To the Emperor Leo, Sending Envoys and Refusing New Debate

Leo the bishop to Leo Augustus.

Many clear proofs have shown me how earnestly you look after the interests of the universal church, and I rejoice at it. So I have not delayed to obey your majesty’s commands at the first opportunity. I am sending Domitian and Geminian, my brothers and fellow bishops. In support of my earnest prayers they will entreat you for the peaceful acceptance of the gospel teaching, and they will win freedom for the faith in which you yourself, taught by the Holy Spirit, so plainly excel, now that the enemies of Christ have been driven far away. Even if those enemies had wished to hide their madness, they could not have stayed hidden, because the holy simplicity of the Lord’s flock is very different from the pretenses of beasts who hide themselves in sheep’s clothing. Nor can they creep in by hypocrisy now that their extreme madness has exposed them. Recognize, then, august and venerable emperor, that you are called by divine Providence to be the guardian of the whole world, and understand what help you owe to your Mother, the Church, who boasts of you above all. Disputes that have been ended must not be allowed to rise again with fresh strength against the triumphs of the Almighty’s right hand. This is all the more true because it can by no means be allowed to heretics, whose attempts were condemned long ago. The labors of the faithful have a just claim to this result: that the whole fullness of the church remain secure in the completeness of its unity, and that nothing at all of what has been well laid down be reconsidered. For once decrees have been lawfully framed under divine guidance, still to want to wrangle is the sign not of a peacemaking spirit but of a rebellious one. As the apostle says, “For to strive with words is of no use for anything, except to overthrow those who hear.” [a]

For if human fancies are always free to assert themselves in dispute, there will never be a lack of men who dare to oppose the truth and to put their trust in the smooth talk of this world’s wisdom. Yet Christian faith and wisdom knows, from the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ himself, how strictly it ought to shun this most harmful vanity. For when Christ was about to call all nations to the light of the faith, he did not choose those who were to give themselves to preaching the gospel from among philosophers or orators. He took humble fishermen as the instruments through which he would reveal himself, so that the heavenly teaching, which was in itself full of mighty power, would not seem to need the help of words. That is why the apostle protests and says, “For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, not in wisdom of words, so that the cross of Christ would not be made empty. For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to those who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the prudence of the prudent I will reject. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the inquirer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?” Rhetorical arguments and clever debates of human devising pride themselves above all on this: in doubtful matters, clouded by a variety of opinions, they can bring their hearers to accept whatever view each speaker has chosen to put forward by his own talent and eloquence. And so it happens that whatever is argued most eloquently is counted the truest. But Christ’s gospel does not need this art, for in it the true teaching stands revealed by its own light. Nor is there any search for what will please the ear, when to know who the Teacher is is enough for true faith. [b]

But nothing cuts off those who are deceived by their own inventions from the light of the gospel so much as this: they do not believe that the Lord’s incarnation truly belongs to man’s nature, that is, to ours. They act as if it were unworthy of God’s glory that the majesty of the Word, who cannot suffer, should have taken the reality of human flesh. Yet men’s salvation could not have been restored in any other way, had not he who is in the form of God stooped also to take the form of a slave. The holy Synod of Chalcedon was attended by all the provinces of the Roman world and won universal acceptance for its decisions, and in them it is in complete harmony with the most sacred Council of Nicaea. Since that synod has cut off all the wicked followers of the Eutychian teaching from the body of the catholic communion, how can any of the lapsed regain the peace of the church without cleansing himself by a full course of penitence? For what freedom to debate can be granted to men who have deserved to be condemned by a just and holy judgment? They fall most truly under that sentence of the blessed apostle with which, at the very beginning of the infant church, he overthrew the enemies of Christ’s cross, saying, “Every spirit that confesses Jesus Christ to have come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that dissolves Jesus is not of God, but this is antichrist.” We must faithfully and steadfastly hold to this teaching of the Holy Spirit, given long beforehand, so that the authority of the divinely inspired decrees is not weakened by admitting the debates of such men. For in every part of your realm and in all the borders of the earth, the faith confirmed at Chalcedon is being established on the surest basis of peace, and no one who cuts himself off from communion with us is worthy of the name of Christian. Of such a man the apostle says, “A man who is a heretic, after a first and a second warning, avoid, knowing that such a one is perverse and condemned by his own judgment.” [c]

So what the unholy parricide has done, in seizing the holy church and cruelly murdering its very ruler, cannot be atoned for by human forgiveness, unless he who alone can rightly punish such things, and who alone in his unspeakable mercy can forgive them, is first propitiated. But though we are not eager for vengeance, we can in no way be allied with the devil’s servants. Yet if we learn that they are leaving the ranks of heresy, repenting of their error and turning from the weapons of discord to the laments of sorrow, then we too can intercede for them, so that they do not perish forever. In this we follow the example of the Lord’s loving-kindness, who, when he was nailed to the wood of the cross, prayed for his persecutors, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And so that Christian love may do this to good effect for its enemies, the wicked heretics must stop harassing God’s church, which is always faithful and always devout. They must not dare to disturb the souls of the simple with their falsehoods. Then, where the purest faith has flourished in all former times, the teaching of the gospel and of the apostles may now also run its course freely. For we too, imitating the divine mercy as far as we can, desire that no one be punished by justice, but that all be set free by mercy. [d]

I entreat your clemency: listen to the advice of my brothers mentioned above. As I said some time ago in an earlier letter, I have sent them not to wrangle with the condemned, but only to intercede with you for the stability of the catholic faith. And in keeping with your faith in the divine Majesty and your reverence for it, this above all you should grant. Set the quarrels of the heretics entirely aside, and graciously give your merciful attention to those who have fallen on such evil days. Restore the freedom of the church of Alexandria to its former state, and set up a bishop there who will uphold the decrees of the Synod of Chalcedon, agree with the ordinances of the gospel, and be able to restore peace among that badly troubled people. The bishops and clergy whom the unholy parricide has driven out of their churches should also be recalled at your majesty’s command, and all others whom the same malice has banished from their homes should be restored to their former condition. Then we may have just cause to rejoice fully and perfectly in the grace of God and in your faith, with no further noise of strife. For if anyone so forgets the Christian hope and his own salvation as to dare to attack, by any dispute, the gospel and apostolic decrees of the holy Synod of Chalcedon, and in doing so to overthrow the most sacred Council of Nicaea as well, we condemn him, together with all heretics who have held blasphemous and abominable views on the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, by the same anathema and an equal curse. We do not refuse the remedy of repentance to those who make full and lawful amends, but the sentence of the synod, which rests on the truth, must remain on those who still resist. Dated the 17th of August, in the consulship of the emperors Leo and Majorian (in the year 458). [e]