Leander

ON SAINT LEANDER, BISHOP OF SEVILLE,

TOWARD THE END OF THE SIXTH CENTURY.

HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.

Leander, Bishop of Seville (St.)

Section I. Sacred veneration and day of death. Books written. Journey to Constantinople. Acquaintance with St. Gregory the Great.

[1] On the twenty-seventh of February, as we then noted, St. Leander, Bishop of Seville, is inscribed in the Roman Martyrology, and likewise in the printed editions of Bede, Usuard, Ado, Wandelbert, Notker, and very many others of more recent date; Name in the Martyrologies, February 27. and we had resolved to collect for that day the deeds performed by him from St. Gregory, and Isidore, and other writers of solid credibility. But afterwards we discovered that no Spanish Church venerates him on that day. Rather, by the Church of Seville, of which he was Bishop, he is celebrated on this day, the thirteenth of March, with a double Office of the second class; by the Church of Cartagena, whence he was originally, likewise with a double Office on the same day. Ecclesiastical veneration, March 13. The Mixed Missal according to the order of the Primatial Church of Toledo, printed at Lyon in the year 1551, has in the prefixed Calendar for the thirteenth of March: Leander, Bishop, Confessor, and Doctor, four capes. The Breviary according to the Rule of the Blessed Isidore, called Mozarabic, printed at Toledo by authority of Archbishop Francisco Ximenez in the year 1502, and the Mixed Missal according to the Rule of the Blessed Isidore, called Mozarabic, printed at Toledo in the year 1500 by the same Ximenez's authority, are in agreement. Certain more recent authors follow these in their Calendars and Martyrologies. Wherefore we too have deferred his Life to this thirteenth of March, as we indicated all these things among the Omitted and those referred to other days on the twenty-seventh of February. To these can be added the Flos Sanctorum or Legend, in the Spanish language, reprinted at Seville in the year 1532 by Johannes Cromberger; and death noted on the same day. likewise the Flos Sanctorum by Alfonso Villegas, frequently reprinted; also in the History and Antiquities of Seville by Alfonso Morgado and Pablo de Espinosa, who record that St. Leander departed from this life to heaven on this thirteenth of March. We found in Rome, in the Vallicellian Library of the Fathers of the Congregation of the Oratory, the Life of St. Leander, Bishop of Seville, transcribed from a very ancient Roman Breviary, in which he is said to have closed the term of his mortal life on the third day before the Ides of March; for which we suspect that elsewhere it had been written "on the third day before the Kalends of March," which is the aforementioned twenty-seventh of February. The error was perhaps nourished by St. Leander the Martyr, whom we recorded from the most ancient Martyrologies for that day, crowned at Smyrna with SS. Servilianus and Datian. It is established moreover from the Life found in the Roman Breviary that an ancient veneration of this Saint existed in the Roman Church long before two hundred years ago, because in our possession is a Roman Breviary printed at Venice by Franciscus Tennerus in the year 1479, in which however the memory of St. Leander is not commemorated. We also have ancient Breviaries: one of the Church of Burgos in Spain, printed in the year 1502; another of the Church of Evora in Portugal, published in the year 1548, in which the solemn veneration of St. Leander is exhibited for this thirteenth of March with proper Lessons about him; in the last of which, in the Evora Breviary, it is read that he rested on the third before the Ides of March. Finally, Thomas de Trujillo in his Treasury of Sermons and Juan Marieta in book 5 of the Saints of Spain, chapter 19, refer his Life to this thirteenth of March, on which Trujillo writes that he died. Let these suffice concerning the day of his death and veneration.

[2] Leander's brother and successor in the Bishopric of Seville was St. Isidore, who in his book On Ecclesiastical Writers, chapter 28, gives this eulogy of his life and learning: Leander, born of a father named Severianus, of the province of Cartagena in Spain, a monk by profession; he shines in holiness of life and learning: and from being a monk, appointed Bishop of the Church of Seville, in the province of Baetica -- a man gentle in speech, most outstanding in intellect, so distinguished in life and learning that even by his faith and industry the people of the Gothic nation were converted from Arian madness to the Catholic faith. For in the wandering of his exile, he composed two books against the doctrines of the heretics, he writes books: most rich in the learning of the sacred Scriptures, in which with vigorous style he pierced and exposed the wickedness of Arian impiety; showing what the Catholic Church holds against them, and how far it differs from them in religion and the sacraments of the faith. There also exists another praiseworthy little work of his against the tenets of the Arians, in which, having set out their statements, he opposes his own responses. Moreover, he published one booklet addressed to his sister Florentina on the Training of Virgins and Contempt of the World, marked with divisions of headings. Indeed, in the ecclesiastical offices he also labored with no small zeal. For he composed prayers throughout the entire Psalter in a twofold edition. In the praises of the sacrifice and psalms he composed many things in a sweet-sounding manner. He also wrote many letters: one to Pope Gregory about baptism, he has two saintly brothers and a sister. another to his brother, in which he warns that death should not be feared by anyone; and to the other Co-bishops he promulgated many familiar letters, though not sufficiently splendid in words, yet keen in their thoughts. He flourished under Reccared, a devout man and glorious Prince, in whose times he closed the term of his active life with a wonderful death. These are the words of his younger brother St. Isidore, who was educated by him and their sister St. Florentina. Another brother of theirs was St. Fulgentius, Bishop of Astigi and Cartagena, whose Life we gave on the fourteenth of January. St. Florentina is venerated on the twentieth of June, for which day Tamayo Salazar published in the Hispanic Martyrology the aforementioned booklet of St. Leander on the Training of Virgins and Contempt of the World; which Lucas Holstenius also inserted in part 3 of his Code of Rules, which contains the Rules of the Holy Fathers for Virgins. Would that his other works and letters still existed, from which his labors endured against the Arians might become known.

[3] he goes to Constantinople. Concerning these, the following is read in the very ancient Roman Breviary: When the Blessed Leander could not root out the fervor of the Arian heresy in the time of Leovigild, King of the Goths, he crossed the sea to the assembly of the Bishop of Constantinople for the purpose of confirming the articles of the Holy Trinity; where Gregory was present, then acting on behalf of the Roman Pontiff, with whom Leander formed a bond of friendship, and from whom he requested that he expound the moral teachings of Job. In the Evora Breviary, the Blessed Leander is said to have been sent there as a Legate by the Visigoths on matters of faith. What is read in the said Roman Breviary agrees with Luke of Tuy in his Chronicle of the World; but what is read in the Evora Breviary, St. Gregory alone has in his letter prefixed to his exposition of the book of Job, in these words: To his most reverend and holy Brother and Fellow-Bishop Leander, Gregory sends greetings. for the cause of the faith: Long ago, most blessed Brother, having come to know you in the city of Constantinople, when the responsibilities of the Apostolic See held me there and a legation imposed upon you for the causes of the faith of the Visigoths had brought you there, I laid bare in your ears all that displeased me about myself. Behold the legation of Leander for the causes of the faith; yet at that time no Council is known to have been held at Constantinople, much less, as Trujillo and others assert, an Ecumenical or Universal one --

the Second Council of Constantinople, which was held in the year 553 concerning the Three Chapters. This meeting of SS. Gregory and Leander took place in the time of Pelagius II, Roman Pontiff, and the Emperor Tiberius, after the year 580, in which year, as Gregory of Tours testifies in book 5 of his History of the Franks, chapter 39, there was a great persecution of Christians in Spain. But St. Gregory continues in the said letter: Then also the Brethren, even at your urging, as you yourself remember, decided that they should compel me with importunate petition to expound the book of the blessed Job. And, with many things interposed, he has this: he procures from St. Gregory the writing of the Morals on Job. Which exposition I have sent to your Beatitude for review, not because I owed it as something worthy, but because I remember having promised it at your request. In it, wherever your Holiness finds anything lukewarm or uncouth, let it pardon me all the more quickly, knowing that I, being sick, said it.

Section II. The Conversion of St. Hermenegild, then of King Reccared with the Gothic nation. The Third Council of Toledo.

[4] Returning to Spain, St. Leander devoted all his industry to converting the people of the Gothic nation from the madness of Arianism to the Catholic faith. St. Hermenegild, still an Arian King, had married Ingund, daughter of Sigebert, King of Austrasia, and of his aunt Brunhild, who had been wed to him around the year 565. Ingund, though she was very young, was so firmly established in the Catholic faith that she could not be subverted by blandishments or threats or blows. Then Leovigild, as the above-cited Gregory of Tours relates, St. Hermenegild, urged by his wife toward the orthodox faith, gave them one of the cities in which they might reside and reign. When they had gone there, Ingund began to preach to her husband that he should abandon the falsehood of heresy and recognize the truth of the Catholic law. He refused this for a long time, but at length, moved by her preaching, was converted to the Catholic law. So Gregory of Tours; but St. Gregory, in book 3 of the Dialogues, chapter 31, attributes this entire conversion to St. Leander in these words: As we have learned from the report of many who come from the regions of Spain, recently Hermenegild the King, son of Leovigild, King of the Visigoths, he converts him, was converted from the Arian heresy to the Catholic faith through the preaching of the most reverend Leander, Bishop of Seville, long since familiarly joined to me in friendship. His Arian father attempted to persuade him by rewards and to terrify him by threats to return to the same heresy. But when he answered most constantly that he could never abandon the true faith which he had once recognized, his father, angered, deprived him of his kingdom and stripped him of all his possessions. So Gregory says there, in which the conversion recently made and the friendship long since contracted indicate that St. Hermenegild embraced the Catholic faith after St. Leander's return from Constantinople. These matters will be treated more accurately on his feast day, the thirteenth of April; on which day, on the Vigil of Easter, we believe he was killed, killed in the year 586, or at least during the night preceding the Easter festivities, when the preceding night he had refused communion from the sacrilegious consecration offered by an Arian Bishop. That year is 586, in which, with the lunar cycle 16, the solar cycle 6, and the dominical letter G, Easter of the Lord's Resurrection fell on the fourteenth of April. In exile then for the second or third year, St. Leander wrote his two books against the Arian heresy.

[5] Leovigild survived to the following year 587, or the Hispanic Era 625, as St. Isidore asserts in his Chronicle of the Goths, who places the beginning of his reign at Era 608 and adds that he died in the eighteenth year of his reign. He, as St. Gregory the Pope testifies, He converts King Reccared, acknowledged that the Catholic faith was the true one, but, terrified by the dread of his nation, did not merit to attain it. When illness befell him and he was brought to the point of death, he took care to commend his son King Reccared, whom he had left in his heresy, to Bishop Leander, so that Leander might do in him what he had done in his brother through his exhortations. When this commendation was completed, he died. Gregory of Tours, in book 8 of the History of the Franks, the last chapter, already hindered in writing it, says that some assert that he passed over to the Catholic law seven days before his death; (did he also convert his father Leovigild, who died in 587?) and that then his son Reccared reigned in his place, in the twelfth year of Childebert, the twenty-sixth of Guntram, which is the already established year 587. But St. Gregory the Pope continues: King Reccared, following not his perfidious father but his Martyr brother, was converted from the wickedness of the Arian heresy; and he brought the entire Visigothic nation to the true faith, so that he permitted no one to serve in his kingdom who would not fear to become an enemy of God's kingdom through heretical wickedness. Tamayo Salazar, for the day of the thirteenth of April, page 615, produces an ancient inscription of the Cathedral Church dedicated at Toledo, at the beginning of his reign, from which it is established that this was done at the beginning of the reign of Reccared. The inscription is as follows: In the name of the Lord, the church of St. Mary was consecrated into the Catholic faith on the first day before the Ides of April, in the first year of the reign, happily, of our Lord, the most glorious Flavius Reccared the King, Era 625. On that very day, a year had elapsed since the martyrdom of King Hermenegild, and that day, the thirteenth of April, fell in the said year 587 on the second Sunday after Easter, celebrated on the thirtieth of March. Then, therefore, and the Gothic nation: as Isidore relates above, by the faith and industry of St. Leander, the people of the Gothic nation were converted from Arian madness to the Catholic faith.

[6] The Third Council of Toledo followed, of sixty-two Bishops, in which the Goths, having abjured the perfidy of the Arian heresy, professed the orthodox faith, and twenty-three anathemas were written, as well as the same number of chapters, to which the edict of King Reccared confirming the Council is appended, he attends the Council of Toledo, and after that everything is concluded with the illustrious homily of St. Leander in praise of the Church for the conversion of the Gothic nation, which we give in full below. Flavius Reccared the King subscribed, together with Masona, Metropolitan of the Church of Merida, Euphemius, Metropolitan of the Church of Toledo; then in the fourth place, in this formula: Leander, in the name of Christ, of the Church of Seville, Metropolitan of the province of Baetica, assenting to these constitutions at which I was present in the city of Toledo, have subscribed. Concerning the year of this Council, some controversy arises because of the Hispanic Era and the year of Reccared's reign. For thus the Council begins: In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, in the fourth year of the most glorious Lord Reccared the King reigning, on the eighth day before the Ides of May, Era 627, this holy Council was held in the royal city of Toledo by the Bishops of all Spain and Gaul, who are listed below. Since above, in Era 625, in the month of April, the first year of Reccared's reign was established, in what year? Era 627 must necessarily correspond to the third year of his reign, so that it would seem that instead of the period placed after the number III, a fourth unit accrued at the hands of copyists, and thus the fourth year grew, and the Council would have been held in the year of Christ 589. Or conversely, if the fourth year of the reign is maintained, the following Era 628 should be established, and the Council would have been held in the year of Christ 590, in the month of August of which year Mauritius the Emperor began his eighth year of reign; to which year this Council is assigned by John of Biclaro at the end of his Chronicle in these words: In the eighth year of the Emperor Mauritius, which is the fourth year of King Reccared, the holy Council of Bishops of all Spain, Gaul, and Galicia is assembled in the city of Toledo by command of Prince Reccared, of seventy-two Bishops. In which Council the most Christian Reccared was present, offering to the Bishops with his own hand the statement of the order of his conversion and the confession of all the Priests and the Gothic nation written in a document, and making known all things that pertain to the profession of the orthodox faith; the order of which document the holy Council of Bishops decreed should be attached to the canonical records. The chief management of the Council business, however, rested with St. Leander, Bishop of the Church of Seville, and the most blessed Eutropius, Abbot of the Servitanum monastery. So much from that source. Meanwhile, we would wish to preserve the fourth year of Reccared's reign and Era 627 as prefixed to the Council. Baronius, for that reason, pushes back the death of Leovigild and the beginning of Reccared's reign to the year of Christ 585; indeed, in Isidore he corrects Era 725 and wishes to substitute Era 723, which Jacques du Breul did in his edition of the works of St. Isidore, made in the year 1601. But why did he not correct the beginning of the reign of the same Leovigild? Or to what purpose does he report that he died in the eighteenth year of his reign, when he would have died in the sixteenth year of his reign? Again, the fourth year of Reccared's reign would not have corresponded to Era 627, but to the preceding Era 626. Furthermore, Reccared would not have departed this life in the fifteenth year of his reign and Era 640, because a discrepancy of two years again arises, and thus the same would have to be done for the succeeding Kings. Meanwhile, the following Councils support our view: the Council of Seville, also presided over by St. Leander, held in the fifth year of Reccared's reign, Era 628, on the first of the Nones of November; and the Second Council of Caesaraugusta, signed under the day of the Kalends of November, Era 630, in the seventh year of the reign. What then is to be determined? We believe that Reccared was taken on as a partner in the reign by his father Leovigild after the martyrdom of St. Hermenegild, at least before the eighth day before the Ides of May, and that in the Councils his years are thus reckoned; but St. Isidore began to count them only from his father's death, so as not to disrupt the Chronicle of the Goths.

Section III. Homily of St. Leander on the triumph of the Church for the conversion of the Goths.

[7] The very novelty of this feast signifies that it is the most solemn of all feasts. For just as the cause of the conversion of so many peoples is something new, the joys of the Church are more exalted than usual; for the Church celebrates many feasts throughout the course of the year, in which, although she has her accustomed joys, yet new ones, We should rejoice with the Church in the conversion of others: such as on this day, she does not have. For she rejoices differently over things always possessed, and differently over great gains recently made. For which reason we too are lifted up with greater joys, because we see the Church suddenly giving birth to new peoples; and we now rejoice in the belief of those whose harshness we once lamented. Therefore the occasion of our past tribulation has become the matter of our joy. We groaned when we were burdened, when we were reviled; but those groans achieved this: that those who through infidelity were a burden to us might become our crown through their conversion. For the Church expresses this with gratitude in the Psalms, saying: In tribulation You gave me room. And Sara, when she is often desired by kings, feels no stain on her purity, and makes Abraham rich on account of her beauty. the Church grows through persecutions: For Abraham is enriched by the very kings by whom Sara is desired. Rightly, therefore, the Catholic Church draws the nations, whom she has perceived through the beauty of her faith, to the gain of her Bridegroom, that is, of Christ, and through those kingdoms makes her husband rich, through which she perceived herself to be troubled. For thus, when from the beginning she is provoked, or is bitten by the teeth of the envious, when she is oppressed,

she is instructed, and when she is persecuted, she is enlarged; for by her patience she either overcomes or wins over her rivals. For the divine word says to her: Many daughters have gathered riches, but you have surpassed them all. But it is not surprising that heresies are called daughters; rather, it should be noted that they are placed in the rank of thorns. They are thorns because they are nourished outside the paradise of God, that is, outside the Catholic Church; and this is proved not by the reading of our own understanding, but by the authority of the divine Scripture, as Solomon says: As a lily among thorns, so is my beloved among daughters. Prov. 31:29; Cant. 2:2 Therefore, lest it should seem a great thing to you that he called heresies daughters, he immediately numbers them among thorns. Heresies, I say, are found to exist in some corner of the world or in one nation; but the Catholic Church, as she is spread throughout the whole world, so she is also constituted by the fellowship of all nations. Rightly, therefore, the heresies gather riches in part from the caverns in which they hide; but the Catholic Church, enriched on the watchtower of the whole world, surpasses them all.

[8] Exult, therefore, and be glad, O Church of God: rejoice and rise up, one body of Christ; she exults in the return of heretics: clothe yourself with strength and shout with exultation; for your sorrows have been turned to joy, the garment of sadness has been changed to a cloak of gladness. Behold, suddenly forgetting your barrenness and poverty, you have in one birth brought forth innumerable peoples for your Christ. For you profit by your losses and grow by your damage. So great, indeed, is your Bridegroom, by whose authority you are governed, that while He permits you to be plundered for a time, He brings back your spoil to you again and wins your enemies for you. Just as the farmer, just as the fisherman, while he looks to future gains, does not reckon what he sows and what he has invested as losses. Therefore, do not weep or mourn that some have temporarily departed from you, whom you see returning to you with great gains. Exult, therefore, in the confidence of faith and by the merit of your Head. Be strong in faith, since you now see fulfilled what you have long remembered was promised. For the Truth Himself says in the Gospel: It was necessary that Christ should die for the nation, and not only for the nation, but to gather into one the children of God who had been scattered. John 11:51 You indeed proclaim in the Psalms, saying to those who hate peace: Magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together. Ps. 34:4 And again: When the peoples are gathered together, and the Kings, to serve the Lord. Ps. 102:23

[8] Knowing through prophetic oracles, through evangelical teachings, through apostolic documents how sweet charity is and how delightful unity is, you preach nothing but the union of nations, you sigh for nothing but the unity of peoples, you disseminate nothing but the goods of peace and charity. Rejoice, therefore, in the Lord, that you have not been defrauded of your desire; she gathers the fruits of her labors: for those whom for so long a time, with groaning as witness and continual prayer, you conceived, now after the ice, after the winter, after the hardness of frost, after the austerity of snow, like the crop of joyful fields and the glad flowers of spring or the smiling vine-shoots on their stocks, you have suddenly brought forth in joy.

[9] hope is given for the conversion of the whole world: Therefore, brethren, let us exult in the Lord with all the charity of our soul and shout for joy to God our Savior. From now on, through the things which have already been accomplished, let us believe that the things which are still expected to be fulfilled are true. For the words which were spoken by the Lord saying: I have other sheep which are not of this fold, and I must bring them also, that there may be one flock and one shepherd -- behold, we see them to have been fulfilled. John 10:16 For which reason let us not doubt that the whole world can believe in Christ and come together into one Church. For again we have learned from the Gospel, as He Himself testifies: And this Gospel of the kingdom, He says, shall be preached in the whole world, as a testimony to all nations; and then, He says, the end will come. Matt. 24:14 If, therefore, some part of the world or some barbarian nation remains which the faith of Christ has not illumined, let us by no means doubt that it will believe and come into the one Church, if we think that what the Lord has said is true. Therefore, brethren, goodness has been placed in the stead of malice, and truth has come to the aid of error; so that, because pride through diversity of tongues had separated nations from unity, charity might gather them again into the bosom of fraternity; and just as the Lord is the one possessor of the whole world, so too the possession of His might be one heart and one mind. Ps. 2:8 Ask of Me, He says, and I will give You the nations for Your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for Your possession. For this reason, the whole human race was propagated from one man, so that those who proceed from that one might have one mind, might seek and love unity. The natural order, therefore, demands that those who draw their origin from one man should maintain mutual charity; and that they should not dissent from the truth of the faith who are not separated by natural propagation. the prophecies agree, Heresies and divisions, however, flow from the fountain of vices; whence whoever comes to gentleness returns from vice to nature; for just as it is natural for unity to be formed from many, so it is a vice to decline the sweetness of fraternity. Let us pour ourselves, therefore, with our whole mind into joy; so that, because the nations had perished through the zeal of contention, Christ might procure for them one Church in friendship, in which He might again bring them together through the harmony of charity. Concerning this Church, the Prophet prophesies, saying: My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations. Isa. 56:7 And again: It shall come to pass in the last days, he says, that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow to it, and many peoples shall come and say: Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob. For Christ is the mountain, and the house of the God of Jacob is His one Church, to which the Prophet announces both the concourse of nations and the gathering of peoples. Of which again in another place the Prophet says: Arise, shine, O Jerusalem, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you; and nations, he says, shall walk in your light, and Kings in the splendor of your rising. Isa. 60:2 Lift up your eyes round about and see: all these have gathered themselves together and have come to you; and the sons of strangers, he says, shall build up your walls, and their Kings shall minister to you. And to make known what was to come to the nation or people that would withdraw from the communion of the one Church, he continued: For the nation and the kingdom that will not serve you shall perish. In another place likewise he says: Behold, a nation which you did not know you shall call, and nations which did not know you shall run to you. Isa. 55:5

[10] The Church is one in Christ. For Christ the Lord is one, whose one holy possession is the Church throughout the whole world. He, therefore, is the head, and she is the body, of whom it is said in the beginning of Genesis: The two shall be one flesh. Gen. 2:24 Which the Apostle understands of Christ and the Church. Eph. 5:32 Since, therefore, Christ wills to have one Church from all nations, whoever is a stranger to her, though he be called by the name of Christ, is not contained in the structure of Christ's body. For heresy, which rejects the unity of the Catholic Church, because it loves Christ with an adulterous love, obtains the place not of a wife but of a concubine. For Scripture truly says that two shall be in one flesh, namely Christ and the Church; in which place the harlot finds no third. For one, says Christ, is my beloved, one is my bride, one is the daughter of her mother. Cant. 6:8-9 Of which the same Church also proclaims, saying: I belong to my beloved, and my beloved belongs to me. Let heresies now seek by whom they may be corrupted, or whose brothel they have been made; for they have departed from the immaculate bed of Christ. From which, knowing how precious the bond of charity is, let us praise God all the more in this celebration: that the nations, for whom the blood of His only-begotten Son was shed, He has not suffered to be devoured outside the one fold by the teeth of the devil. with the shame of the heretics, Let the aged plunderer, therefore, lament that he has lost his spoil, for we see fulfilled what we heard through the prophesying of the Prophet: Isa. 49:25 Indeed, he says, this captivity is taken away from the strong, and what had been taken from the mighty is saved. For the wall of discord which the devil had built, the peace of Christ has destroyed, and the house which through division strove in mutual slaughter is now joined together with Christ as the cornerstone. Let us all say, therefore: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will. For no reward can be compared to charity. Therefore it is placed above every joy, because charity itself holds the primacy among all virtues. It remains, moreover, that all of us, having been made unanimously one kingdom, should approach God with prayers both for the stability of the earthly kingdom and for the happiness of the heavenly kingdom; so that the kingdom and nation which glorified Christ on earth may be glorified by Him, not only on earth but also in heaven. Amen.

Section III. Letters of Pope St. Gregory to St. Leander. The latter's death, burial; translations.

[11] The events related so far occurred before St. Gregory the Great was assumed to the Supreme Pontificate; to whom, around the beginning of this dignity, St. Leander wrote the letter about baptism indicated by St. Isidore, to which the holy Pope responded in Indiction 9, in the month of May, in the year 591. It is letter 41 of book 1 of the Register, from which we gather what St. Leander had written to him. It begins thus: I would have wished with all my intention to respond to your letters, St. Gregory writes to him, as to his first friend: had not the labor of pastoral care so worn me down that I would rather weep than say anything. Which your Reverence too discerns vigilantly in the very text of my letters, since I write negligently to one whom I love ardently... If, therefore, you love me, dearest Brother, extend to me the hand of your prayer in these waves, so that by helping me in my labors, you yourself may become stronger in your own labors from the very exchange of reward. Moreover, I cannot express in words the joy I feel that our common son, the most glorious King Reccared, has been converted to the Catholic faith with the most complete devotion. he rejoices over the converted Goths: When through your writings you describe to me his character, you have made me love even one whom I do not know. But since you know the snares of the ancient enemy, who proposes a more violent war against those who have conquered, let your Holiness now watch more carefully over him, so that he may bring to completion the good things that have been begun, and not exalt himself over the good works he has accomplished, so that he may hold the faith

he has learned through his life also by the merits of his conduct; and that he may show by his works that he is a citizen of the eternal kingdom; so that after many courses of years he may pass from kingdom to kingdom. Concerning the triple immersion of baptism, nothing truer can be answered he approves his writings on Baptism: than what you yourselves have perceived: because in one faith the diverse custom of the holy Church does no harm... To your most sweet fraternity I have sent certain books, the list of which I have appended below. Moreover, those things which had been said in the exposition of the blessed Job, and which you write should be sent to you; because I had originally directed these to those requesting them through homilies, I have endeavored to convert them into the form of books, which are now still being copied by scribes. And had not the haste of the present bearer constrained me, I would have wished to send you everything without any diminution; especially since I wrote this very work for your Reverence, so that I might be judged to have labored and sweated for him whom I love above all others. Moreover, if you know that times are granted to you free from ecclesiastical occupation, he hints at things to be done: you know what is now to be done; although, even absent in body, I always see you present to me, because I carry the image of your countenance impressed within the depths of my heart. Given in the month of May.

[12] The second letter of St. Gregory to St. Leander, written in Indiction 13, in the year 594 or the following, is letter 45 of book 4, which I add here as a further token of love. It is as follows: With what ardor I thirst to see you, because you love me greatly, you read in the tablets of your own heart. But because I cannot see you, separated by so great a distance of lands, I have done the one thing he sends the Pastoral Rule, which charity dictated to me concerning you: namely, to send to your Holiness, with our common son the priest Probinus coming to you, the book of the Pastoral Rule which I wrote at the beginning of my episcopate, and the exposition of Job: and the books which, as you know, I composed some time ago in exposition of the blessed Job. Let your Holiness study these diligently and more diligently bewail my sins, lest it be a sin of greater guilt to me that I seem to know what I neglect to do. In this Church, moreover, how I am pressed by such great tumults of causes, the very brevity of my letter makes known to your charity, since I speak little to him whom I love more than all others.

[13] But what sort of letters St. Leander sent in return, St. Gregory indicates in letter 123 of book 7, of which this is the beginning: I received the letter of your Holiness, written with the pen of charity alone. he praises his letter full of charity: For the tongue had dipped from the heart what it poured upon the page of paper. Moreover, good and wise men were present when it was read, whose hearts were immediately moved to compunction. Each one began to seize you with the hand of love in his own heart, because in that letter it was not to hear but to see the sweetness of your mind. They were kindled and amazed, each one, and the very fire of the hearers demonstrated what had been the ardor of the speaker. For unless torches first burn in themselves, they do not set another ablaze. There, therefore, we saw with what charity your mind had burned, which thus set others ablaze as well. As for your life, which I always remember with great veneration, they scarcely knew; but the height of your heart was made manifest to them from the humility of your speech. And with various things interposed, toward the end he has this: Your Holiness writes that you are afflicted by the trouble of gout; he consoles him about his gout: by whose constant pain I too am vehemently worn. But consolation will be easy if, amid the scourges we endure, we recall to memory whatever sins we have committed; and we recognize that these are not scourges but gifts, if we purge by the pain of the flesh what we sinned by the pleasure of the flesh. Furthermore, from the blessing of the Blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles, we have sent you the Pallium, to be used at the solemnities of Masses alone. Having sent which, I should have strongly admonished you on how you ought to live. he sends the Pallium. But I suppress my words, since you surpass words by your conduct. May Almighty God guard you by His protection and bring you to the reward of the heavenly homeland with a manifold fruit of souls. As for me, how greatly I am oppressed by occupation and weakness, this brief letter attests, in which I speak little to him whom I love greatly. Then the same St. Gregory, in the following letter addressed to Reccared, King of the Visigoths, inserts this: To our most reverend Brother and Co-bishop Leander we have sent the Pallium from the See of the Blessed Apostle Peter, which we owed both to ancient custom and to our own practice and to his goodness and gravity.

[14] These letters are noted as given in Indiction 2, in the year 598 or the following. But some believe they have been displaced from their proper position, and that St. Gregory did not wish to delay so long either the sending of the Pallium to him when St. Leander died: whom he testifies he loved above all others and more than everyone, or the congratulation made to King Reccared for his conversion to the Catholic faith, about which he had written to St. Leander in the earlier letter of the year 591. In addition, it appears that St. Isidore succeeded his brother St. Leander after his death in the year 596, whom St. Ildefonsus in his booklet on illustrious men, chapter 8, asserts from certain knowledge held the honor of the Pontificate for almost forty years. But his cleric Redemptus adds that he consummated his end in peace on the day before the Nones of April, with the moon at 19, in Era 674, that is, in the year 636. If forty years are subtracted from this, it follows necessarily that he received the Episcopate as early as the year 596, in which year by this calculation St. Leander would have departed this life; but it does not seem possible that his death and the succession of St. Isidore could have remained unknown to St. Gregory three or four years later. The death of St. Isidore is further confirmed by the succession of Bishop Honoratus, who on the fifth day before the Ides of January, in the second year of King Chintila, Era 676, subscribed to the Sixth Council of Toledo; whence it is certain that St. Isidore had died before this, at least in the year 637, on which feast day these matters can be more accurately examined. For now it suffices to have indicated these things and to assign the death of St. Leander to the end of the sixth century.

[15] outstanding in virtues, In the above-indicated very ancient Roman Breviary, the following is also recorded about the virtues, death, and burial of St. Leander: The holy Leander mortified his body daily in God's service; on account of which he obtained a celebrated name throughout all Spain. For he was a man full of fear of God, of the highest prudence, devoted to almsgiving, just in judgments, sparing in passing sentence, constant in prayer, and wonderful in the divine praises; most apt in correcting doubtful matters of divine offices, an outstanding defender of all the churches, firm in restraining the proud, greatly abounding in piety, showing himself so beloved in the streams of charity that out of charity he denied nothing to any petitioner. He flourished under Reccared, a devout and especially glorious man, in whose times he closed the term of his mortal life at Seville with a wonderful death on the third day before the Ides of March, Era 640, he is buried in the church of SS. Justa and Rufina: and is entombed within the church of SS. Justa and Rufina, in which he had long served God; where many benefits are bestowed through his merits and those of the blessed Virgins. So much from that source. SS. Justa and Rufina are venerated on the nineteenth of July; in their church, the illustrious deeds of St. Leander can be seen partly depicted and partly read in verses, he is translated to the Cathedral Church, as Antonio de Quintanadueñas attests in his book on the Saints of Seville. The same author relates that the body of St. Leander was at some time translated from the said church of SS. Justa and Rufina to the Cathedral, and that the memory of this Translation is noted in a very ancient Breviary of Seville for the sixth of April; and that later, when it was in the old chapel of the nave of the church, it was transported on the eleventh of November 1543, on the feast of St. Martin, to another chapel of the cloister toward the west; whence again in the year 1578, together with the bodies of the Kings, it was brought into the chapel of the Blessed Virgin known as "of the Kings," where it is preserved beneath the high altar. But his church rejoices in possessing his sacred head enclosed in a silver half-length statue. So Quintanadueñas. Rodrigo Caro, in book 2 of the Antiquities of Seville, folio 54, also mentions that the said body of St. Leander is preserved in the royal chapel together with the body of the most holy King Ferdinand, the glorious Conqueror of this region.

[16] These are the principal things which we have found concerning St. Leander as most worthy of credence. Other things written by various authors. There is a certain Life of his written by Prudencio Sandoval and translated into Latin by Juan Horion and published by Christopher Brower; which we omit because many things have been taken from the spurious Maximus. Among other things, from the constant tradition among the Spaniards, it is related that St. Gregory sent to Leander an image of the Virgin Mother of God, which is today seen at Guadalupe, a singular monument of ancient sanctity in these kingdoms of Castile. We touched upon some things about that image on the eleventh of March among the Omissions, where Simon Roland, by others called Simon Vela, was treated. Concerning his monasticism, which St. Isidore mentions, various authors inquire into various things which we do not judge worthwhile to report.