Pope, Empress, Heretics

Leo Pulcheriae Augustae  Quantum praesidii Dominus Ecclessiae in vestra clementia praepararit multis saepe probavimus documentis. Et quidquid nostris temporibus contra impugnatores catholicae veritatis industria sacerdotalis obtinuit, ad vestram maxime gloriam redundavit: dum, sicut Spiritu Sancto deocente didicistis, illi per omnia potestatem vestram subjicitis, cuius munere et protectione regnatis. Unde quia contra integritatem fidei Christianae, dissensionem quamdam in Constantinopolitana Ecclesia Eutyche auctore generatem, fratris et coepiscopi mei Flaviani relatione cognovi, ita ut totius causae speciem synodalium gestorum textus ostenderit, dignum gloriae vestrae est, ut error, qui, ut arbitror, de imperitia magis quam de versutia natus est, auferatur, priusquam ullas sibi vires de consensu imprudentium pertinacia pravitatis acquirat. Quia etiam ignorantia graves nonnumquam incidit in lapsus, et plerumque in diaboli ruit foveam incauta simplicitas, per quam supradicto subrepsisse intelligo spiritum falsistatis, ut dum aestimat se religiosius de Filii Dei maiestate sentire, si ei naturae nostrae veritatem inesse non diceret, totum illud quod Verbum caro factum est, unius atque eiusdem putaret esse substantiae. Et quantum Nestorius a veritate excidit, dum Christum de matre solum hominem asseruit natum, tantum etiam hic a catholico tramite deviat, qui de eadem virgine non nostram credit editam esse substantiam; volans utique eam solius Deitatis intelligi ut quod formam servi gessit, et quod nostri similis fuit atque conformis, quaedam nostrae naturae fuerit imago, non veritas. Papa Leo I, Epistula XXXI

Leo to the Augusta Pulcheria How much protection the Lord has extended to the Church through your clemency, we have often demonstrated by many instances. And in our times whatever stand the dilgience of the priesthood has made against those who impugn the Catholic Truth, has redounded chiefly to your glory, while, as you have learned from the teaching of the Holy Spirit, you submit your authority in all things to Him, by whose favour and with whose guardianship you reign. Thus because a certain dissension which has begun through the agency of Eutyches in the church of Constantinople against the integrity of the Christian faith, a matter which has been made known to me by my brother and fellow bishop Flavian, and the text of the synod has shown me the cause of the whole affair, it is worthy of your glory that the error, which I judge is born more of ignorance than cunning, should be dispelled before it acquires support by the imprudent pertinacity of other men. Because even ignorance sometimes leads to a grave fall, and many simple folk by heedlessness rush into the devil's pit; it is thus, I think, that the spirit of falsehood has crept over Eutyches, so that while he judges himself to be one who appreciates the majesty of the Son of God more devoutly by not affirming the truth of our nature in Him, he thinks that the whole of that Word which became flesh was of one and the same essence. And as much as Nestorius fell away from the Truth in asserting that Christ was only born man of His mother, so this man wanders from the Catholic path in not crediting that our substance was brought forth from the same virgin, wishing that it be understood as belonging to His Godhead only, so that that which took the form of a slave, and was like us and of the same form, was some sort of image, not truth. Leo I, Letter 31