Letters — Letter 25

St. Leo the Great

Source: NPNF Series 2, Volume XII (Schaff, 1895) — public domain via CCEL.

1. Chapter 1

From Peter Chrysologus, Bishop of Ravenna, to Eutyches, the Presbyter.

[In answer to a letter from Eutyches, he urges him to accept the decisions of the Church on the Faith in fear and without too close inquiry, and to abide by the ruling of the bishop of Rome.] __________________________________________________________________

Letter XXVI.

A Second One from Flavian to Leo.

To the most holy and blessed father and fellow-minister Leo, Flavian greeting in the Lord.

I. Eutyches' heresy restated.

Nothing, as you know, most beloved of God, is more precious to priests than piety and the right dividing of the word of truth. For all our hope and safety, and the recompense of promised good depend thereon. For this reason we must take all pains about the true Faith, and those things which have been set forth and decreed by the holy Fathers, that always, and in all circumstances, they may be kept and guarded whole and uninjured. And so it was necessary on the present occasion for us, who see the orthodox Faith suffering harm, and the heresy of Apollinaris and Valentinus being revived by the wicked monk Eutyches, not to overlook it, but publicly to disclose it for the people's safety. For this man: this Eutyches, keeping his diseased and sickly opinion hid within him, has dared to attack our gentleness, and unblushingly and shamelessly to instil his own blasphemy into many minds: saying that before the Incarnation indeed, our Saviour Jesus Christ had two natures, Godhead and manhood: but that after the union they became one nature; not knowing what he says, or on what he is speaking so decidedly. For even the union of the two natures that came together in Christ did not, as your piety knows, confuse their properties in the process: but the properties of the two natures remain entire even in the union. And he added another blasphemy also, saying that the Lord's body which sprang from Mary was not of our substance, nor of human matter: but, though he calls it human, he refuses to say it was consubstantial with us or with her who bare him, according to the flesh.

II. The means Eutyches has taken to circumvent the Synod.

And this notwithstanding that the acts of Ephesus, in the letter written by the holy and ecumenical synod to the wicked and deposed Nestorius, contain these express words: "the natures which came together to form true unity are indeed different: and yet from them both there is but one Christ and Son. Not as if the difference between the two natures was done away with through the union, but rather that these same natures, His Godhead and His Manhood perfected for us one Lord Jesus Christ, through an ineffable and incomprehensible meeting which resulted in unity." And this does not escape your holiness, who have no doubt read the record of what was done at Ephesus. Yet this same Eutyches attaching no weight to these words, thinks he is not liable to the penalties fixed by that holy and ecumenical synod. For this reason, finding that many o