ON SAINT LEO THE GREAT
Pontiff of Rome.
A.D. 461.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
Leo the Great, Pontiff of Rome (Saint)
BY G. H.
§ I. The Acts of his Life and his cult among the Latins.
[1] Saint Leo, Archdeacon and Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Church, lived at a time when the Church was being buffeted by continual storms of heretics and was in many places being harassed by barbarians. At which time his noble virtue and eminent doctrine so excelled that it procured for him the surname "the Great." Deeds related in the Ecclesiastical Annals This one thing we regret, that the deeds most splendidly and most holily done by him were not written down by some distinguished and prudent historian, an eyewitness in many things: deeds which Baronius therefore chiefly deduces from his Epistles and the Acts of the Council of Chalcedon, and also from various historians, in Volume VI of the Ecclesiastical Annals, which he begins with this Pontificate, and completes the third part of that volume with a narration of deeds done under his Pontificate: which, placed there before the eyes of all, the benevolent reader may have. There is some account of him in an ancient Catalogue of the Pontiffs, to be given elsewhere by us, which is somewhat more extensively drawn from Anastasius the Librarian, and is also contained in the Pontifical Book, whence we also shall produce some things.
[2] The Sermons, Epistles, and other works of this most holy Pontiff, once revised by him and read with the greatest profit, were offered to Pope Paul II of Rome by Giovanni Andrea, His works edited by Giovanni Andrea Bishop of Aleria and most celebrated Doctor of Laws; whose dedicatory epistle Peter Canisius published, who also published the same works of Saint Leo in Cologne editions in the year 1546, and prefixed to them the Life of Leo the Great, "truly a Supreme and most holy Pontiff," as he indicates in the title. and by Peter Canisius, (with his life, which is given here) This we present in our manner, divided and illustrated with its annotations. There is another compendium of the Life elsewhere prefixed to the Works, which, with eulogies from the epistle of Pope Nicholas I, and from the Catalogues of Gennadius and Trithemius on Ecclesiastical Writers, Theophilus Rainaud published before the works of the same Pontiff; who moreover in volume XI of his works, and by Theophilus Rainaud to which he gave the title Sacred Criticism, page 289, shows that some epistles were wrongly attributed to Saint Leo, and that several sermons are his genuine offspring which have been wrongly attributed to Saint Augustine. Philippe Labbé treats excellently of his writings and defends him against heretics in the book On Ecclesiastical Writers gathered by Cardinal Bellarmine.
[3] We have received two Lives of Saint Leo drawn from manuscript codices, but we esteem neither worthy of the press. One of these was described at Prague with this title: two manuscript Lives omitted "Saint Leo the Pope, on the IV day before the Kalends of July, from the Acts of the Roman Pontiffs and from the Chronicles, especially that of Saint Prosper, who was his Notary." But the one who is venerated on the IV Kalends of July is Saint Leo II. It is noted at the end that he is referred by Usuard to the III Ides of April: the cause of which diversity the author confesses he does not know. Another Life exists in the monastery of Bödeken of the Canons Regular in the diocese of Paderborn: in this his father is called Romanus, of the family of the Anicii, by name Peter, in one of these many little fables are inserted and his mother is called Pia, and is feigned to be of the imperial blood, the daughter namely of Theodosius's brother; and a wonderful fable is woven both concerning a vision made to each parent before his birth, and a miracle following it, and concerning his election as Emperor after the death of Theodosius the Great, and of the dignity not accepted. There is also inserted the fable refuted by Baronius for the year 461, no. 8, namely that Saint Leo, when a beautiful woman had kissed his hand, suffered some human delight, and therefore cut off his hand: but when he was praying to the Mother of God, it was restored by her. Baronius adds that the image of this thing, painted, was by order of Pope Clement VIII, after consultation with learned men, erased. Both these collections therefore being passed over, we add some analects.
[4] His sacred veneration is indicated on this 11 April in various manuscript Martyrologies, as also in genuine Bede, whose words are these: Sacred memory in the Martyrologies on 11 April "III Ides of April. At Rome, of Leo the Pope and Confessor." To these Usuard added: "in whose time was the holy Synod of Chalcedon." Rabanus, Notker, Galesini, and the other more recent ones adorned him with a great eulogy. In the modern Roman the following is read: "At Rome, of Saint Leo the Pope and Confessor, who, excelling by the merits of his virtues, was called the Great. In his time was celebrated the holy Synod of Chalcedon, in which he through his Legates condemned Eutyches: the decrees of which Synod he also confirmed by his own authority: and when he had sanctioned many things and written splendidly, having deserved most excellently of the holy Church of God and the whole flock of the Lord, a good Pastor, he rested in peace." On March 14 Saint Leo the Pope is prescribed to be celebrated with an Office of nine Lessons in the Calendar of the Mixed Missal according to the rule of Blessed Isidore, called Mozarabic, 14 March printed by order of Francisco Ximenes, Archbishop of Toledo, in the year 1500; on which day also he is mentioned in the Arras MS Martyrology, and in the Mons MS Breviary of Saint Waltrude. We think, moreover, that Saint Leo Pope I and the Great is meant, because no other mention is made of him in the said Mozarabic. In the MS of Ado of the monastery of Saint Lawrence at Liège, on the following day March 15, 15 March Leo the Pope is also found. But perhaps the tenth day of November prevails in the antiquity of the assigned cult, indeed requires the deposition for itself, as if the 11 April day contained the celebration of some translation or elevation. 10 November is called in many calendars the day of deposition We have four apographs of the Hieronymian Martyrology, in which immediately after the Martyrs the following is related: "At Rome, the deposition of Saint Leo the Bishop." The same is read in Notker and in the MS Martyrologies of the Vatican of Saint Peter, Arras, Dijon, Tournai, Liège, likewise of the monastery of Saint Cyriacus often praised by Baronius; and (what is very noteworthy) in the first place in the ancient MS of Cardinal Barberini; from all of which we gave the genuine Martyrology of Saint Bede, printed at the beginning of the second volume of the Acts of March. He is also commemorated on the said day, 10 November, in the old MSS of Altemps, the double Trier of Saint Maximinus and a third of Saint Martin, likewise in the double Liège, namely of Saint Lambert and Saint Lawrence, the Brussels of Saint Gudula, and others.
[5] Greatly favoring these most ancient Martyrologies are both the time of the vacancy of the See and the election of his successor Hilary, which falls on the 15th day before the Kalends of December, or the 17th day of November, when from the said deposition, or the 10th day of November, the See had been vacant for seven days; as is indicated in the Roman Pontifical, and in the manuscript Gesta of the Pontiffs carried down to Martin V, likewise in Liutprand, Abbo of Fleury, and others who wrote of old about the Roman Pontiffs. In the ancient manuscript Catalogue composed in the sixth century of Christ, and the day of the election of Saint Hilary his successor favors only six days are assigned for the vacancy of the See, which were those between the 10th and 17th days, when in the consulship of Flavius Basiliscus and Hermenericus, on the 15th day before the Kalends of December in the year 465, the Roman Synod was held, and was completed in a single session on the natal day of the Pontiff, that is, on the anniversary of his election as Pontiff, made in the year 461, as he himself testifies in his epistle to various Metropolitans of Gaul in these words: "The numerous Council of the Brethren presiding from various provinces, gathered on our natal day, in honor of Saint Peter the Apostle, by the grace of God." And again in the second epistle to the Tarraconenses: "Your letters, therefore, having been read in the assembly of the brethren whom the festivity of my natal day had gathered, etc." Marianus Scotus wandered not far astray when he asserts that Hilary was ordained on the day before the Ides of November in place of Leo the Great, whose death he referred to the IV Kalends of July, on which day we said the feast of Saint Leo Pope II is held; on which day nevertheless, more than two hundred years before Marianus Scotus, Rabanus had referred Leo the Great in his Martyrology in these words: likewise 28 June "Leo the Pope, who after the Apostle Peter sat forty-seventh in the city of Rome twenty-one years, one month, and thirteen days. He in the time of his Pontificate made many useful dogmas, and expelled noxious errors from the Church of God." That time of the See had long before been inserted in the ancient Catalogue of the Pontiffs
and is also found with a greater eulogy on the said 28 June in the Martyrology of Notker, and another published under the name of Bede: for in the genuine Bede only this is had: "On the same day, Saint Leo the Pope." Nor is more had in Usuard, Bellinus, and others.
§2. The cult of Saint Leo among the Greeks, his age, his country.
[6] The veneration of Saint Leo the Pope among the Greeks took its beginning in the Ecumenical Council of Constantinople in the year 536, held under Mennas the Patriarch, in the first Action of which the following statutes are read: "Since the Chalcedonian Synod made memory in the orthodox faith not only of Leo of holy memory, inscribed on the diptychs by the Greeks in the year 536 but also of Cyril, the God-loved Pastor of the Alexandrians, and Cyril indeed of Alexandria is proclaimed in the diptychs, but Leo of holy memory is not proclaimed, we think it just that what is lacking be supplied; and because they were equally honored by this holy Synod for the state of the orthodox faith, likewise also in the sacred diptychs they should be proclaimed for the utility and peace of the Church." Thus there.
[7] The Greeks assigned the 18th day of February to his veneration, on which day in the Menology composed by order of the Emperor Basil in the 10th century, this eulogy is read: Venerated on 18 February in the Menology of Emperor Basil "Leo, endowed with admirable virtue of soul, wisdom, and holiness, Pontiff of the Roman Church, left his virtue attested by most illustrious monuments, but especially the right faith. For the Chalcedonian Synod of six hundred and thirty Fathers was convoked against the heresy of those who said there was only one will in Christ, and one action and power; and when the heretics would not stand by those prescripts and decrees which pertained to truth, all departed with this resolution, that whatever most holy Leo of the Roman Church had sanctioned should be held agreeable, ratified, and firm. Leo therefore, being asked by all the Fathers, after prayers had been made, wrote an epistle in which he argued for two wills in Christ and two actions, which they called the pillar of orthodoxy. After these things he rested in peace."
The same things, but much more at length, are read in the MS Parisian Synaxarium of the College of Clermont, and in the Great Menaea, both manuscript and printed. In these it is said that he was made Pontiff by the Holy Spirit, after many days of fasts, vigils, and continuous prayers poured out to God; in Synaxaria and Menaea taught by the Holy Spirit, the author of life, he sent the above-cited epistle to the Synod, which the whole assembly and gathering of venerable Fathers accepted with outstretched hands, considering it to be the rule of the Catholic and orthodox faith, as though dictated and uttered by the Holy Spirit.... The divine Pontiff Leo, with life still long prolonged, shone forth like some star in virtues, and at last, wearied by long old age, departed to the Lord.
[8] The Menaea add, and with them the Anthologium: "His memory is kept in the most holy great church, namely of Saint Sophia at Constantinople; with festival in the church of Saint Sophia and a most excellent Office is prescribed to be performed concerning him, with illustrious odes and hymns, composed according to the law of acrostics, with this verse prefixed:
Τῷ Πανσόφῳ Λέοντι τοὺς ὕμνους πλέκω.
'To all-wise Leo I weave praises.'
To the thirty letters of the said verse as many Odes are brought forth, beginning with each indicated letter; and by this heroic verse, as if it were his natal day in heaven, his death is indicated in the same Menaea:
Ὀγδοάτῃ δεκάτῃ τε Λέων ἠρεύξατο θυμόν.
'On the eighteenth the soul of Leo was snatched away.'
[9] We have noted elsewhere that it is quite familiar to the author of that metrical Ephemeris, this was not the day of his death that on whatever day one has his feast inscribed in the Constantinopolitan ecclesiastical calendars, on that same day he also says he died. For (to pass over others) of Saint Alexius (whose natal day is venerated at Rome, where he died, on 17 June), on 17 March, when the Greeks keep his feast, without doubt from another cause than his death then, nevertheless in the aforecited Ephemeris is read:
Ἑβδομάτῃ δεκάτῃ Ἀλέξιε πότμον ἀνέτλης
which would be rendered literally into Latin thus: "On the seventeenth day, Alexius, thou didst endure death." Similarly of Saint Sabas the Goth, most certainly died on 12 April, on the 18th of this month it is said:
Ὀγδοάτῃ δεκάτῃ ποταμοῦ Σάββαν κτάνε ρεῖθρον
"On the eighteenth the wave of the river slays Sabas."
If it could be believed that Saint Leo died on the same 11 April on which he is now venerated, or of Ordination by going back through twenty-one years, one month, and twenty-three days, one would arrive at 18 February, which would have been his Natal day in the Pontificate, as Hilary the successor of Leo, according to the usage of his age, calls it. But it is not credible that the Greeks, if they had wished to take the day for venerating Leo from the Latins, would have consecrated this rather than the heavenly natal day to his solemn feast; and it is certain that Hilary calls his natal day in the Pontificate the 17th day of October, and the catalogues agree that there was only a six- or seven-day interregnum: so that it must altogether be held that Leo died on November 10, on which day all the older Martyrologies have him.
[10] because Sixtus died 28 March But when was he elected and ordained? Saint Sixtus, Leo's predecessor, is inscribed in the ancient Martyrologies on 28 March, and we can safely enough believe that this was his day of death; nor does Prosper in his chronicle depart far from this, whose words are these: "These Consuls being deceased," namely Valentinian V and Anatolius, which was the year of Christ 440, "Sixtus being Pontiff of Rome on the Kalends of April (or rather the V Kalends), the Roman Church was without an Antistes for more than forty days, with wonderful patience and concord awaiting the arrival of the Deacon Leo; whom then between Aëtius and Albinus, commanders of the Roman army, Leo being absent in Gaul the affairs of Gaul were detaining for the sake of restoring friendship; as if his coming were on that account delayed, that the merit of the elect and the judgment of the electors might be approved. Thus Leo the Deacon, summoned by a public legation and presented to a rejoicing country, is ordained the forty-third Bishop of the Roman Church." Thus Prosper. It matters, however, whether you begin to number those forty days from the death of Sixtus or from the election of Leo. To us it seems more fitting that they should be numbered from the day Leo was elected; since the journey of the Legates from Rome to Gaul, and the coming of the elect, occupied abroad with affairs of no light moment, not to be broken off suddenly, can scarcely be comprised in less space than forty days: to which if you add the twenty-two days to be numbered up to the election (for so many days Anastasius the Librarian writes that the See was vacant), this calculation arises, that the election be said to have been made on 13 April, and the ordination on 28 or 29 May. Whence, by ascending through twenty-one years, five months, he seems to have been elected 13 April and ordained 28 May and thirteen days, to the Consulship of Daglaïf and Severinus (for Prosper and Marcellinus agree that Leo died under these Consuls), you come to the year 461 and the 10th day of November. But beyond the years and days already stated, Anastasius and the old Catalogues have only one month. I confess it: but since it is evident from what has been said that the number must somewhere be corrected, this correction seems more fitting, in which five months are substituted for one, all the rest being safe. But because it was a new thing for an absent person to be elected, and therefore not crowned on the same day but long afterward, it should not seem strange that the time of the interregnum should not be prolonged up to that day which Leo considered his Natal day, and from which therefore his Pontificate began to be numbered up to his death.
[11] If you should ask what the Greeks had in view in venerating Saint Leo, Saint Alexius, what if a chapel was dedicated at Constantinople on 18 Feb.? and many others who died outside the Patriarchate of Constantinople on such a day as they are noted in the Menaea rather than on their true Natal day, no reason more probable or of wider application occurs to us than that the Menaea printed and for the most part also written are held according to the usage of the Constantinopolitan church; and there on such a day as those observed, the dedications of an altar, chapel, or church erected to that Saint were customarily celebrated: which it is not absurd to suspect was done for Saint Leo after his name had been inscribed in the Diptychs by some Zealot for the Chalcedonian Council, a Patriarch or Emperor. But that April 11 is the day on which, before the end of the 7th century, his body was dug up again by Pope Sergius I and found free of corruption, and placed in a new case beneath its own altar, we judge entirely: but the body was elevated 11 April and from that time he began to be venerated more solemnly in the month of April, and therefore is found inscribed on that day in the Martyrologies of Bede and others. In Baronius for the year of his death a coin of Leo is displayed, and several other things which may be seen there. Concerning the miracles worked through the brandeum given as relics of the Saints by Saint Leo, we treated on March 12 in the Life of Saint Gregory the Great, book 2, no. 42, and book 3, no. 56, which it is not necessary to repeat here.
[12] He is believed to have been born at Volterra The commentary on the Saints and Relics of Volterra, praised by us on February 3 under the name of Saint Candidus the Martyr, endeavors with many arguments to persuade us that this Saint Leo was of Volterra; not only because the annual festivity of Leo, whom all admit to have been an Etruscan, is celebrated by the Church of Volterra alone of all the cities of Etruria with a peculiar festivity, but also because Pliny, book 3, chapter 5, says: "the Volaterrans, surnamed Etruscans," whence, say the authors of that commentary, it is concluded that a Volterran is the same as an Etruscan. For when Volterra was of old the head and capital of Etruria, both in dignity and in custom, the name of Etruria and the Etruscans was ascribed to Volterra and the Volterrans. That the passage of Pliny is not free from suspicion of error is clear from Dalechamp's annotations. Nothing, however, do we wish on that account to detract from the opinion of the Volterrans concerning Saint Leo, but as we have received from the records of the public archive, so here we note, at Chapter 154 of the Constitutions of the city written on parchment, Addition 90 of the year 1543, and Addition 93 of the year 1547, a precept is read conceived in these words: where his feast is celebrated "To the honor, peace, and good governance of this city, the Lords Reformers have willed that every year in perpetuity the 11th day of April be held and ought to be held a feast day in the city of Volterra, and that it be solemnized by everyone like the other feast days, under a penalty of 48 solidi; because on such a day our Saint Leo was taken up to the glory of the Blessed."
[13] The history of the body elevated and translated, which we present in the last place, we have described from the Catalogue of the sacred Relics of the holy Vatican Basilica, Appearance of the body exposed in 1580 which, with Paolo Bizzoni and Marco Aurelio Maraldi, the Datarii of our Lord Pope Paul V, Canons of that Basilica, having care as greater Sacristans, was faithfully written in the year 1617, and is preserved in manuscript above the sacristy of the said Basilica, among the other books of that place: where also is found a sketch
of the appearance of the body as it was seen in the year 1580, expressed in lineaments and colors in the said Vatican codex; which, to be copied from there by a painter's hand and sent to Belgium, the gentleman most deserving of our studies, Carolus Alexander of Manderscheidt, S.J., Belgian Penitentiary at Saint Peter's, took care; and which, that the Reader may see with his own eyes, we have taken care to have engraved on copper.
LIFE
Published by Peter Canisius.
Leo the Great, Pontiff of Rome (Saint)
BY CANISIUS.
CHAPTER I.
His election as Pontiff. His doctrine and virtues.
[1] Pope Leo, first of his name, and Tuscan by race, and with Quintianus as father, was created Pontiff in place of the deceased Sixtus III, Tuscan by race and this not without a singular concord of all those giving their suffrages. This was the year from the birth of Christ more or less a 441 according to the cycle of Dionysius: summoned from Gaul at which time, still a Deacon active in the Gauls at a distance, he himself was occupied with great and holy zeal in repairing the peace between b Aëtius and Albinus. Hence, therefore, summoned to Rome by a public legation (as one whom not ambition but virtue, nor so much human favor as the will of a propitious Deity had raised to the summit of the highest Pontifical dignity), at last with all men's burning desire and great patience long awaited he came, He is created Pontiff and having brought matters in the Gauls to an excellent conclusion, he was hailed Supreme Pontiff at Rome with great applause of all. Then that man, most humane contrary to the meaning of his name, in turn gave thanks to the gathered crown of Bishops, partly that from his c long absence he saw himself safe and unhurt among those Fathers still unhurt, He gives thanks to the electors partly that, by the singular kindness of God Most High and by their d harmonious will, the most ample office had been entrusted to him. At once joyful and sorrowful But the hope received of divine protection, namely that he should satisfy the assumed province with Christ's help, was tempered in him by the anxious e sorrow of mind, so that he thought he should not rejoice so much as grieve: in this part not unlike to that King, who having weighed the cares of the royal dignity, did not think the diadem worthy of being raised to his head even as it lay on the ground before his eyes.
[2] Wherefore, as to expressing the image of a good Pastor, he joined the greatest modesty with fervent faith in f Christ, as can be obscure to no one, if he should even cursorily inspect the first sermons of this author now read. This Apostolic Pastor occupied that Apostolic Chair g twenty-one years, from the Blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles, the h forty-fourth Curator and Antistes of the Christian Church. From adolescence equipped with singular gifts Moreover, as foreseeing the future, through his whole life he seems to have wished diligently to prepare himself for the excellent office of the Pontificate, while he chiefly took care from adolescence to have his breast equipped with these things: namely, hidden understanding of the sacred books, much practice of the Scriptures, varied reading of the Doctors, sound judgment, uncommon prudence, a sincere and strong soul, as the meaning of his name demanded; finally, a prepared abundance of language, but at the same time a more prepared and more purged heart, which is the source of speech and the effective master of speaking and teaching. Wherefore it was by no means enough for him to be clean of every crime, unless, according to the admonitions of the same Blessed Paul, and removed from vices he abstained from every evil appearance, namely, that he should not fall into any suspicion of crime. Nothing in his pure breast, which that savage tyrant love of riches, or thirst for worldly glory, or the foul plague of ambition could claim for itself. He thought that Christian philosophy could not be aptly enough taught by him, nor constantly retained, unless he had removed from all his senses the allurements of pleasures and harmful desires. Hence, He excels in the fear of God as is the consequence, with the fuels of vices extinguished, faith burned in him more and more every day, at length bursting forth with great force, so that he rather perfected than brought together true fear of God, religious veneration of the Divine Majesty, and unshaken firmness of soul against all terrors. Faith, moreover, begot in him charity, by faith just as charity in turn nourished faith by good works. Through the eye and light of faith, without any error, he saw what was to be sought, by charity what to be avoided; again through charity, executing what faith had dictated, he perfected that power of nature which is called will. Now amid the troops of evils, by hope which are never lacking to pious men, he so sustained himself by hope in place of a staff, that he neither cast down his soul in adversity nor made it insolent in prosperity, a man always of tranquil and secure conscience.
[3] Eminent orator Then just as he had a fiery mind and one burning to deserve well of all, so the spirit of Christ dwelling in his heart moved the plectrum of his mouth, and brought a hidden power to the words that flowed forth. Whence it came about that he seemed to all to sound as a Christian Demosthenes, nay a heavenly orator. For even now flows from the most holy breast of Leo a weighty oration full of authority, such as it is most difficult to find in others. For although they may excel in all the virtues of speaking which are most granted to Leo, nevertheless it will hardly be that they do not sometimes remit that equal and solid weight of words and sentiments. I pass over how laborious and troublesome it is in homilies to preserve before the people perpetual grace of one diction and strong splendor; and therefore surnamed the Great but in this part Leo so reigns that for his most wise eloquence and most eloquent wisdom he has obtained the surname i "the Great" among posterity, so yielding to no Theologian in eloquence as he surpasses many in wisdom. And who, finally, today could accomplish what Leo with his many and such great writings? Not even of these, I think, anyone who has placed all his study in preparing the faculty of diction. So great, moreover, was the facility of Leo's wondrous talent, so great the soundness, so great the presence of mind, that no one would not greatly marvel at the prepared abundance of this speech, joined with singular gravity, yet with a certain pleasantness too. There are indeed k men both weighty in authority and notable for erudition, who do not fear to call Leo the Tully of Ecclesiastical diction, the Homer of Theology, the Aristotle of the reasons of the faith, and what is much more, Peter himself on the Pontifical throne, and at the same time Paul discoursing in the Christian pulpit. "For," they say, "thus he charms, that he holds his hearers bound; thus he teaches, that he fills their ears with divine meanings; thus he exhorts, that he inflames souls with the ardors of virtue. Sparing in speech, with Pontifical majesty he preserves Christian modesty but sublime in senses and above all heavenly, and what is wonderful above all things, most profound and most plain. Besides, discoursing with Pontifical majesty and eloquent with Apostolic speech, that truly Christian modesty and divine virtue, although it exists admirably everywhere, especially in his own sermons, shines forth as in no one else, that as master of brevity and almost unique artificer, he sums up the most ample mysteries of divine things, and according to the canonical Scriptures includes a certain primacy of sacred eloquence."
[4] What, indeed, in his epistles sent to and fro, would you anywhere desire, which could not seem to have proceeded most worthily from the throne of the Supreme Pontiff and the dwelling of the most cultivated breast? Although meanwhile that immense labor of Pontifical affairs, never to be appreciated, pressed upon him, night and day the unceasing care of all the Churches in the world tortured him, so many plagues of souls surpassing human industry miserably troubled him, and the announced dangers, exiles, l crosses, and disgraces of pious men increased his continual sorrow. Nevertheless, for wisely concluding so many and so great causes, although also new ones fell out daily, amid adversities always cheerful his mind was always present to him, and (what seems incredible) his style for writing was everywhere even. Partly by the security of a good conscience, partly by the expectation of eternal felicity, he so remained cheerful that by no allurements or terrors of human life was he delayed from the course of piety and from the most fervent zeal of deserving well of all. Prov. 28:1 and 30:30 Why not? Even provoked by the very meaning of his name, this wise man had learned that from the wise man in Proverbs: "The just man as a lion confident shall be without fear." And that: "The lion, the strongest of beasts, will fear at the approach of no one."
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER II.
The Acts of Saint Leo with King Attila.
[5] It is sad to say and altogether pitiful, if anyone should try to pursue in speech, at least in some part, the horrendous motions and tumults of that age. We shall set down the example of one man, Attila, in nothing obscure, together with that singular magnitude of Leonine virtue. Therefore Attila, leader of the Huns, who is called the Scourge of God, whose
most savage barbarian eyes burned, and from whose whole mouth cruelty flashed forth, came into Italy inflamed with fury, just when he had already devastated Thrace and Illyricum, Attila, insolent on account of his immense victories Macedonia and Moesia, Achaia and Greece, Pannonia and Germania with most savage rage, and had indeed, another Romulus, slaughtered his own brother b Buda, his partner in the kingdom; wholly cruel in tortures, greedy in plunder, proud in insults. What so savage Charybdis, I ask, could the Poets by feigning express, which could exhaust such gulfs as those which this man swallowed up from the plunder of the Western provinces? c He consumed Concordia with fire, d he overthrew Aquileia utterly! He destroyed Ticinum and Milan, royal cities. Hence, with the other cities of Italy after many Italian cities conquered partly plundered and burned, partly yielding from fear, he began to roam widely between the Adda and the Adige, where besides the cities already commemorated, e Mantua, Brescia, Cremona, Bergamo, and f Ravenna he afflicted with equal disaster. And now, with so many and such great cities devastated all around, the Huns, as if the bars burst, with Attila as leader, hastened to burst into Rome. What mind did it behoove Leo to have then? What could he do in such a matter and at such a time? When the counsel of cowardice impelled even the bravest to flight and hiding places, and the wickedness and fury of the enemy drove them to despair, and finally the clamor of the people promised the most cruel and lamentable outcome; so that all things near at hand portended burning for the city, slaughter for the citizens, devastation for Italy, and even the destruction of the whole Christian Commonwealth. He meets him as he hastens to Rome Certainly, when now the enemy was almost in sight, so that he was preparing to cross his troops where the Mincio flows into the Po, marvelous to relate, Leo, the most holy man, meets him, as one who pitied the calamity both of Italy and of the city of Rome, and was about to produce a never-perishing proof of his Lion-like mind; he meets him, I say, already great in age, with g one of the Consuls and no small part of the Roman Senate.
[6] The old man of innocuous simplicity meets the tyrant devastating everything, and venerable at the same time in much hoariness and more august bearing, he renders him milder by a modest address who had long been desiring to spend himself wholly for the saving of his sheep, even unasked: and there near the river Mincio he is said to have addressed the fierce King thus: "The Senate and Roman people, once conqueror of the world, now indeed conquered, humbly begs pardon and safety from thee, Attila, King of Kings. Nothing could have befallen thee in so great a glory of achievements, either fairer for the present distinction or more memorable for posterity, than that this suppliant people should lie at thy feet, before whom once all nations and Kings lay suppliant. Thou hast indeed, Attila, subdued the whole circle of lands, to whom it was granted to subdue the Romans, conquerors of all nations: now we only beg that thou mayest conquer thyself, who dost conquer the rest. Nor, since now thou hast transcended every summit of humanity, is there any way in which thou canst be more like to the immortal God, than in that, the more thou hast conquered, the more thou dost wish to be saved through thee. The wicked have felt thy scourge: let the suppliants now feel thy clemency, either because they confess themselves conquered, or because they are going to do thy commands willingly." These things the invincible Leo had said with a good conscience, in whose bearing and venerable aspect while Attila stood silent in contemplation, similar to one deliberating, behold h two men at right and left, namely the Apostles Peter and Paul, suddenly appeared to him, with Saints Peter and Paul appearing who not only stood by the Pontiff in a more august bearing, but also held drawn and pointed swords above his head, and at last threatened death, unless he should obey the word of the Pontiff. Wherefore Attila, appeased by this intercession of Leo, although otherwise furious, at once, a most firm peace having been promised, withdrew, never to return beyond the Danube. seeing him of his own accord withdraw from Italy Nor in fact did he long after depart from human affairs, and thus at length, even dead, he put an end to the long vexation of the human race. Being asked, however, by those who had stood near to Leo supplicating, what was the reason why he had so easily given up the fairest victory to the prayers of enemies, and had ordered those prostrate before his feet to rise and stand ("Be of good cheer," he said, "pardon is granted you"), he is said to have answered openly that it behooved to be done thus, because amid the address of the suppliants, such and so great men had seemed to him, and had suddenly compelled him to change his mind. You may see, therefore, in Leo another Moses, who by spiritual arms assaults the strengths of barbarians, and reconciles an angry God to a sinful race. Wherefore by this so remarkable benefit he bound to himself Prince Valentinian and the whole city Returning to Rome, he is hailed as Father of his country as never before; and he confirmed more and more among all the commonly received opinion of his sanctity. After this, returning to the City, not without the common applause of all (who beheld as it were the Father of their country, to whom under God they rightly deserved to owe all their fortunes, their safety, and the salvation of the world no less than of the City), he first gave thanks to God Most High and to his Apostles Peter and Paul; ascribing to them all the glory of the deed well done, to whose patronage also he was wont to attribute the consortship of the conceded Roman See.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER III.
Heresies overthrown. The Council of Chalcedon held.
[7] He defends the Church against heresies, especially those of Nestorius Then he is wholly turned to confirming and defending the Catholic faith, which was then indeed attacked by many heretics, such as the Manichaeans, Donatists, Arians, Priscillianists, but especially in hostile fashion by the Nestorians and Eutychians. Certainly that Nestorius, Bishop of Constantinople, a Germaniciensian by race, whose heresies, refuted by Saint a Cyril, the First Ephesine Synod had condemned, denied that that incomparable and thrice-blessed Virgin Mary was the Mother of God, that is, he thought her to be only the mother of the man, making one person of flesh and another of divinity in Christ, and impiously establishing separately one Son of God and another of man. But Eutyches, Presbyter and Archimandrite of Constantinople, an old man, of Eutyches crafty and shameless, who caused so much trouble at once to Leo and to the Chalcedonian Council, lest meanwhile he should seem openly to agree with blasphemous Nestorius, taught that the divine with the human nature had fallen back into one and the same composition, and had become one, and ought in no way to be distinguished. But Cyril's successor in the Alexandrian Church, Dioscorus, a cunning man, of Dioscorus violent and plainly seditious, when he had compelled the authority of the Emperor Theodosius and the Ephesian little council to stand on his side with great force; when also the Legates of the Apostolic See, who presided over the Synod, had been rejected; and with the other orthodox Bishops, b Flavian of Constantinople, most unjustly condemned; so the perfidious man pleaded the cause of Eutyches among perfidious men, that unless Leo's care had renewed the Synod at Chalcedon with the Emperor and the Augusta Pulcheria, certainly piety oppressed and the cause of the Church forsaken would have lain prostrate. To such a degree some, having transgressed the bounds of all shame and reverence, c had then rushed in rashness, that they shamefully converted notable Churches, which had hitherto flourished as houses of prayer, into dens of robbers, overthrew profaned monasteries, extinguished the light of the Sacraments, intercepted the offering of sacrifice, removed the sanctification of chrism; so that now from the parricidal hands of the impious all the mysteries had at last withdrawn themselves.
[8] And these as it were unspeakable kinds of sacrilege Leo most bitterly rebukes in d epistle 75 to Leo the Emperor. And not only absent by letters, but, as Nicephorus attests, present also with tears, he acts against them before the Emperor Theodosius that such horrendous scandals might be corrected, he did not cease both to admonish and to adjure the princes. And what graver adjuration than when he implores the faith and duty of Theodosius in these words? "Behold I," he says, "most Christian and venerable Emperor, together with my fellow priests, fulfilling toward the reverence of your clemency the office of sincere love, and desiring you to please God in all things, to whom the Church supplicates for you, lest we be judged guilty of silence before the tribunal of Christ the Lord, beseech before the inseparable Trinity of one Deity, which is wounded by such a deed (since it itself is the guardian and author of your Empire), and before the holy Angels of Christ, that you command all things to be in the state in which they were before any judgment, until a greater number of Priests may be gathered from the whole world. And do not suffer yourselves to be burdened with another's sin, because what we need must say, we fear, lest the indignation of him whose religion is dissipated be provoked. Have before your eyes and with all the keenness of mind reverently behold the glory of Blessed Peter, and the crowns of all the Apostles in common with him, and the palms of all the Martyrs." Yet this vehemence in promoting the Synod availed less with Theodosius, either because he e could not long survive among the living, or because in defending religion, as also in administering the Empire, he was held more sluggish, moved by almost every breeze, and on his death, before Marcian and Saint Pulcheria and so careless that he easily signed papers not read through by him. But Marcian, whom, on the death of Theodosius, f the Augusta Pulcheria, Theodosius's sister, had proclaimed Emperor, was more constant and of approved piety and prudence. The religious solicitude of that woman, and her special zeal for the Church of Christ, Leo indicated in various and friendly letters. and he persuades that the Council of Chalcedon be held But the Emperor Marcian turned all his zeal to g celebrating the Synod of Chalcedon and composing the troubles of the Church. Which thing again it is fitting to credit to Leo, who with great and irrefutable constancy had h commended to him the necessary reason for convening the Synod, saying that it was most just that the summit of human power should serve the laws of Christ and the advantages of the Church.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER IV.
The notable epistle to Saint Flavian. The King is softened in the plundering of the City. Temples restored. Death. The fury of Genseric.
[9] Among his friends he especially honored a Prosper of Aquitaine, afterwards Bishop of Riez; and Flavian, of whom also we have previously made mention, Among his friends he especially honored Saint Prosper of Aquitaine Archbishop of Constantinople. Each was most observant of piety and of all religion, and no less learned than holy: concerning the former we shall treat a little below, in the latter not even the glory of martyrdom was lacking; for thus it happened by the tyranny of Dioscorus at Ephesus, because Flavian had first among his own condemned Eutyches the heresiarch when accused by Eusebius: whence the name of Flavian is often honorably cited by Leo, and Saint Flavian of Constantinople, Martyr honored by many letters given to him; nor is there any more famous among Leo's epistles than that which is read b as the tenth, addressed to Flavian, approved in the highest degree by the c Chalcedonian Council, of which alone Gennadius makes mention, passing over Leo's other works. He wrote the epistle to him, praised by Gennadius Indeed Pope Gelasius, of exacting judgment, when he pronounces on the received and approved writings of the Fathers, besides numbering Blessed Leo among the first there, certainly follows the said epistle with such religion that he pronounces anathema to anyone, who more contentiously should reject either its text or a single jot, and praised by Saint Pope Gelasius or should not individually and with reverence receive all things in it. Some think it was done more by the divine spirit than by human genius, that the perplexed impiety of Eutyches, uncovered by so great a light of truth, was overthrown. For here Leo, distrusting even his own strengths, before he had destined that epistle to anyone, placed it, scarcely written, upon d the altar of Blessed Peter; and exercising himself for forty days in fasts and prayers, written with the help of Saint Peter entrusted he sought this one thing with burning vows from the Prince of the Apostles, that if the epistle, which treated the most difficult cause of the faith, should have anything to be corrected, he himself should finish all corrected by his own hands. Nor did the rare event deceive the holy expectation of the petitioner. For the fortieth day returned the epistle polished and worked over, with at the same time a most certain revelation added, that the success should be attributed to that Apostle, whose pious condescension and faithful love does not grow lukewarm even in the person of an unequal e heir.
[10] Moreover, as arms most powerful of all, he used continually vigils, fasts, tears, and those things especially by which he gathered the Leonine strengths, constant trust in God, and ardent instance in praying. Thus he defended the city, saved Italy, raised up the Roman Empire, He induces Genseric, Arian King of the Vandals when by placating the tyrant Attila he shook so savage a yoke of the Huns from the necks of his people. But what, I ask, was his struggle with Genseric, the most savage of all the barbarians? He, Emperor of the Alans and Vandals, besides patronizing the Arian faction, with the Bishops everywhere expelled, claimed for himself every right and every Episcopal good; and especially at Carthage profaned, corrupted, and overthrew the ministries of the Clerics, the worship of the temples, and all sacred things, cruel to the whole order of the captive people, but especially hostile to nobility and religion. Hence called for help by Eudoxia, that she might avenge the death of her deceased husband Valentinian Caesar, he f invaded the City, empty of garrison, with a hostile band. Pope Leo, however, had gone forth to meet him as he came, armed indeed with no other defenses than those which befit such a Pontiff: tongue, prayers, and holiness of life: who besought the inflexible tyrant that he should restrain injury from that City, which Attila, the most savage of all men, though victor, had spared; or if he had it in mind to give the City to his own to plunder, that he would at least spare the temples, [that in the plundering of the City he abstain from the temples, from fire and slaughter] spare the public and private buildings; that he would save from destruction the most noble City, in great part empty of its citizens. Therefore, though neither the dignity of the person could sufficiently soften the barbarian, nor the piety of religion the Arian King, yet he recalled the tyrant from fire and slaughter and tortures, content with plunder and carried-off spoils.
[11] With what greater care then did Leo turn both to repairing the City and to consoling the afflicted. He restored broken churches, restored g sacred vessels either broken or carried off by the barbarians, He restores and builds churches urged Demetria to build on her own property a basilica to Blessed Stephen; himself established another h in honor of Bishop Cornelius; added i chamberlain clerics to the tombs of the Apostles; and besides other k places consecrated to religion and l offices assigned, built a m monastery near Saint Peter's. Concerning Prosper of Aquitaine we forbear to speak, since Antonio Flaminio of Imola has set forth his familiar association with Leo; nor shall we touch on the Council of Chalcedon, which abundantly commends Leo's exhausted cares and labors for the Church. He is supremely praised by the Fathers of Chalcedon Unless perhaps it be too little to be acclaimed thrice holy by so many and so great Fathers, and to obtain this eulogy from the wisest: "Let the most holy, apostolic, and ecumenical or universal Patriarch Leo live many years!" Truly magnanimous and plainly glorious Leo lived to a decrepit age n: but that he might survive no less in his own monuments to the world, even dead.
ANNOTATIONS.
[1] A chest covered with red silk contains the Relics of Saints Leo I, II, III, and IV, Supreme Pontiffs, whose sacred bodies rest in the Vatican Basilica: The bodies of the Leo saints were shown in the year 1580, 1 August these Relics are preserved in a large white silk wrapping. From the book of memorable things of the Vatican Basilica from the year 1575, there is the restoration of the altar or oratory of the said Saints, the opening of the sepulcher, and the inspection of the bodies themselves on the first day of August in the year 1580, Gregory XIII being Supreme Pontiff, with Cardinal Guglielmo Sirleto and many Prelates and Canons of the said Basilica present and inspecting. By order of the same Pontiff an altar was erected there under the vault of the new pavement, a plenary perpetual Indulgence being granted on the feast of Saints Leo I and II, whose offices are celebrated by the Church, under date of April 4, 1531. In that opening of the sepulcher, therefore, the above-mentioned Relics were received, to be presented perpetually to the view of the faithful. In the year 1607, on the 25th day of May, the Sunday within the Octave of the Ascension, in a solemn procession the sacred bodies themselves were honorably placed on the altar of the Virgin Mother of God "in columna."
[2] [and again 25 May 1607. The body of Saint Leo the Great enclosed in a chest inside a tomb] The body of Saint Leo the Great was laid in a wooden chest, which was contained within a noble and beautiful tomb, three palms and eight inches wide, ten palms less an inch long, five palms and a sextans deep, notably adorned with polished and veined white marbles: in which chest, made out of a single piece of wood, rested the body of the most holy Leo the Great Pope I, by Sergius I placed there by Sergius I. The marble slab that closed the tomb was set upon four iron rods or b spranghi placed crosswise. The chest had four iron rings, two on each side, by which it might easily be let down into the tomb; it was held aloft, suspended also by four other iron rods, placed crosswise, which are now preserved in the archive of the said basilica; the feet were turned toward the high altar. The chest was two palms one inch in length, and displayed the greatest antiquity; for of the iron rods by which the wooden chest was supported, one had fallen broken from excessive age. It had a sliding lid. The sacred body of Saint Leo the Great himself, still whole, was of a stature of seven palms and three quarters; appeared whole and, as could be conjectured (although by length of time and antiquity it was sufficiently consumed
), this holy Pontiff was of slender and thin body. He was clothed in Pontifical garments, namely a chasuble or casula, wide in the ancient manner, with Pontifical vestments of purple of a chestnut color. He had his hands folded, which were covered by the chasuble, and had fallen into bones. He had fragments of tunic and dalmatic. His right leg and his feet were likewise seen reduced to bones. His head was consumed into several fragments of bones, and blackened. The remains of the Pontifical miter were visible, torn and darkened from extreme antiquity. Around the neck shone some golden threads, likewise above the hands. There remained upon the right shoulder a small Cross of red color and the double Cross of the pallium, which was of the Pontifical pallium; likewise he had another Cross a little longer of the same pallium, by the chest on the right side. In the middle of the chest was seen a golden pin of the pallium, fastened to the chasuble; but of the pallium itself nothing remained: the chasuble reached to the feet. Everything dissolved at a touch, both from the greatest antiquity and from the damp place. For although the body was most well enclosed, it nevertheless suffered damage, especially in the demolition of the basilica under Julius II, exposed through carelessness and negligence of men, and by penetrating rains for many years. Of this holy body as it lay in the same chest, here you have a similar image depicted.
[3] The sacred body itself, together with the bones of the other Leos, II, III, and IV, was translated with solemn rite into the new church, on the aforesaid day May 27, the Sunday within the Octave of the Ascension, The bodies of the Saints Leo brought into the new church 1607, after Vespers had been sung. Present at this translation, besides an innumerable people and all the Clergy of that Basilica, were: the Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Lord Evangelista Palloti, Cardinal of Cosenza, Archpresbyter of that church; Fabio Blondo, Patriarch of Jerusalem, Prefect of the Pontifical household; Alessandro Marzi Medici, Archbishop of Florence; Marco Cornelio, Bishop of Padua; Alessandro Guidiccioni, Bishop of Lucca; Stefano Spinola, present with a Cardinal, a Patriarch, and 10 Bishops Bishop of Ventimiglia; Orazio Mirto, Bishop of Ruvo in the province of Bari; Raffaele Inviziati, Bishop of c Zakynthos and Cephalonia; Giorgio Perpigniano, Bishop of d Atina; Brother Angelo Rocca, Augustinian, Bishop of Tagaste, sacristan of the Sacred Palace; Sextilio Mazucha, Bishop of Alessano; Metello Bichi, Bishop of Sovana, now e Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church; and Antonio Vittori, Referendary of both signatures, Vicar of the said basilica; with many other Prelates. Our Most Holy Lord Pope Paul V willed to see the bodies of the same Saints, seen by Pope Paul V, various Cardinals, and Bishops and saw them with much consolation of soul, together with the Most Illustrious Lords Francesco Sforza, Deacon Cardinal of Santa Maria in Via-lata, and Odoardo Farnese, of Sant'Eustachio, with their familiars and some Prelates: among whom were the said Patriarch, and also Galeazzo Sanvitale, Archbishop of Bari; Orazio Capponi, of Carpentras; the same Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Cardinal, Archpresbyter, Vicar, and Canons of the same sacred church, as public monuments exist regarding all these things, drawn up by me on the matter. f