Letter
XXIX.
To Theodosius Augustus.
To Cæsar Theodosius, the most religious and
devout Augustus Leo pope of the CatholicChurch of the city of
Rome
314
.
He notifies the appointment of his representatives at
the Council of Ephesus.
How much
God’s
providence vouchsafes to consult for the interests of men is shown by
your merciful care which, incited by
God’s
Spirit, is unwilling that there should be any
disturbance or difference: since the Faith, which is absolutely
one, cannot be different from itself in any thing. Hence although
Eutyches, as the minutes of the bishops’ proceeds reveals, has
been detected in an ignorant and unwise error, and ought to have
withdrawn from his conviction which is rightly condemned, yet since
your piety which loves the Catholic Truth with great jealousy for
God’s
honour, has determined on a
synodal judgment at Ephesus, that that Truth on
which he is blind may be brought home to
the ignorant old man; I have sent my brothers Julius the Bishop,
Renatus the presbyter, and my son Hilary the deacon to act as my
representatives as the matter requires, and they shall bring with them
such a spirit of justice and kindness that while the whole misguided
error is condemned (for there can be no doubt as to what is the
integrity of the Christian Faith), yet if he who has gone astray
repents and entreats for pardon, he may receive the succour of priestly
indulgence: seeing that in his appeal
315
which he sent us, he reserved to himself the right of earning our
forgiveness by promising to correct whatever our opinion disapproved of
in his opinion. But what the catholic Church universally believes
and teaches on the mystery of the
Lord’s
Incarnation is contained more fully in the letter which I have sent to
my brother and fellow-bishop Flavian. Dated 13th June in the
consulship of the illustrious Asturius and Protogenes
(449).
314
This is the
title retained by Quesnel and the Ballerinii, though many
mss.
exhibit the simpler
gloriosissimo et
clementissimo Theodosio Augusto Leo episcopus
, which is favoured by
the Gk. version
τῷ
ἐνδοξοτάτῳ
καὶ
φιλανθρωποτάτῳ
κ.τ.λ
. Quesnel takes occasion to warn us to
distinguish between this use of the title
papa
and that adopted
later when it was equivalent to
œcumenicus et universalis
episcopus
.
315
Viz., Lett. XXI.,
chaps. i. and iii.