To Flavian, Urging Mercy if Eutyches Recants

Leo to Flavian, bishop of Constantinople. [a]

Our brothers, whom we sent to you in the cause of the faith, had already set out when we received your letter, beloved, by our son Basil the deacon. In it you rightly said very little about our common anxiety, both because the reports that had already arrived had told us everything in full, and because for private inquiry it was easy to talk with this same Basil. Through him now, by the grace of God in whom we trust, we exhort you in reply, beloved, using the apostle’s words: “Do not be frightened in anything by your adversaries; this is for them a cause of destruction, but for you of salvation.” For what is so disastrous as to wish to destroy all hope of human salvation by denying the reality of Christ’s incarnation, and to contradict the apostle, who says plainly, “Great is the mystery of godliness, which was manifested in the flesh”? And what is so glorious as to fight for the faith of the gospel against the enemies of Christ’s birth and cross? About the most pure light and the unconquered power of his birth and cross we have already opened our heart in the letter sent to you, beloved, so that nothing might seem doubtful between us on the things we have learned and teach in keeping with catholic doctrine. [b]

But the testimonies to the truth are so clear and strong that a man must be counted thoroughly blind and stubborn who does not at once shake himself free of the mists of falsehood in the bright light of reason. So we wish you to use the remedy of patience in curing the madness of ignorance, so that through your fatherly warnings those who, though old in years, are infants in mind may learn to obey their elders. If they give up the empty notions of their ignorance and come to their senses, and if they condemn all their errors and receive the one true faith, do not deny them the mercy of a bishop’s kind heart. Yet your judgment must stand if their ungodliness, which you have rightly condemned, persists in its depravity. Dated the 23rd of July, in the consulship of the illustrious Asturius and Protogenes, in the year 449.