not appear to interfere with the prerogatives which the canon of Nicaea assigned them (cf. Tillem. xv. p. 709), while not only had custom long allowed to Constantinople a position of superior dignity, but that position had been secured to her by a council, of the authority of which Leo had no right to speak so scornfully. The exhortations to avoid ecclesiastical ambition which Leo frequently uses and his contention for the canons of Nicaea did not come with a good grace from a bp. of Rome. If anything can justify Leo's claims, surely it is not the council of Nicaea. In Feb. 453 the emperor wrote to Leo, begging him to send as soon as possible his confirmation of the Acts of Chalcedon, that none might be able to shelter themselves under the excuse that he had not confirmed them (Ep. cx.). Leo replied, Mar. 11, to the council and to the emperor (Epp. cxiv. cxv.), saying that, if Anatolius had shewn his letters, which he had motives for concealing, no doubt could have existed as to his approval of the decrees of the council, "that is, as regards faith ("in sola videlicet causa fidei, quod saepe dicendum est"), for the determination of which alone the council was assembled by the command of the Christian prince and the assent of the apostolic see" (cxiv. 1). To the emperor he sent his assent to the decrees concerning faith and the condemnation of the heretics as a matter of obedience to him, and begged him to make his assent universally known (cxv. 1204, cf. also Epp. cxxvi. cxxvii.).
Despite the reverential speeches of council, emperor, and bishops to Leo, neither this canon nor the attitude of the council towards Leo's tome, nor indeed Leo's own way of talking about it, give modern Romanists any great cause for satisfaction with the council of Chalcedon.
Meanwhile, in maintaining the cause of the faith, Leo was asserting his prerogative in many quarters. In 451 Leo's tome was approved in a council under Eusebius of Milan, which sent him a highly complimentary letter (Ep. xcvii.), in which, however, the tome is commended as agreeing with St. Ambrose, just as it was by the council of Chalcedon as agreeing with St. Cyril.
About 452 the East was troubled by the tumultuous proceedings of the Eutychian monks in Palestine, headed by one Theodosius, who elected a bishop in place of Juvenal, seized Jerusalem, and committed all sorts of violences (Tillem. xv. § 138, etc.). These disturbances caused Leo great anxiety (Ep. cix.), and drew from him (Ep. cxxiv.) a clear and admirable exposition of the faith, as lying between Nestorian and Eutychian error. On the death of Marcian in 457 Eutychian risings were attempted in Constantinople and Alexandria (Epp. cxl. cxliv.). Leo (Ep. cxlv.), writing to congratulate the emperor Leo on his accession, urged him to active measures against the heretics, and by constant letters did all he could to keep Anatolius and Julian also zealous for the Chalcedonian decrees and the suppression of heresy. He urged that the question of the faith should not again be allowed to come into discussion. He complained to Basil, the new bp. of Antioch, that he had not, "according to ecclesiastical custom," notified his consecration to him, and addressed other letters against Timotheus Aelurus to the bishops of Thessalonica, Jerusalem, Corinth, and Dyrrhachium, which he sends for distribution to Julian (Epp. cxlix. cl. clii.). He sent the expressions of agreement to his tome from the bishops of Gaul and Spain in a letter to Aetius, and wrote (Oct. 11, 457) condoling with the refugee Egyptian Catholics now in Constantinople (Epp. cliv. clv. clx.). "They are not," he says, "exiles from God." Meanwhile, a circular letter from the emperor, asking all the metropolitans to summon provincial councils and collect the opinions of their bishops on the conduct of Timotheus Aelurus and the authority of the Chalcedonian decrees, gave Leo an opportunity of again impressing his views on the emperor, and urging him to make up by his zeal for any laxity in Anatolius (Ep. clvi. c. 6). He had both to resist all inclination on the emperor's part to listen to the suggestions which accused his doctrine of Nestorianism, and to oppose strongly the idea of assembling another council, which the emperor had entertained. When the emperor dropped the idea of a council, he proposed, wherever the suggestion may have come from, a conference between some of the Eutychian heretics and an envoy of the pope (Ep. clxii.). This again Leo could not consent to, for it involved the discussion of the faith which had been once for all determined, as if it were an open question ("patefacta quaerere, perfecta retractare, definita convellere"). He sent legates, not, however, to dispute, but to teach "what is the rule of the apostolic faith"; and some time in the same year addressed to Leo a long dogmatic epistle (Ep. clxv.) sometimes, called the "second tome," closely parallel to the epistle he had before sent for the instruction of the Eutychian monks of Palestine. To it is attached a collection of testimonies, more ample than he had previously sent to Theodosius. In 460 Leo saw his wishes realized in the expulsion of Timotheus Aelurus, who, however, was allowed to come to Constantinople. Leo writes in June to congratulate the emperor on his energy against Aelurus, and to impress on him the need of a pious and orthodox bishop for Alexandria ("in summo pontifice," Ep. ccxix. c. 2). At the same time he writes to Gennadius, the new bp. of Constantinople, who had succeeded Anatolius in 468, urging him to be on his watch against Aelurus, whose arrival at Constantinople he deplored and who appeared likely to have a considerable following there. The bishop elected for Alexandria, Timotheus Solofaciolus, met with Leo's warm approval.
The letters which Leo wrote at this time (Aug. 461) to Timotheus, his church, and some monks of Egypt (Epp. clxxi. clxxiii.) are the last public documents of his life. Before his death Leo saw the peace of the church of Alexandria established and orthodoxy supreme, for a period at least of 16 years, in the elevation to its throne of Timothy Solofaciolus.
Though Leo was heedless of the rights of national churches, harsh and violent in his treatment of Hilary, and not always very scrupulous in his assertions about the canons of Nicaea, personal ambition was with him
