened to them the secrets of Holy Scripture. And again, in his very own person, he showed them the wound in his side, the marks of the nails, and all the fresh signs of his passion, saying, “Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Handle me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see that I have.” He did this so that the properties of the divine and the human nature might be acknowledged to remain in him without division; and so that we might know that the Word is not what the flesh is, in such a way as to confess that the one Son of God is both Word and flesh. This Eutyches must be judged, sadly, to have no hold on this mystery of the faith. He does not recognize that our nature exists in the only Son of God, either in the lowliness of mortality or in the glory of the resurrection. Nor has he been awed by the declaration of the blessed apostle and evangelist John: “Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God; and every spirit that dissolves Jesus is not of God, and this is Antichrist.” Now what is it to dissolve Jesus but to separate the human nature from him, and by shameless inventions to make empty the mystery by which alone we have been saved?

Moreover, being in the dark about the nature of Christ’s body, he must also be caught in the same senseless blindness about his passion. For if he does not think the Lord’s crucifixion unreal, and does not doubt that he truly accepted suffering, even to death, for the salvation of the world, then, as he believes in his death, let him acknowledge his flesh too. Let him not doubt that the one he recognizes as having been capable of suffering is also man, with a body like ours, since to deny his true flesh is also to deny his bodily sufferings. If, then, he accepts the Christian faith and does not turn his ear away from the preaching of the gospel, let him see what nature it was that was pierced with nails and hung on the wood of the cross. And let him understand where the blood and water came from that flowed out after the soldier’s spear had pierced the side of the crucified one, so that the church of God might be refreshed both by the font and by the cup. Let him also listen to the blessed apostle Peter when he declares that “sanctification by the Spirit” comes about through the “sprinkling of the blood of Christ.” And let him not merely skim the words of the same apostle: “Knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things, such as silver and gold, from your empty way of life handed down by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Jesus Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.” Nor let him resist the testimony of the blessed apostle John: “And the blood of Jesus the Son of God cleanses us from all sin.” And again: “This is the victory that overcomes the world: our faith.” And: “Who is the one who overcomes the world, but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? This is he who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ; not in water only, but in water and blood. And it is the Spirit who bears witness, because the Spirit is truth. For there are three that bear witness: the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and the three are one.” That is, the Spirit of sanctification, the blood of redemption, and the water of baptism. These three things are one and remain undivided, and not one of them is cut off from its connection with the others. For the catholic church lives and grows by this faith: that in Christ Jesus we should believe neither in manhood without true Godhead nor in Godhead without true manhood.

But when Eutyches, questioned in your examination of him, answered, “I confess that our Lord was of two natures before the union, but after the union I confess one nature,” I am astonished that so absurd and perverse a profession was not rebuked by any of his judges. An utterance extremely foolish and extremely blasphemous was passed over, as if nothing offensive had been heard. For it is as wicked to say that the only Son of God was of two natures before the incarnation as it is shocking to affirm that, since the Word became flesh, there has been only one nature in him. But Eutyches must not think that what he said was correct, or could be tolerated, because no statement of yours refuted it. So we urge your earnest care, dearly beloved brother, to see to it that, if by God’s merciful inspiration the case is brought to a good end, this rash and inexperienced man is cleansed of this pestilent notion of his as well. For, as the record of the proceedings has clearly shown, he had made a fair start at abandoning his own opinion when, driven into a corner by your authoritative words, he declared himself ready to say what he had not said before, and to give his assent to the faith from which he had previously held aloof. But when he would not agree to anathematize the wicked teaching, you understood, brother, that he was persisting in his own false belief and deserved to receive sentence of condemnation. If he grieves over this sincerely and to good purpose, and understands, even though too late, how rightly the authority of the bishops has been set in motion; or if, to make full amends, he condemns by word of mouth, and in his own handwriting, all that he has held wrongly; then no mercy shown him once he has been set right, however great, will deserve blame. For our Lord, the true and good Shepherd, who laid down his life for his sheep and who came to save people’s souls and not to destroy them, wants us to imitate his own loving-kindness, so that justice should indeed constrain those who sin, but mercy should not reject those who turn back. For the true faith is defended to best effect when a false opinion is condemned even by those who have followed it.

But so that the whole matter may be carried out with devotion and faithfulness, we have appointed our brothers Julius, a bishop, and Renatus, a presbyter of the title of Saint Clement, and also my son Hilarus, a deacon, to represent us. With them we have joined Dulcitius, our notary, whose faithfulness we have well proved. We trust that God’s help will be with you, so that the one who has gone astray may be saved by condemning his own unsound opinion. May God keep you in good health, dearly beloved brother. Dated the Ides of June, in the consulship of the illustrious men Asterius and Protogenes.

Next a long chain of quotations from the fathers was read, supporting the teaching of the Tome. [v]