other · 449 · Ravenna
Eutyches had been condemned at Constantinople in 448 and was writing to everyone with any standing, looking for support. Peter was archbishop of Ravenna, where the western court actually sat, and his reply is short and almost entirely procedural: he has read the letter, he does not find the question safe to settle at that distance, and Eutyches should defer to the bishop of Rome — because Peter the apostle, in his own see, gives the truth of the faith to those who seek it. It was the right answer administratively and it turned out to be the right answer doctrinally, and it was still being read out when the quarrel reached Chalcedon two years later. He is called Chrysologus, golden-worded, but not by anyone who heard him: the name was attached about two centuries after he died, when his sermons were collected. There are around a hundred and eighty of them and they are startlingly short — he says himself that he keeps them brief so that the congregation will still be listening at the end.
What does the bishop of the imperial capital say when a famous abbot asks him to take his side?
Nothing about the doctrine. Ask Rome.