Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Ser. II, Vol. XII:
The Letters and Sermons of Leo the Great.: To Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrus, on Perseverance in the Faith.

Letter CXX.

To Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrus, on Perseverance in the Faith.

Leo, the bishop, to his beloved brother Theodoret, the bishop.

I.  He congratulates Theodoret on their joint victory, and expresses his approval of an honest inquiry which leads to good results.

On the return of our brothers and fellow-priests, whom the See of the blessed Peter sent to the holy council, we ascertained, beloved, the victory you and we together had won by assistance from on high over the blasphemy of Nestorius, as well as over the madness of Eutyches.  Wherefore we make our boast in the Lord, singing with the prophet:  “our help is in the name of the Lord, who hath made heaven and earth 489 :”  who has suffered us to sustain no harm in the person of our brethren, but has corroborated by the irrevocable assent of the whole brotherhood what He had already laid down through our ministry:  to show that, what had been first formulated by the foremost See of Christendom, and then received by the judgment of the whole Christian world, had truly proceeded from Himself:  that in this, too, the members may be at one with the Head.  And herein our cause for rejoicing grows greater when we see that the more fiercely the foe assailed Christ’s servants, the more did he afflict himself.  For lest the assent of other Sees to that which the Lord of all has appointed to take precedence of the rest might seem mere complaisance, or lest any other evil suspicion might creep in, some were found to dispute our decisions before they were finally accepted 490 .  And while some, instigated by the author of the disagreement, rush forward into a warfare of contradictions, a greater good results through his fall under the guiding hand of the Author of all goodness.  For the gifts of God’s grace are sweeter to us when they are gained with mighty efforts:  and uninterrupted peace is wont to seem a lesser good than one that is restored by labours.  Moreover, the Truth itself shines more brightly, and is more bravely maintained when what the Faith had already taught is afterwards confirmed by further inquiry.  And still further, the good name of the priestly office gains much in lustre where the authority of the highest is preserved without it being thought that the liberty of the lower ranks has been at all infringed.  And the result of a discussion contributes to the greater glory of God when the debaters exert themselves with confidence in overcoming the gainsayers:  that what of itself is shown wrong may not seem to be passed over in prejudicial silence.

II.  Christ’s victory has won back many to the Faith.

Exult therefore, beloved brother, yes, exult triumphantly in the only-begotten Son of God.  Through us He has conquered for Himself the reality of Whose flesh was denied.  Through us and for us He has conquered, in whose cause we have conquered.  This happy day ranks next to the Lord’s Advent for the world.  The robber is laid low, and there is restored to our age the mystery of the Divine Incarnation which the enemy of mankind was obscuring with his chicaneries, because the facts would not let him actually destroy it.  Nay, the immortal mystery had p. 88 perished from the hearts of unbelievers, because so great salvation is of no avail to unbelievers, as the Very Truth said to His disciples:  “he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be condemned 491 .”  The rays of the Sun of Righteousness which were obscured throughout the East by the clouds of Nestorius and Eutyches, have shone out brightly from the West, where it has reached its zenith in the Apostles and teachers of the Church.  And yet not even in the East is it to be believed that it was ever eclipsed where noble confessors 492 have been found among your ranks:  so that, when the old enemy was trying afresh, through the impenitent heart of a modern Pharaoh 493 , to blot out the seed of faithful Abraham and the sons of promise, he grew weary, through God’s mercy, and could harm no one save himself.  And in regard to him the Almighty has worked this wonder also, in that He has not overwhelmed with the founder of the tyranny those who were associated with him in the slaughter of the people of Israel, but has gathered them into His own people; and as the Source of all mercy knew to be worthy of Himself and possible for Himself alone, He has made them conquerors with us who were conquered by us.  For whilst the spirit of falsehood is the only true enemy of the human race, it is undoubted that all whom the Truth has won over to His side share in His triumph over that enemy.  Assuredly it now is clear how divinely authorized are these words of our Redeemer, which are so applicable to the enemies of the Faith that one may not doubt they were said of them:  “You,” He says, “are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father it is your will to fulfil.  He was a murderer from the beginning and stood not in the truth, because the truth is not in him.  When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own:  for he is a liar and the father thereof 494 .”

III.  Dioscorus, who in his madness has attacked even the bishop of Rome, has shown himself the instrument of Satan.

It is not to be wondered, then, that they who have accepted a delusion as to our nature in the true God agree with their father on these points also, maintaining that what was seen, heard, and in fact, by the witness of the gospel, touched and handled in the only Son of God, belonged not to that to which it was proved to belong 495 , but to an essence co-eternal and consubstantial with the Father:  as if the nature of the Godhead could have been pierced on the Cross, as if the Unchangeable could grow from infancy to manhood, or the eternal Wisdom could progress in wisdom, or God, who is a Spirit, could thereafter be filled with the Spirit.  In this, too, their sheer madness betrayed its origin, because, as far as it could, it attempted to injure everybody.  For he, who afflicted you with his persecutions, led others wrong by driving them to consent to his wickedness.  Yea, even us too, although he had wounded us in each one of the brethren (for they are our members), even us he did not exempt from special vexation in attempting to inflict an injury upon his Head with strange and unheard of and incredible effrontery 496 .  But would that he had recovered his senses even after all these enormities, and had not saddened us by his death and eternal damnation.  There was no measure of wickedness that he did not reach:  it was not enough for him that, sparing neither living nor dead, and forswearing truth and allying himself with falsehood, he imbrued his hands, that had been already long polluted, in the blood of a guiltless, catholic priest 497 .  And since it is written:  “he that hateth his brother is a murderer 498 :”  he has actually carried out what he was said already to have done in hate, as if he had never heard of this nor of that which the Lord says, “learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls:  for My yoke is easy and My burden is light 499 .”  A worthy preacher of the devil’s errors has been found in this Egyptian plunderer, who, like the cruellest tyrant the Church has had, forced his villainous blasphemies on the reverend brethren through the violence of riotous mobs and the blood-stained hands of soldiers.  And when our Redeemer’s voice assures us that the author of murder and of lying is one and the same, He has carried out both equally:  as if these things were written not to be avoided but to be perpetrated:  and thus does he apply to the completion of his destruction the salutary warnings of the Son of God, and turns a deaf ear to what the same Lord has said, “I speak that which I have p. 89 seen with My Father; and ye do that which ye have seen with your father 500 .”

IV.  Those who undertake to speak authoritatively on doctrine, must preserve the balance between the extremes.

Accordingly while he strove to cut short Flavian of blessed memory’s life in the present world, he has deprived himself of the light of true life.  While he tried to drive you out of your churches, he has cut off himself from fellowship with Christians.  While he drags and drives many into agreement with error, he has stabbed his own soul with many a wound, a solitary convicted offender beyond all, and through all and for all, for he was the cause of all men’s being accused.  But, although, brother, you who are nurtured on solid food, have little need of such reminders, yet that we may fulfil what belongs to our position according to that utterance of the Apostle who says, “Besides these things that are without, that which presseth on me daily, anxiety for all the churches.  Who is weakened and I am not weak?  Who is made to stumble and I burn not 501 ?” we believe this admonition ought to be given especially on the present occasion, that whenever by the ministration of the Divine grace we either overwhelm or cleanse those who are without, in the pool of doctrine, we go not away in aught from those rules of Faith which the Godhead of the Holy Ghost brought forward at the Council of Chalcedon, and weigh our words with every caution so as to avoid the two extremes of new false doctrine 502 :  not any longer (God forbid it) as if debating what is doubtful, but with full authority laying down conclusions already arrived at; for in the letter which we issued from the Apostolic See, and which has been ratified by the assent of the entire holy Synod, we know that so many divinely authorised witnesses are brought together, that no one can entertain any further doubt, except one who prefers to enwrap himself in the clouds of error, and the proceedings of the Synod whether those in which we read the formulating of the definition of Faith, or those in which the aforesaid letter of the Apostolic See was zealously supported by you, brother, and especially the address of the whole Council to our most religious Princes, are corroborated by the testimonies of so many fathers in the past that they must persuade any one, however unwise and stubborn his heart, so long as he be not already joined with the devil in damnation for his wickedness.

V.  Theodoret’s orthodoxy has been happily and thoroughly vindicated.

Wherefore this, too, it is our duty to provide against the Church’s enemies, that, as far as in us lies, we leave them no occasion for slandering us, nor yet, in acting against the Nestorians or Eutychians, ever seem to have retreated before the other side, but that we shun and condemn both the enemies of Christ in equal measure, so that whenever the interests of the hearers in any way require it, we may with all promptitude and clearness strike down them and their doctrines with the anathema that they deserve, lest if we seem to do this doubtfully or tardily, we be thought to act against our will 503 .  And although the facts themselves are sufficient to remind your wisdom of this, yet now actual experience has brought the lesson home.  But blessed be our God, whose invincible Truth has shown you free from all taint of heresy in the judgment of the Apostolic See 504 .  To whom you will repay due thanks for all these labours, if you keep yourself such a defender of the universal Church as we have proved and do still prove you.  For that God has dispelled all calumnious fallacies, we attribute to the blessed Peter’s wondrous care of us all, for after sanctioning the judgment of his See in defining the Faith, he allowed no sinister imputation to rest on any of you, who have laboured with us for the catholic Faith:  because the Holy Spirit adjudged that no one could fail to come out conqueror of those whose Faith had now conquered.

VI.  He asks Theodoret for his continued cooperation, and refers him to a letter which he has written to the bishop of Antioch.

It remains that we exhort you to continue your co-operation with the Apostolic See, because we have learnt that some remnants of the Eutychian and Nestorian error still linger amongst you.  For the victory which Christ our Lord has vouchsafed to His Church, although it increases our confidence, does not yet entirely destroy our anxiety, nor is it granted us to sleep but to work on more calmly.  Hence it is we wish to be assisted in this too by your watchful care, that you p. 90 hasten to inform the Apostolic See by your periodic reports what progress the Lord’s teaching makes in those regions; to the end that we may assist the priests of that district in whatever way experience suggests.

On those matters which were mooted in the often-quoted council, in unlawful opposition to the venerable canons of Nicæa, we have written to our brother and fellow-bishop, the occupant of the See of Antioch 505 , adding that too which you had given us verbal information about by your delegates with reference to the unscrupulousness of certain monks, and laying down strict injunctions that no one, be he monk 506 or layman, that boasts himself of some knowledge, should presume to preach except the Lord’s priests.  That letter, however, we wish to reach all men’s knowledge for the benefit of the universal Church through our aforesaid brother and fellow-bishop Maximus; and for that reason we have not thought fit to add a copy of it to this; because we have no doubt of the due carrying out of our injunctions to our aforesaid brother and fellow-bishop.  (In another hand.)  God keep thee safe, beloved brother.  Dated 11 June in the consulship of the illustrious Opilio (453).

Footnotes

Ps. cxxiii. 8.

These were, of course, the bishops of Illyricum and Palestine, who raised objections at various points in the reading of Leo’s Tome at Chalcedon.  They were allowed five days to reconsider the matter, and ultimately yielded their consent.  See Introduction, p. x., and Bright’s notes to the Tome, who gives their objections and answers in detail, esp. nn. 148, 156, 160, and 173.

S. Mark xvi. 16.

He is thinking especially of the martyred Flavian.

Dioscorus of Alexandria is meant.

S. John viii. 44.

Viz., to human nature.

A reference to Letter XCVIII. (from the Synod of Chalcedon to Leo), chap. ii. shows that Dioscorus had threatened Leo with excommunication; excommunicationem meditatus est contra te qui corpus ecclesiæ unire festinas.

This was of course Flavian.  Quesnel quotes Liberatus the deacon (chap. x. of the Breviary) as asserting that no sooner was Dioscorus made bishop of Alexandria than oppressit Cyrilli heredes et per calumnias multas ab eis abstulit pecunias.  His accusers at Chalcedon charge him with being an Origenist, an Arian, a murderer, an incendiary, and an evil liver generally.

1 John iii. 15.

S. Matt. 11:29, 30.

S. John viii. 38.

2 Cor. 11:28, 29.

Inter utrumque hostem novellæ perfidiæ, sc. Nestorianism and Eutychianism.

The Ballerinii remind us that all these allusions to keeping the balance of Truth in this and the last chapter, and here to acting promptissme et evidentissime were intended for Theodoret’s especial benefit, who from his former defence of Nestorius and attacks on Cyril had been suspected of the Nestorian taint, but had expressly cleared himself at the Council of Chalcedon.  This explains the res ipsæ and the experimenta of the next sentence, and the solemn adjuration of the sentence next but one.

See the Acts of Chalcedon I, ingrediatur et reverendissimus episcopus Theodoretus ut sit particeps synodi, quia et restituit ei episcopatum sanctissimus archiepiscopus Leo, and 8, where the judges ask for a verdict, “sicut et sanctissimus Leo archiepiscopus iudicavit,” to which the whole council replied Post Deum Leo iudicavit.

This is Letter CXIX. to Maximus, bishop of Antioch (q.v.).

It must be remembered that monachus esse in those days meant complete withdrawal from all active life in the world, the preaching orders being a much later institution.  The Ballerinii suggest that it may have been a certain abbot Barsumas, who with his followers is said (Act. Chalc. 4) totam Syriam commovisse.  See also Lett. CXIX., chap. vi.