To Leo, Bishop of Rome

If Paul, the herald of the truth, the trumpet of the Holy Spirit, hurried to the great Peter in order to bring back from him the answer they wanted to those at Antioch who were in doubt about living by the Law, much more do we, insignificant and small as we are, hurry to your apostolic see in order to receive from you a cure for the wounds of the churches. For every reason it is fitting for you to hold the first place, since your see is adorned with many privileges. Other cities are adorned by their size, their beauty, and their population; and some that are lacking in these respects are made bright by certain spiritual gifts. But on your city the great Provider has bestowed an abundance of good gifts. She is the largest, the most splendid, the most illustrious city in the world, and she overflows with the multitude of her inhabitants. Besides all this, she has won the sovereignty she now holds, and has given her name to her subjects. She is especially adorned by her faith, as the divine Apostle fittingly testifies when he exclaims, “Your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world.” And if, just after receiving the seeds of the message of salvation, her branches were at once heavy with these admirable fruits, what words can fitly praise the piety practiced in her now? In her keeping too are the tombs of our common fathers and teachers of the truth, Peter and Paul, which give light to the souls of the faithful. This thrice-blessed and divine pair rose in the region of the sunrise and spread their rays in every direction. Now, from the region of the sunset, where they willingly welcomed the setting of this life, they light up the world. They have made your see most glorious; this is the crown and completion of your good things. But in these days their God has adorned their throne by setting your holiness on it, sending out, as you do, the rays of orthodoxy. Of this I could give many proofs, but it is enough to mention the zeal your holiness lately showed against the infamous Manichaeans, which proved your piety’s earnest regard for divine things. Your recent writings, too, are enough to show your apostolic character. For we have come upon what your holiness has written about the incarnation of our God and Savior, and we marveled at the exactness of your expressions. [a]

For both writings agreed in setting forth the eternal Godhead of the only Son, derived from the eternal Father, and the manhood derived from the seed of Abraham and David; and in teaching that the nature he took on was like ours in all things, unlike us in this one respect alone, that it remained free from all sin, since sin springs not from nature but from free will. The letters also contain this: that the only Son of God is one, and that his Godhead is incapable of suffering, unchangeable and unalterable, like the Father who begot him and like the Holy Spirit; and that for this reason he took the nature capable of suffering, since the divine nature cannot suffer, so that by the suffering of his own flesh he might give freedom from suffering to those who have believed in him. These statements, and others like them, were in your letters. Admiring your spiritual wisdom, we praised the grace of the Holy Spirit that spoke through you; and we call on, beseech, beg and implore your highness to protect the churches of God that are now beaten by the storm.

We had expected that the representatives your holiness sent to Ephesus would put an end to the storm; but we have fallen under still fiercer blasts of it. For the most righteous bishop of Alexandria was not content with the illegal and most unrighteous deposition of the most holy and godly bishop of Constantinople, the lord Flavian, nor was his soul satisfied with a like slaughter of the rest of the bishops. Me too, in my absence, he stabbed with a pen, without summoning me to court, without trying me face to face, without questioning me about my views on the incarnation of our God and Savior. Even murderers, tomb robbers and adulterers are not condemned by their judges until they have either confirmed the charges against them by their own confession or been clearly convicted by the testimony of others. Yet I, brought up as I have been in the divine laws, was condemned by him at his pleasure, while all the time I was thirty-five days’ journey away. [f] Nor is this all he has done. Only last year, when two fellows tainted with the unsoundness of Apollinarius had gone there and cobbled together slanders against me, he stood up in church and anathematized me, and that after I had written to him and explained my views to him.

I grieve over the disturbance of the church, and I long for peace. For twenty-six years I have governed the church entrusted to me by the God of all, helped by your prayers. Never in the time of the blessed Theodotus, the chief bishop of the East, and never in the time of his successors in the see of Antioch, did I incur the slightest blame. With the help of God’s grace working with me, I rescued more than a thousand souls from the plague of Marcion, and I brought many others over from the Arian and Eunomian factions to our Master Christ. I have done a shepherd’s work in eight hundred churches, for that is how many parishes Cyrrhus contains; and in them, through your prayers, not a single weed is left, and our flock has been delivered from all heresy and error. He who sees all things knows how many stones have been thrown at me by wicked heretics, and how many battles I have fought in most of the cities of the East against pagans, against Jews, against every heresy. After all these trials and all this danger, I have been condemned without a trial. [g] But I await the sentence of your apostolic see. I beseech and implore your holiness to come to my help as I appeal to your fair and righteous tribunal. Order me to hurry to you, and let me prove to you that my teaching follows in the footsteps of the apostles. I have in my possession what I wrote twenty years ago, and what I wrote eighteen, fifteen and twelve years ago: against Arians and Eunomians, against Jews and pagans, against the magi in Persia, on divine providence, on theology, and on the divine incarnation. By God’s grace I have also interpreted the writings of the apostles and the oracles of the prophets. From these it is not hard to find out whether I have kept to the right rule of faith, or have swerved from its straight course. Do not, I implore you, reject my prayer; look, I implore you, on the insults heaped on my poor gray head after all my labors. [h]

Above all, I implore you to tell me whether I ought to submit to this unrighteous deposition or not, for I await your decision. If you bid me abide by the sentence of condemnation, I will abide by it; from then on I will trouble no one, and I will wait for the righteous tribunal of our God and Savior. God is my witness, my lord, that I care nothing for honor and glory. I care only about the scandal that has been caused: many of the simpler folk, and especially those I have rescued from various heresies, will cling to the authority of my judges and, quite unable to understand the exact truth of the doctrine, will perhaps suppose that I am guilty of heresy. All the people of the East know that in all the time I have been bishop I have not acquired a house, not a piece of land, not an obol, not a tomb. Of my own accord I have embraced poverty, having given away, at the death of my parents, all the property I inherited from them. [i]

Above all, I implore you, holy sir, beloved of God, to grant me the help of your prayers. I have told you this by the reverend and godly presbyters Hypatius and Abramius, country bishops, and by Alypius, exarch of our monks. I would hurry to you myself, if I were not held back by the chains of the imperial order, which imprison me as they do others. Treat my messengers, I beg you, as a father would treat his sons; give them a kind and fair hearing; be pleased to grant your protection to my old age, slandered as it is and attacked for nothing. Above all, watch over, to the utmost of your power, the faith that is being conspired against, and keep the inheritance of their fathers unharmed for the churches. So will your holiness receive from the great Giver of all good gifts the reward due for such deeds. [j]