are always anxious to benefit us, and we know that whatever is well done by the sons belongs to the fathers, who look upon it as their own. We beg you then to honour our decision with your decrees, so that just as we shall then add the consent of the Head, so your Highness may fulfil what your sons have done, as is right. So always will the pious Princes be pleased, who confirm as a law the decision of your Holiness."[1] The urbanity of this letter is caused by the great wish of the council to have its Canon confirmed; incidentally, one could not wish for a more complete acknowledgement on the part of a general council that its decrees need the Pope's confirmation. But it was all of no use. St. Leo did not mean to allow what they wanted, and he was not a person to be persuaded by compliments. He writes to the Emperor Marcian that "the same faith must be that of the people, of bishops, and also of kings, oh, most glorious son and most clement Augustus!" "Let the city of Constantinople, as we wish, have its glory; and under the protection of the right hand of God may it long enjoy the government of your Clemency. But there is one law for civil affairs and another for divine things; and no building can be firm apart from that Rock which the Lord founded originally. He who seeks undue honours loses his real ones. Let it be enough for the said bishop (Anatolius of Constantinople), that by the help of your piety and by the consent of my favour, he has got the bishopric of so great a city. Let him not despise a royal see because he can never make it an Apostolic one; nor should he by any means hope to become greater by offending others. The rights of the Churches are fixed by the Canons of the holy Fathers, and by the decrees of the venerable Nicene Synod; they cannot be upset by any bad designs, nor disturbed by any novelty. And I, by the help of Christ, must always faithfully carry out this order, because the responsibility has been given to me, and it would be my fault if the rules of the Fathers, drawn up by the Synod of Nicaea under the guidance of the Holy Ghost for the whole Church, were broken with my consent—which may God forbid!—or if the wish of one brother were more important to me than the common good
- ↑ Ep. Conc. Chalc. ad Leonem (inter ep. Leonis M. 98).
