To the Emperor Leo, Thanking Him for Removing Timothy

Leo the bishop to Leo Augustus.

If we tried to reward your majesty’s glorious resolve in defense of the faith with all the praise that the greatness of the matter demands, we would be found unequal to the task of giving thanks and of celebrating the joy of the universal church with our feeble tongue. But a worthier reward for your deeds and merits awaits you from him in whose cause you have shown such excellent zeal, and you are now triumphing gloriously in reaching the end you longed for. Your clemency must know, then, that all the churches of God join in praising you, and in rejoicing that the unholy parricide has been thrown off the neck of the church of Alexandria. God’s people, on whom that abominable robber was so heavy a burden, have been restored to the ancient freedom of the faith. They can now be called back into the way of salvation by the preaching of faithful priests, since they see the whole breeding ground of the plague done away with in the person of its very originator. Now, then, since you have accomplished this by firm resolve and steadfast will, complete the full measure of your work for the faith by passing such decrees as will be pleasing to God in favor of this city’s catholic ruler, who is tainted by no trace of the heresy now so often condemned. Otherwise the wound, which seems healed but still lurks beneath the scar, may grow again, and the Christian laity, which your public action has freed from the perversity of heretics, may fall prey once more to deadly poison. [a]

But you see, venerable emperor, and clearly understand, that in the case of the man whose excommunication is in view, it is not only the soundness of his faith that must be considered. For even if that could be cleansed by any punishments and confessions, and fully restored on any terms, the wicked and bloody deeds that have been committed can never be undone by the protests of plausible words. For in God’s pontiff, and above all in the priest of so great a church, the sound of the tongue and the speech of the lips are not enough. Nothing avails if God is proclaimed with the voice while the mind stands convicted of blasphemy. Of such men the Holy Spirit speaks through the apostle: “having an appearance of godliness, but denying its power”; and again elsewhere, “They profess that they know God, but in their deeds they deny him.” So, since both soundness in the true faith and an abundance of good works are looked for in every member of the church, how much more ought both of these to stand out in the chief pontiff, because the one without the other cannot be in union with the body of Christ. [b]

Nor do we need to state now all that makes Timothy accursed, since what has been done through him and for his sake has come fully and plainly to the knowledge of the whole world. Whatever an unruly mob has committed against justice rests entirely on his head, since its mad hands served his wishes. So even if he leaves out nothing in his profession of faith, and deceives us in nothing, it best befits your glory to shut him out completely from this plan of his. For the universal church ought to rejoice with holy gladness in the bishop of so great a city, so that the true peace of the Lord may be glorified not only by the preaching of the faith but also by the example of men’s conduct. Dated the 17th of June, in the consulship of Magnus and Apollonius (in the year 460). By the hand of Philoxenus, an imperial agent. [c]