To the Empress Pulcheria, Asking Her Help Against Eutyches

Leo to Pulcheria Augusta.

We have often seen, by many signs, how much protection the Lord has given his church through your clemency. Whatever stand the priesthood has vigorously made in our times against those who attack the catholic truth has brought glory above all to you, because, as you have learned from the teaching of the Holy Spirit, you submit your authority in all things to him by whose favor and under whose protection you reign. I have learned from the report of my brother and fellow bishop Flavian that a dispute has been raised in the church of Constantinople, through the work of Eutyches, 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. So it is worthy of your great name that this error, which in my opinion comes from ignorance rather than from cleverness, should be dispelled before it gains any strength from the support of the unwise through the stubbornness of wrong-headedness. [a]

For even ignorance sometimes falls into serious mistakes, and very often the simple-minded rush through carelessness into the devil’s pit. This, I believe, is how the spirit of falsehood has crept over Eutyches. He imagines that he honors the majesty of the Son of God more devoutly by denying that our nature is really present in him, and so he came to the conclusion that the whole of that Word which “became flesh” was of one and the same essence. Nestorius fell far away from the truth when he asserted that Christ was born of his mother as a man only. But this man departs no less far from the catholic path, since he does not believe that our substance was brought forth from the same Virgin. He wishes it, of course, to be understood as belonging to his Godhead only, so that what took the form of a slave, and was like us and shared our form, was a kind of image and not the reality of our nature.

But it is no use saying that our Lord, the son of the blessed Virgin Mary, was true and perfect man, if he is not believed to be man of the stock that the Gospel attributes to him. For Matthew says, “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham,” and follows the order of his human origin, bringing the lines of his ancestry down to Joseph, to whom the Lord’s mother was betrothed. Luke, on the other hand, goes backward step by step and traces his line 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 to teach people and make them righteous in exactly the way he appeared to patriarchs and prophets in the appearance of flesh: for instance, when he wrestled and spoke with Jacob, or when he did not refuse hospitality and even ate the food set before him. But these appearances pointed to that Man whose reality, as mystic predictions announced, would be taken from the stock of the patriarchs who went before him. The fulfillment of the mystery of our atonement, which was ordained from all eternity, was not brought about by any of these figures, because the Holy Spirit had not yet come upon the Virgin, and the power of the Most High had not yet overshadowed her. Then, “Wisdom building herself a house” within her undefiled body, “the Word became flesh.” The form of God and the form of a slave came together into one person: the Creator of times was born in time, and he through whom all things were made was brought forth in the midst of all things. For suppose the New Man had not been made in the likeness of sinful flesh and taken on himself our old nature; suppose that he, being of one substance with the Father, had not deigned to be of one substance with his mother also; suppose that he, who alone is free from sin, had not united our nature to himself. Then the whole human race would be held captive under the devil’s yoke, and we could not make use of the Conqueror’s victory, if it had been won outside our nature. [e]

But from Christ’s marvelous sharing of the two natures the mystery of rebirth shone on us, so that through the 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. That is why 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 God.” No one shares in this unspeakable grace, nor can he be counted among the adopted sons of God, if he shuts out of his faith what is the chief means of our salvation. So I am much troubled and saddened that this man, who seemed before so admirably inclined to humility, dares to make these empty and foolish attacks on the one faith held by us and by our fathers. When he saw that his ignorant notion offended the ears of catholics, he ought to have given up his opinion, and not to have disturbed the church’s rulers so much as to deserve a sentence of condemnation. No one, of course, will be able to remit that sentence if he is determined to cling to his notion. For the Apostolic See uses its leniency with such moderation that it deals severely with the stubborn, while it desires to offer pardon to those who accept correction. Since, then, I have great confidence in your lofty faith and piety, I beg your illustrious clemency: as the preaching of the catholic faith has always been helped by your holy zeal, so now too keep it free to do its work. Perhaps the Lord allowed it to be attacked in this way so that we might discover what sort of people were lurking within the church. And clearly we must not neglect to look after such people, or we may suffer the grief of losing them altogether. [i]

But our most august and Christian emperor, anxious to have the disturbances settled with all speed, has set too short and early a date for the council of bishops he wishes held at Ephesus, fixing the 1st of August for the meeting. From the 5th of May, when we received his majesty’s letter, most of the remaining time has to be spent in making full arrangements for the journey of priests able to represent me. His piety also suggested that I should attend the council myself. Even if there were any precedent for that request, it could in no way be managed now. The very uncertain state of affairs at present would not allow me to be absent from the people of this great city, and the minds of the riotous might be driven to desperate deeds if they thought I was using church business as an excuse to desert my country and the Apostolic See. You recognize, then, that it concerns the public good that, with your merciful leave, I should not deny myself to the loving prayers of my people. So consider that I too am present, along with the rest who attend, in these brothers of mine whom I have sent in my place. I have explained to them clearly and fully what is to be maintained, in view of the satisfactory account of the case given me by the detailed report and by the defendant’s own statement to me. [j]

For the question is not about some small part of our faith on which no very clear declaration has been made. This foolish opposition dares to attack what our Lord wished no one in the church, of either sex, to be ignorant of. For the short but complete confession of the catholic creed, which contains the twelve sentences of the twelve apostles, is so well furnished with the full armor of heaven that all the opinions of heretics can receive their deathblow from that one weapon. If Eutyches had been content to receive that creed whole, with a pure and simple heart, he would not stray at any point from the decrees of the most sacred Council of Nicaea, and he would understand that the holy fathers laid this down so that no cleverness of mind or of speech should lift itself up against the apostolic faith, which is absolutely one. Be pleased, then, with your usual piety, to do all you can so that this blasphemous and foolish attack on the one and only mystery of human salvation may be driven from everyone’s mind. And if the man himself, who has fallen into this temptation, comes to his senses so far as to condemn his own error in a written recantation, let him not be refused communion in his own rank. Your clemency should know that I have written in the same vein to the holy bishop Flavian as well, so that loving-kindness may not be forgotten if the error is dispelled. Dated the 13th of June, in the consulship of the illustrious Asturius and Protogenes, in the year 449.