mercy than in justice."[1] For a time the Pope hoped to restore peace without so serious a step as another great council. Moreover, the times were bad. Attila was raging in the West, Geiserich and his Vandals were an imminent danger.[2] Meanwhile, however, Marcian, thinking that he was carrying out the Pope's wish,[3] summoned all the bishops of the empire to a synod to be opened at Nicæa on May 17, 451. Leo then, seeing what had happened, agreed. He could not come to the council himself; but he sent as his legates Paschasinus, Bishop of Lilybæum in Sicily, and a priest named Boniface. The bishops came to Nicæa, but the Emperor wrote and told them to wait till he could join them himself: he was busy defending the empire against the Huns. They complained of the delay; then he told them to go to Chalcedon, a suburb of Constantinople across the Bosphorus;[4] there he could attend to the council without leaving the capital.[5] On October 8, 451, the bishops opened the council in the Church of St. Euphemia at Chalcedon. This synod, the fourth general Council of Church history, which has made the name of that obscure suburb so famous, completed the work begun at Ephesus in 431, and finally settled the question of our Lord's nature and person. It is famous for two other things as well. First Chalcedon, the largest synod of antiquity, is also the most pronounced in its recognition of the Pope's primacy. Nothing could exceed the plainness with which these fathers recognize the Pope as supreme bishop and visible head of the whole Church, or of their acknowledgement that his confirmation is necessary to give authority to all they do.[6] Secondly, it was this Council which, in its famous 28th Canon, made Constantinople into a Patriarchate, giving it the second
- ↑ Ep. Leonis 104 ad Marcianum: "Nos vestræ fidei et inter ventionis habentes intuitum, cum secundum suæ consecrationis auctores eius initia titubarent, benigniores circa eum quam iustiores esse voluimus. … Vestræ pietatis auxilio et mei favoris assensu episcopatum tantæ urbis obtinuit" (P.L. iiv. 995).
- ↑ See Leo's letters to Marcian, No. 78; to Pulcheria, 79; to Anatolius, 80 (P.L. liv. 907–909, 909–912, 912–915). Geiserich sacked Rome in 455.
- ↑ It is clear that this was a misunderstanding. Marcian had not yet received Leo's later letter disparaging the idea of a council. Hefele-Leclercq: op. cit. ii. (1), 639.
- ↑ Now Ḳadiḳōi.
- ↑ His letter is in Mansi, v. 557.
- ↑ The texts which show this will be found in the Orth. Eastern Church, pp. 36–37, 40–41.
