LEO I, Pope, called the Great, Saint. - He is the first Pope to whom posterity deservedly attributed the title of Great: his was one of the longest and most glorious pontificates that history records (440-61). Benedict XIV proclaimed him a doctor of the Church on 15 October 1754.
The Liber Pontificalis calls him "natione Tuscus," and from this adjective it was deduced that he was born at Volterra, where the cult of this Pope is ancient and widespread; but most historians make him a native of Rome, relying on a passage of Epistle XXXI, 4 and on another in the Chronicle of Prosper (PL 51, 748), in which Rome is called his homeland, although some believe that here "homeland" has a metaphorical meaning. The most probable opinion is that L. was born in Rome to a family originally from Etruria. Since he was elected pope in 440, his birth is to be placed toward the end of the 4th century. Almost certainly he studied in the Roman schools, in which he had the opportunity to become expert in the use of a polished and harmonious Latin style and to acquire a vast theological culture.
Having enrolled in the Roman clergy, he was ordained deacon and, through his learning and his skill in handling affairs, became one of the most authoritative members of the papal court.
In 430 he urged Cassian to write a work on the Incarnation to refute the errors of Nestorius. Cassian obeyed and in the preface calls L. the glory of the Roman Church and of the ecclesiastical ministry. To him, in the following year, the patriarch of Alexandria Cyril addressed himself in order to thwart the ambitious designs of the patriarch of Jerusalem, John (cf. Epist., CXIX, 4). In 439 he caused the attempts of the Pelagian bishop Julian of Eclanum to be reinstated in his episcopal see to fail. Moreover he was, if not the author, the inspirer of the work De vocatione omnium gentium, attributed by the majority of critics to Prosper of Aquitaine.
When in 439 a dispute broke out between the Roman generals Aetius and Albinus, which was about to degenerate into a disastrous civil war, L. was sent by the emperor Valentinian III to Gaul to reconcile the two rivals. While he was successfully attending to his mission, Pope Sixtus III having died, the clergy and people of Rome unanimously summoned him to the pontifical throne. Contemporary chroniclers note that, whereas sometimes papal elections had given rise to long conflicts, that of L. took place "mirabili pace" and with equal "mirabili patientia" the Roman people waited for fully forty days for his return from Gaul. On 29 September 440 the deacon L. was consecrated bishop of Rome and supreme pontiff. L.'s activity during his pontificate was directed principally at preserving intact the purity of the faith by combating the various heresies, at reorganizing and strengthening the ecclesiastical organization, watching over the conduct of the clergy and the faithful, and giving norms concerning the administration of property and liturgical functions. As testimony to this grandiose activity there remain his letters and his sermons, which are also a historical source of the first order.
Because of the Vandal invasion of Africa, many Manichaeans had taken refuge in Italy, and several were discovered in Rome. The Pope undertook to combat them with extreme energy. He solicited an imperial rescript which, renewing the ancient edicts, placed the Manichaeans under ban from the Empire; in his sermons he combated their doctrines; he promoted a severe inquiry into their gatherings, and grave scandals came to light. With a circular letter (Epist., VII) he informed the Italian bishops of what had happened and exhorted them that the evil plant of Manichaeism, uprooted in Rome, should not take root elsewhere.
The doctrines of the heretic Priscillian were spreading widely in Spain. The bishop Turibius informed the Pope of this, and he, in a long letter (Epist., XV), refuted the errors of the Priscillianists and set out with precision and clarity the true Catholic doctrine.
L. intervened effectively also against the heresy of Pelagius, both by having its errors refuted and by inviting the bishop of Aquileia to convene a synod for an inquiry into priests infected with Pelagianism.
The greater part of L.'s activity was spent in combating the Eutychian or Monophysite heresy, which admitted only one nature in the Redeemer. Eutyches, having been condemned, appealed to the Pope and to the Emperor. The latter proposed to assemble a council at Ephesus to settle the question. In that assembly, which L. branded with the name "latrocinium Ephesinum," Eutyches, through the underhanded intervention of the imperial envoys, was rehabilitated. L. protested. Meanwhile, the emperor Theodosius II, protector of Eutyches, having died and the pious empress Pulcheria having succeeded to the throne, L. obtained that a new ecumenical council be convened at Chalcedon. In it the errors of Eutyches were condemned and a formula of faith was issued in which is affirmed the existence in Christ of a twofold nature, the divine and the human, in a single person. The Pope's letter to the patriarch of Constantinople, commonly called Tomus ad Flavianum, was accepted in its entirety by the Fathers of the Council, who recognized that "through the mouth of L. Peter had spoken." It still enjoys great authority in the East and in the West, and the bishops of Gaul, writing to the Pope, affirm that they accept it as a symbol of faith.
The collections of Decretals have also preserved several epistles of L. from which appears his vigilant and solicitous care in correcting the abuses that were infiltrating the ecclesiastical organization.
Bishops were elected by the clergy and the people; some bishop attempted to designate his own successor; this could in time transform dioceses into so many small principalities more or less hereditary. L. intervened energetically to put an end to this abuse. He intervened also to reprove irregular elections of priests, elected bishops against their will or imposed by force. The Council of Nicaea had established that every bishop should remain for his whole life in that see in which he had been elected. Some Spanish bishop had attempted to have himself transferred from a humbler see to another richer one. Here too L. intervened and decreed that the bishop who, despising his own small town, sought to obtain a greater see, should have neither the one nor the other.
He defended with rigid firmness the rights of the Church of Rome against the pretensions of the patriarchs of Constantinople; he threatened with grave penalty the Sicilian bishops who had alienated ecclesiastical property; he forbade that one bishop take a cleric away from another bishop and ordered that metropolitans gather the bishops of the province in a synod twice a year. He used equal firmness of energy with Hilary, bishop of Arles, a man certainly pious and zealous, but who had sometimes exceeded in his zeal. He gave norms concerning the administration of Baptism, of Holy Orders, of Penance and of Matrimony.
The most glorious episode of L.'s pontificate is his encounter with Attila. The king of the Huns had hurled his hordes against the Western Roman Empire, pushing as far as the center of Gaul. Defeated by the Roman general Aetius and by the Visigoths, commanded by Theodoric, in the summer of 451, he had withdrawn into Pannonia.
There, having reorganized his ranks, in the spring of the following year, after crossing the Julian Alps, which Aetius had imprudently left undefended, he advanced to plunder the Po Valley and from there to move against Rome. Having destroyed Aquileia, he had established himself near Mantua and was pushing his hordes to occupy the principal cities of upper Italy. Vicenza, Verona, Brescia, Bergamo, Pavia and even Milan had fallen into his power. The imperial court and the Roman citizens were in the grip of the deepest terror and the utmost despair. In such a sad predicament, the emperor Valentinian III, the Senate and the Roman people found no better course than to send an embassy headed by L. to treat with the king of the Huns. L. accepted the difficult mission and, together with the senators Gennadius, Avienus and Trigetius, set out from Rome "trusting," as Prosper of Aquitaine says, "in the help of Heaven, which never abandons the good in their misfortunes."
Contemporary chroniclers affirm that Attila showed himself very content and full of joy at the coming of the Supreme Pontiff, head of the Roman Church, who, having left his see, had come to him.
The Thracian historian Priscus, who was then in the camp of the Huns, says that Attila and his court were seized with great terror at the memory of the sudden end of the Gothic king Alaric after the capture of Rome; it was feared that Attila would be struck by divine wrath if he were to plunder the Holy City. It may very probably be conjectured that this was one of the arguments that L.'s eloquence employed to induce the "Scourge of God" to renounce the plan of moving against Rome. Be that as it may, what is certain is that, immediately after the meeting with the Pope, Attila ordered his hordes to cease all hostilities against the regions of northern Italy. Moreover, having promised to conclude a peace with the emperor, he withdrew beyond the Danube.
the African shores, he landed at Porto, from where he undertook the journey to Rome. The Emperor, the court, the magistrates and the aristocrats abandoned the city. Even in this terrible predicament the Roman people had recourse to the Pope. L. obtained from Genseric the promise that no blood would be shed, that no Roman citizen would be killed or tortured, and that no building would be set on fire.
The Roman populace, terrified and weeping, took refuge in the churches of Rome, while the Vandals plundered public buildings and private dwellings. The sack lasted three weeks, from the 1st to the 28th of June, the vigil of the feast of the apostles Peter and Paul. On that day Genseric, carrying off as a prisoner the unhappy Eudoxia, wife of Valentinian III, and an immense quantity of precious objects, embarked to return to Africa.
In memory of the liberation of Rome from the fires and massacres of the Vandals, it was established that a solemn ceremony of penance and thanksgiving to the apostles Peter and Paul be celebrated every year. This initiative, however, was not always respected. A discourse of L. has come down to us in which the Pope reproaches the Roman people because, forgetful of past troubles and of the graces obtained, on the anniversary of the sack of Rome, instead of going to the basilica of the Holy Apostles, they had preferred to go to watch some extraordinary games that were being given in the circus.
No figure, perhaps, of the 5th century had, like L., full awareness that the political and military power of imperial Rome was now inexorably moving toward its sunset, yet at the same time no one had, like this Pope, an unshakable confidence and a clear vision that a new Rome was rising, whose empire would be much vaster and more glorious than the ancient one. The new Christian Rome, founded by the apostles Peter and Paul, took by divine will the place of the ancient pagan Rome, founded by Romulus and Remus. This theme is the predominant motif of a group of sermons pronounced on the occasion of the solemn commemoration of Sts. Peter and Paul.
L. is the first pope of whom sermons survive. His is a calm and dignified eloquence, though not lacking in lyrical flights and colorful imagery. The discourse proceeds with a serene and affectionate tone, but at the same time firm and solemn. The period unfolds in a series of clauses with a sonorous cadence and sometimes with rhymes and assonances. L. is the most classical and elegant writer of his century, because he knew how to unite in his discourses and his letters the firmness and dignity of the ancient Roman with the affability and piety of the Christian bishop. His writings are of particular importance for the study of relations between Church and State and for the primacy of the Roman See. Some prayers of the Leonine Sacramentary, whose Roman origin is certain, surely go back to L., revealing an affinity of language and style with his authentic works.
L. died on 10 Nov. 461 and was buried in the portico of the basilica of St. Peter. Pope Sergius I, in 688, transferred his body into the interior of the Basilica, placing on the tomb an epitaph that has come down to us. Now his ashes rest beneath the altar of the chapel dedicated to him in the new basilica of St. Peter. The feast, in the West, falls on 11 Apr., in the East on 18 Febr.
Bibliography
Studi: v. specialmente: H. Grisar, Analecta Romana, Roma 1901, v. indice; id., Roma alla fine del mondo antico, nuova ed., ivi 1930, v. indice; H. Gentzeny, Stil und Form der ältesten Papstbriefe bis auf Leo d. G., Tubinga 1901; L. Sallet, Lerecueil patristique de st Léon, in Revue d'hist. ecclés., 6 (1905), pp. 290-14 e 301-303; Th. Steeger, Die Klauseltechnik Leos d. G. in seinen Sermonen, Hassfurt 1908; A. Regnier, St Léon le Grand, Parigi 1910; A. Wille, Bischof Julian von Kios, der Nunzius Leos in Konst., Kempten 1910; C. Turner, The Collection of the dogmatic letters of st Leo, in Miscellanea Ceriani, Milano 1910, pp. 687-95; J. Pachmadt, Leo d. Gr. als Prediger, Elberfeld 1912; R. Galli, S. L. M., in Didakhaleion, nuova serie, 9 (1930), pp. 51-235; C. Silva-Tarouca, Nuovi studi sulle antiche lettere dei papi, Roma 1932, pp. 94-186; L. Prestige, The greek translation of the Tome of st. Leo, in Journ. of theol. Studies, 32 (1930), pp. 182-84; P. Mouterde, Les versions syriaques du Tome de st Léon, in Mélanges de l'Université de St-Joseph, Beyrut 1932, pp. 119-66; P. Santini, Il primato e l'infallibilità del romano pontefice in s. L. M. e gli scrittori greco-russi, Grottaferrata 1936; C. Silva-Tarouca, La tradizione manoscritta del Tomas Leonis, in Studi dedicati alla memoria di P. Ubaldi, Milano 1937, pp. 151-70; F. Di Capua, Il ritmo prosaico nella lettera dei papi e nei documenti della Cancelleria romana. I: S. L., Roma 1937; W. I. Halliwell, The style of pape st. Leo, Washington 1939; M. Pellegrino, La dottrina del corpo mistico in s. L. M., in La scuola cattolica, 1939, pp. 611-615; P. Brezzi, S. L. M., Roma 1945.
Francesco Di Capua
ICONOGRAPHY
Among the earliest and most ancient depictions of L. M. one must include those existing in S. Maria Antiqua (8th century). He is then represented in the scene of the encounter with Attila. Very famous is that of Raphael in the Vatican rooms. The Pope, riding on a white steed in all the pomp of his dignity and with an intrepid bearing, confronts the barbarian captain, preventing him from entering Rome and from violating the sacred tombs of the Apostles. The encounter takes place between the armed ranks, against the background of a romantic reconstruction of the monuments of the imperial city and its ruins: in the stormy sky, rent by sudden luminous flashes, St. Peter and St. Paul appear miraculously, instilling terror in the ranks of the Huns. With such a pictorial depiction Leo X intended to celebrate, more than his predecessor, his own political virtue and his own victory over the French at Novara, in 1513. The same event, besides in a stained-glass window of the choir of the cathedral of Fribourg in Brisgau, executed for the bequest of Charles V, is depicted in the Palazzo Rosa of Amelia (16th century) and by Algardì in a relief of 1648 on the tomb of L. M. in St. Peter's.
Bibliography
Eugenio Battisti