Leo the Great, Letters

The anxious care, which I owe to the whole Church and to all its sons, has ascertained from many sources that some offence has been given to your minds, beloved, through my interpreters491 It will be remembered that Leo himself knew not a word of the language, which will account for his uncertainty, consequent helplessness, and uneasiness in this and other cases where a knowledge of the language would have served him in excellent stead., who being either ignorant, as it appears, or malicious, have made you take some of my statements in a different sense to what I meant, not being capable of turning the Latin into Greek with proper accuracy, although in the explanation of subtle and difficult matters, one who undertakes to discuss them can scarcely satisfy himself even in his own tongue. And yet this has so far been of advantage to me, that by your disapproving of what the catholic Faith rejects, we know you are greater friends to the true than to the false: and that you quite properly refuse to believe what I myself also abhor, in accordance with ancient doctrine492 I.e. so much good at all events has come from your objection that we know you are strongly opposed to Eutyches, at present my own special abhorrence.. For although my letter addressed to bishop Flavian, of holy memory, is of itself sufficiently explicit, and stands in no need either of correction or explanation, yet other of my writings harmonize with that letter, and in them my position will be found similarly set forth. For necessity was laid upon me to argue against the heretics who have thrown many of Christ’s peoples into confusion, both before our most merciful princes and the holy synodal Council, and the church of Constantinople, and thus I have laid down what we ought to think and feel on the Incarnation of the Word according to the teaching of the Gospel and Apostles, and in nothing have I departed from the creed of the holy Fathers: because the Faith is one, true, unique, catholic, and to it nothing can be added, nothing taken away: though Nestorius first, and now Eutyches, have endeavoured to assail it from an opposite standpoint, but with similar disloyalty, and have tried to impose on the Church of God two contradictory heresies, which has led to their both being deservedly condemned by the disciples of the Truth; because the false view which they both held in different ways was exceedingly mad and sacrilegious.

II. Eutyches, who confounds the persons, is as much to be rejected as Nestorius, who separates them493 The whole of chap. ii. will be found repeated in Ep. clxv. chap. ii..

Nestorius, therefore, must be anathematized for believing the Blessed Virgin Mary to be mother of His manhood only, whereby he made the person of His flesh one thing, and that of His Godhead another, and did not recognize the one Christ in the Word of God and in the flesh, but spoke of the Son of God as separate and distinct from the son of man: although, without losing that unchangeable essence which belongs to Him together with the Father and the Holy Spirit from all eternity and without respect of time, the “Word became flesh” within the Virgin’s womb in such wise that by that one conception and one parturition she was at the same time, in virtue of the union of the two substances, both handmaid and mother of the Lord. This Elizabeth also knew, as Luke the evangelist declares, when she said: “Whence is this to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me494 Luke i. 43.?” But Eutyches also must be stricken with the same anathema, who, becoming entangled in the treacherous errors of the old heretics, has chosen the third dogma of Apollinaris495 Cf. Ep. xxii. chap. 3 “conatus-antiqua impii Valentini” (the adherent of Apollinaris and head of one of the sections of the Apollinarians after his death) “et Apollinaris mala dogmata renovare.” The third dogma of Apollinaris was that “Christ’s manhood was formed out of a divine substance.” Bright, 147.: so that he denies the reality of his human flesh and soul, and maintains the whole of our Lord Jesus Christ to be of one nature, as if the Godhead of the Word had turned itself into flesh and soul: and as if to be conceived and born, to be nursed and grow, to be crucified and die, to be buried and rise again, and to ascend into heaven and to sit on the Father’s right hand, from whence He shall come to judge the living and the dead—as if all those things belonged to that essence only which admits of none of them without the reality of the flesh: seeing that the nature of the Only-begotten is the nature of the Father, the nature of the Holy Spirit, and that the undivided unity and consubstantial equality of the eternal Trinity is at once impassible and unchangeable. But if496 Eutyches had expressly tried to guard himself against this imputation: Ep. xxi. chap. 3, “anathematizans Apollinarium Valentinum, Manem et Nestorium, &c.” See Bright’s valuable notes 32, 33, 34, and esp. 35, where he shows that “it was polemical rhetoric to say that he was reviving Apollinarian or Valentinian theories.” this heretic withdraws from the perverse views of Apollinaris, lest he be proved to hold that the Godhead is passible497 It must be clearly understood that this ugly word is here and elsewhere employed to translate passibilis (παθητός) for no reason, except the necessity of the case: pati and πάσχειν are both of far wider and broader signification than “suffer” or its synonyms: they are simply the passive of facere and ποιεῖν (πράσσειν), and there is no proper equivalent in ordinary English parlance. This tendency of terms to become more and more narrow and of particular application is constantly meeting and baffling one in translating the Latin and Greek languages. and mortal: and yet dares to pronounce the nature of the Incarnate Word that is of the Word made Flesh one, he undoubtedly crosses over into the mad view of Manichæus498 Leo elsewhere also makes this hardly justifiable inference that Eutychianism is a new form of Docetism as this view was called; chap. vi. below, and Serm. lxv. c. 4 “isti phantasmatici Christiani,” also xxviii. 4, and lxiv. 1, 2. That the Manichæans naturally held Docetic views on the Incarnation is obvious when we remember that their fundamental misconception was that matter is identical with evil. and Marcion499 Marcion was the founder of one of the most formidable Gnostic sects towards the close of the second century: Tertullian wrote a famous treatise (still extant) against him. Like other Gnostics, his views involved him in Docetism., and believes that the man Jesus Christ, the mediator between God and men, did all things in an unreal way, and had not a human body, but that a phantom-like apparition presented itself to the beholders’ eyes.

III. The acknowledgment of our nature in Christ is necessary to orthodoxy.

As these iniquitous lies were once rejected by the catholic Faith, and such men’s blasphemies condemned by the unanimous votes of the blessed Fathers throughout the world, whoever these are that are so blinded and strange to the light of truth as to deny the presence of human, that is our, nature in the Word of God from the time of the Incarnation, they must show on what ground they claim the name of Christian, and in what way they harmonize with the true Gospel, if the child-bearing of the blessed Virgin produced either the flesh without the Godhead or the Godhead without the flesh. For as it cannot be denied that “the Word became flesh and dwelt in us500 S. John i. 14.,” so it cannot be denied that “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself501 2 Cor. v. 19..” But what reconciliation can there be, whereby God might be propitiated for the human race, unless the mediator between God and man took up the cause of all? And in what way could He properly fulfil His mediation, unless He who in the form of God was equal to the Father, were a sharer of our nature also in the form of a slave: so that the one new Man might effect a renewal of the old: and the bond of death fastened on us by one man’s wrong-doing502 Prævaricatio: this is a legal term which is often used of sin (esp. in connexion with Adam’s transgression). Its original technical meaning is the action of an advocate who plays into the enemy’s hand. In theology the devil (διάβολος) is man’s adversary, and man himself is befooled into collusion with him by breaking God’s Law. might be loosened by the death of the one Man who alone owed nothing to death. For the pouring out of the blood of the righteous on behalf of the unrighteous was so powerful in its effect503 Potens ad privilegium: privilegium is another legal term signifying technically a bill framed to meet an individual case generally in a detrimental way, such bills being against the spirit of the Roman law: here Leo uses it in a sense more nearly approaching our English idea of “privilege.”, so rich a ransom that, if the whole body of us prisoners only believed in their Redeemer, not one would be held in the tyrant’s bonds: since as the Apostle says, “where sin abounded, grace also did much more abound504 Rom. v. 20..” And since we, who were born under the imputation505 Sub peccati præiudicio: yet a third legal term: præiudicium in Roman law was a semi-formal and anticipatory verdict by the judge before the case came on for final decision in court; in chapter vi. we have the verb præiudicare. of sin, have received the power of a new birth unto righteousness, the gift of liberty has become stronger than the debt of slavery.

IV. They only benefit by the blood of Christ who truly share in His death and resurrection.

What hope then do they, who deny the reality of the human person in our Saviour’s body, leave for themselves in the efficacy of this mystery? Let them say by what sacrifice they have been reconciled, by what blood-shedding brought back. Who is He “who gave Himself for us an offering and a victim to God for a sweet smell506 Eph. v. 2.:” or what sacrifice was ever more hallowed than that which the true High priest placed upon the altar of the cross by the immolation of His own flesh? For although in the sight of the Lord the death of many of His saints has been precious507 Cf. Ps. cxv. 5., yet no innocent’s death was the propitiation of the world. The righteous have received, not given, crowns: and from the endurance of the faithful have arisen examples of patience, not the gift of justification. For their deaths affected themselves alone, and no one has paid off another’s debt by his own death508 The idea of vicarious death was not unfamiliar to the Greeks and Romans: e.g. Alkestis dying for her husband Admetos, and the fairly numerous examples of “devotion” of Roman Generals on the battlefield.: one alone among the sons of men, our Lord Jesus Christ, stands out as One in whom all are crucified, all dead, all buried, all raised again. Of them He Himself said “when I am lifted from the earth, I will draw all (things) unto Me509 S. John xii. 32, omnia: with the Vulgate..” True faith also, that justifies the transgressors and makes them just, is drawn to Him who shared their human natures and wins salvation in Him, in whom alone man finds himself not guilty; and thus is free to glory in the power of Him who in the humiliation of our flesh engaged in conflict with the haughty foe, and shared His victory with those in whose body He had triumphed.

V. The actions of Christ’s two natures must be kept distinct.

Although therefore in our one Lord Jesus Christ, the true Son of God and man, the person of the Word and of the flesh is one, and both beings have their actions in common510 It is scarcely necessary to point out that the old story of the ‘communicatio idiomatum’ is here again discussed: cf. the Tome, chapters iv. and v.: yet we must understand the character of the acts themselves, and by the contemplation of sincere faith distinguish those to which the humility of His weakness is brought from those to which His sublime power is inclined: what it is that the flesh without the Word or the Word without the flesh does not do. For instance, without the power of the Word the Virgin would not have conceived nor brought forth: and without the reality of the flesh His infancy would not have laid wrapt in swaddling clothes. Without the power of the Word the Magi would not have adored the Child that a new star had pointed out to them: and without the reality of the flesh that Child would not have been ordered to be carried away into Egypt and withdrawn from Herod’s persecution. Without the power of the Word the Father’s voice uttered from the sky would not have said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased511 S. Matt. iii. 17, and Bright’s note 5.:” and without the reality of the flesh John would not have been able to point to Him and say: “Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him that beareth away the sins of the world512 S. John i. 29: the repetition of the Ecce (behold) is in accordance with the old Latin versions: cf. Westcott in loc..” Without the power of the Word there would have been no restoring of the sick to health, no raising of the dead to life: and without the reality of the flesh He would not have hungered and needed food, nor grown weary and needed rest. Lastly, without the power of the Word, the Lord would not have professed Himself equal to the Father, and without the reality of the flesh He would not also have said that the Father was greater than He: for the catholic Faith upholds and defends both positions, believing the only Son of God to be both Man and the Word according to the distinctive properties of His divine and human substance.

VI. There is no confusion of the two natures in Christ513 Considerable portions of this chapter are found repeated word for word in Sermon LXIV. chap. i. and iv..

Although therefore from that beginning whereby in the Virgin’s womb “the Word became flesh,” no sort of division ever arose between the Divine and the human substance, and through all the growth and changes of His body, the actions were of one Person the whole time, yet we do not by any mixing of them up confound those very acts which were done inseparably: and from the character of the acts we perceive what belonged to either form. For neither do His Divine acts affect514 Lat. præiudicant, see note 3 to chap. iii., above. His human, nor His human acts His Divine, since both concur in this way and to this very end that in their operation His twofold qualities be not absorbed the one by the other, nor His individuality doubled. Therefore let those Christian phantom-mongers515 Isti phantasmatici Christiani, cf. note 5, above. tell us, what nature of the Saviour’s it was that was fastened to the wood of the Cross, that lay in the tomb, and that on the third day rose in the flesh when the stone was rolled away from the grave: or what kind of body Jesus presented to His disciples’ eyes entering when the doors were shut upon them: seeing that to drive away the beholders’ disbelief, He required them to inspect with their eyes and to handle with their hands the still open prints of the nails and the flesh wound of His pierced side. But if in spite of the truth being so clear, their persistence in heresy will not abandon their position in the darkness, let them show whence they promise themselves the hope of eternal life, which no one can attain to, save through the mediator between God and man, the man Jesus Christ. For “there is not another name given to men under heaven, in which they must be saved516 Acts iv. 12..” Neither is there any ransoming of men from captivity, save in His blood, “who gave Himself a ransom for all517 1 Tim. ii. 6.:” who, as the blessed apostle proclaims, “when He was in the form of God, thought it not robbery that He was equal with God; but emptied Himself, receiving the form of a slave, being made in the likeness of men, and being found in fashion as a man He humbled Himself, being made obedient even unto death, the death of the cross. For which reason Godalso exalted Him, and gave Him a name which is above every name: that in the name of Jesus every knee may bow of things in heaven, of things on the earth, and of things under the earth, and that every tongue may confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father518 Phil. ii. 6–11..”

VII. It was as being “in form of a slave,” not as Son of God that he was exalted.

519 The whole of this chapter is repeated with slight variations in his letter (CLXV.) to Leo the Emperor (chaps. 8 and 10).Although therefore the Lord Jesus Christ is one, and the true Godhead and true Manhood in Him forms absolutely one and the same person, and the entirety of this union cannot be separated by any division, yet the exaltation wherewith “God exalted Him,” and “gave Him a name which excels every name,” we understand to belong to that form which needed to be enriched by this increase of glory520 Quæ ditanda erat tantæ glorificationis augmento acc. to Leo’s use of the gerundive, see Tome, chap. i quod…omnium regenerandorum voce depromitur.. Of course “in the form of God” the Son was equal to the Father, and between the Father and the Only-begotten there was no distinction in point of essence, no diversity in point of majesty: nor through the mystery521 Here the word is actually mysterium, not, as usual, sacramentum. of the Incarnation had the Word been deprived of anything which should be restored Him by the Father’s gift. But “the form of a slave” by which the impassible Godhead fulfilled a pledge of mighty loving-kindness522 Sacramentum magnæ pietatis, 1 Tim. iii. 16: cf. Bright’s note 8., is human weakness which was lifted up into the glory of the divine power, the Godhead and the manhood being right from the Virgin’s conception so completely united that without the manhood the divine acts, and without the Godhead the human acts were not performed. For which reason as the Lord of majesty is said to have been crucified, so He who from eternity is equal with God is said to have been exalted. Nor does it matter by which substance Christ is spoken of, since the unity of His person inseparably remaining He is at once both wholly Son of man according to the flesh and wholly Son of God according to His Godhead, which is one with the Father. Whatever therefore Christ received in time, He received in virtue of His manhood, on which are conferred whatsoever it had not. For according to the power of the Word, “all things that the Father hath” the Son also hath indiscriminately, and what “in the form of a slave” He received from the Father, He also Himself gave in the form of the Father. He is in Himself at once both rich and poor; rich, because “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word. This was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him was made nothing:” and poor because “the Word became flesh and dwelt in us523 S. John i. 1–3, 14..” But what is that emptying of Himself, or that poverty except the receiving of the form of a slave by which the majesty of the Word was veiled, and the scheme for man’s redemption carried out? For as the original chains of our captivity could not be loosed, unless a man of our race and of our nature appeared who was not under the prejudice of the old debt, and who with his untainted blood might blot out the bond of death524 The reference is to Col. ii. 14., as it had from the beginning been divinely fore-ordained, so it came to pass in the fulness of the appointed time that the promise which had been proclaimed in many ways might reach its long expected fulfilment, and that thus, what had been frequently announced by one testimony after another, might have all doubtfulness removed.

VIII. A protest against their faithlessness and inconsistency in this matter.

And so, as all these heresies have been destroyed, which through the holy devotion of the presiding Fathers have been cut off from the body of the catholic unity, and which deserved to be exiles from Christ, because they have made the Incarnation of the Word, which is the one salvation of those who believe aright, a stone of offence and a stumbling-block to themselves, I am surprised that you, beloved, have any difficulty in discerning the light of the Truth. And since it has been made clear by numerous explanations that the Christian Faith was right in condemning both Nestorius and Eutyches with Dioscorus, and that a man cannot be called a Christian who gives his assent to the blasphemous opinion of either the one or the other, I am grieved that you are, as I hear, doing despite to the teaching of the Gospel and the Apostles by stirring up the various bodies of citizens with seditions, by disturbing the churches, and by inflicting not only insults, but even death, upon priests and bishops, so that you lose sight of your resolves and profession525 Viz. as monks as well as baptized members of the church. through your fury and cruelty. Where is your rule of meekness and quietness? where is the long-suffering of patience? where the tranquillity of peace? where the firm foundation of love and courage of endurance? what evil persuasion has carried you off, what persecution has separated you from the gospel of Christ? or what strange craftiness of the Deceiver has shown itself that, forgetting the prophets and apostles, forgetting the health-giving creed and confession which you pronounced before many witnesses when you received the sacrament of baptism you should give yourselves up to the Devil’s deceits? what effect would “the Claws526 The Ungulæ (Claws) were among the numerous instruments with which Christians were tortured: cf. Tert. Apol. xii. 57, ungulis deraditis latera christianorum; Cypr. de lapsis chap. xiii. (cum) ungula effoderet, caro me in colluctatione deseruit.” and other cruel tortures have had on you if the empty comments of heretics have had so much weight in taking the purity of your faith by storm? you think you are acting for the Faith and yet you go against the Faith. You arm yourselves in the name of the Church and yet fight against the Church. Is this what you have learnt from prophets, evangelists, and apostles? to deny the true flesh of Christ, to subject the very essence of the Word to suffering and death, to make our nature different from His who repaired it, and to reckon all that the cross uplifted, that the spear pierced, that the stone on the tomb received and gave back, to be only the work of Divine power, and not also of human humility? It is in reference to this humility that the Apostle says, “For I do not blush for the Gospel527 Rom. i. 16.,” inasmuch as he knew what a slur was cast upon Christians by their enemies. And, therefore, the Lord also made proclamation, saying: “he that shall confess Me before men him will I also confess before My Father528 S. Matt. x. 32..” For these will not be worthy of the Son and the Father’s acknowledgment in whom the flesh of Christ awakens no respect: and they will prove themselves to have gained no virtue from the sign of the cross529 Viz. in Baptism. who blush to avow with their lips what they have consented to bear upon their brows.

IX. An exhortation to accept the catholic view of the Incarnation.

Give up, my sons, give up these suggestions of the devil. God’s Truth nothing can impair, but the Truth does not save us except in our flesh. For, as the prophet says, “truth is sprung out of the earth530 Ps . lxxxv. 12.,” and the Virgin Mary conceived the Word in such wise that she ministered flesh of her substance to be united to Him without the addition of a second person, and without the disappearance of her nature: seeing that He who was in the form of God took the form of a slave in such wise that Christ is one and the same in both forms: God bending Himself to the weak things of man, and man rising up to the high things of the Godhead, as the Apostle says, “whose are the fathers, and from whom, according to the flesh is Christ, who is above all things God blessed for ever. Amen531 Rom. ix. 5..”