Leo the Great: The First Pope Doctor of the Church
Pope Leo the Great (440-461): His place and date of birth are unknown but we are gratified by what we do know of Pope St. Leo. He served as a deacon during the reign of Pope Celestine I (422-432). We know he was involved in combating Nestorianism and during the papacy of Sixtus III (432-440), he was sent to Gaul by Emperor Valentinian III on a diplomatic mission to settle a dispute. While in Gaul on this mission he was chosen to succeed to the papacy at the death of Sixtus. At the time he ascended to the papal chair, the West was experiencing the fall of Western Roman Empire to barbarian tribes and the Eastern Empire was consumed with its own problems, especially doctrinal disputes. Leo’s chief aim was to preserve the unity of the Church.
Pope Leo had to combat a long list of heretical sects, including Arians, Pelagians, Nestorians and Manichaeans. He initiated a series of sermons to clear up doctrinal difficulties between the Western and Eastern churches. We have extant, all or portions of 96 of his sermons and 43 of his letters. They are remarkable for their “profundity, clearness of diction and elevated style.” Some of the Manichaeans were converted but he burned the books and banished the remainder (who had been driven from Africa by the Vandals) from Rome and warned other Italian bishops to do the same. The Emperor issued a decree to support this and even Oriental bishops complied. He also arranged for a synod of bishops in Spain and Gaul in 446-447 to deal with the heresy of Priscillianism (derived from Gnostic-Manichaen doctrine taught in Egypt). St. Augustine had written a famous work to oppose them, De Mendacio.
The primacy of the Bishop of Rome was asserted by Leo as he insisted on ecclesiastical discipline throughout the Church. He was particularly effective in solving the theological disputes which consumed the Eastern Church. In the Monophysitism controversy his energy and diplomatic skills prevailed. Bishop Flavian had appealed to Leo for assistance against a council of local bishops out to remove him as Patriarch of Constantinople. Flavian sent a letter to Pope Leo the Great in 449 (after holding a Council among his clergy to settle a doctrinal dispute) showing what they were teaching. Leo sent his famous letter, the Tome of Leo, which presented a very balanced theology on the personhood of Christ, accepting the two natures of Christ, but emphasizing their close, inseparable unity. He wrote, “One and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, known in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation” (p.222, Aquilina).
This tome was solemnly accepted as Church doctrine by the Council of Chalcedon in 451, which had been called by the Emperor at the behest of Flavian’s enemies. Pope Leo issued a circular letter in 453 confirming their doctrinal decisions.
The other response was to fight for the welfare of the population and here we have an image of Pope Leo the Great (440-461). He defended the city of Rome when it was threatened with destruction on two occasions. In the year 452 A.D., Attila and the Huns had broken into Italy and sacked cities. About to do the same to Rome, Leo went out into the mountains to meet Attila and persuaded him not to sack the city by God’s grace. How was this accomplished? According to sr. Catherine Goddard Clark:
Attila's servants, so the story is told, asked him why he had reversed his custom and capitulated so easily to the Bishop of Rome. The brigand chief answered that all the while the Pope was speaking, he, Attila, the generator of terror in others, was himself consumed in fear, for there had appeared in the air above the Pope's head a figure in the dress of a priest, holding in his hand a drawn sword with which he made as if to kill him unless he consented to do as Leo asked. The figure was that of Peter!"
In 455 A.D. Genseric (Gunderic) the Vandal threatened also to destroy Rome, but this time Leo could only convince them not to destroy the city, which they sacked. He appealed to him to not mercilessly slaughter the population. It was the Pope and Christian bishops who remained with the people, stood in the gap and cared for them as good shepherds as the society was disintegrating around them. Thus, Leo is an example of heroism.
By the year 476 we have the last of the Roman emperors in the West, Romulus "Augustulus," was deposed by the Gothic king Odoacer. At that point all of the rulers of the West came from these various tribes. Christianity was tolerated, somewhat persecuted, but the Western empire was dead. In the midst of this were seeds of a new birth. Christianity’s task was to convert these conquerors. Christians were not totally destroyed, though there cities might have been, so there task was to convert these tribes.
This excerpt from St. Leo's Sermon 2 on the Ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ (Sermo 2 de Ascensione1-4: PL 54,397-399) is used in the Roman Catholic Office of Readings for Friday of the 6th week in Eastertide. He explains how the Ascenion increases our faith and how our Redeemer's visible presence after the Ascension passes into the sacraments.
At Easter, beloved brethren, it was the Lord’s resurrection which was the cause of our joy; our present rejoicing is on account of his ascension into heaven. With all due solemnity we are commemorating that day on which our poor human nature was carried up, in Christ, above all the hosts of heaven, above all the ranks of angels, beyond the highest heavenly powers to the very throne of God the Father. It is upon this ordered structure of divine acts that we have been firmly established, so that the grace of God may show itself still more marvelous when, in spite of the withdrawal from men’s sight of everything that is rightly felt to command their reverence, faith does not fail, hope is not shaken, charity does not grow cold.
For such is the power of great minds, such is the light of truly believing souls, that they put unhesitating faith in what is not seen with the bodily eye; they fix their desires on what is beyond sight. Such fidelity could never be born in our hearts, nor could anyone be justified by faith, if our salvation lay only in what was visible.
And so our Redeemer’s visible presence has passed into the sacraments. Our faith is nobler and stronger because sight has been replaced by a doctrine whose authority is accepted by believing hearts, enlightened from on high. This faith was increased by the Lord’s ascension and strengthened by the gift of the Spirit; it would remain unshaken by fetters and imprisonment, exile and hunger, fire and ravening beasts, and the most refined tortures ever devised by brutal persecutors. Throughout the world women no less than men, tender girls as well as boys, have given their life’s blood in the struggle for this faith. It is a faith that has driven out devils, healed the sick and raised the dead.
Even the blessed apostles, though they had been strengthened by so many miracles and instructed by so much teaching, took fright at the cruel suffering of the Lord’s passion and could not accept his resurrection without hesitation. Yet they made such progress through his ascension that they now found joy in what had terrified them before. They were able to fix their minds on Christ’s divinity as he sat at the right hand of his Father, since what was presented to their bodily eyes no longer hindered them from turning all their attention to the realization that he had not left his Father when he came down to earth, nor had he abandoned his disciples when he ascended into heaven.
The truth is that the Son of Man was revealed as Son of God in a more perfect and transcendent way once he had entered into his Father’s glory; he now began to be indescribably more present in his divinity to those from whom he was further removed in his humanity. A more mature faith enabled their minds to stretch upward to the Son in his equality with the Father; it no longer needed contact with Christ’s tangible body, in which as man he is inferior to the Father. For while his glorified body retained the same nature, the faith of those who believed in him was now summoned to heights where, as the Father’s equal, the only-begotten Son is reached not by physical handling but by spiritual discernment.
Pope Leo the Great (440-461): His place and date of birth are unknown but we are gratified by what we do know of Pope St. Leo. He served as a deacon during the reign of Pope Celestine I (422-432). We know he was involved in combating Nestorianism and during the papacy of Sixtus III (432-440), he was sent to Gaul by Emperor Valentinian III on a diplomatic mission to settle a dispute. While in Gaul on this mission he was chosen to succeed to the papacy at the death of Sixtus. At the time he ascended to the papal chair, the West was experiencing the fall of Western Roman Empire to barbarian tribes and the Eastern Empire was consumed with its own problems, especially doctrinal disputes. Leo’s chief aim was to preserve the unity of the Church.
Pope Leo had to combat a long list of heretical sects, including Arians, Pelagians, Nestorians and Manichaeans. He initiated a series of sermons to clear up doctrinal difficulties between the Western and Eastern churches. We have extant, all or portions of 96 of his sermons and 43 of his letters. They are remarkable for their “profundity, clearness of diction and elevated style.” Some of the Manichaeans were converted but he burned the books and banished the remainder (who had been driven from Africa by the Vandals) from Rome and warned other Italian bishops to do the same. The Emperor issued a decree to support this and even Oriental bishops complied. He also arranged for a synod of bishops in Spain and Gaul in 446-447 to deal with the heresy of Priscillianism (derived from Gnostic-Manichaen doctrine taught in Egypt). St. Augustine had written a famous work to oppose them, De Mendacio.
The primacy of the Bishop of Rome was asserted by Leo as he insisted on ecclesiastical discipline throughout the Church. He was particularly effective in solving the theological disputes which consumed the Eastern Church. In the Monophysitism controversy his energy and diplomatic skills prevailed. Bishop Flavian had appealed to Leo for assistance against a council of local bishops out to remove him as Patriarch of Constantinople. Flavian sent a letter to Pope Leo the Great in 449 (after holding a Council among his clergy to settle a doctrinal dispute) showing what they were teaching. Leo sent his famous letter, the Tome of Leo, which presented a very balanced theology on the personhood of Christ, accepting the two natures of Christ, but emphasizing their close, inseparable unity. He wrote, “One and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, known in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation” (p.222, Aquilina).
This tome was solemnly accepted as Church doctrine by the Council of Chalcedon in 451, which had been called by the Emperor at the behest of Flavian’s enemies. Pope Leo issued a circular letter in 453 confirming their doctrinal decisions.
The other response was to fight for the welfare of the population and here we have an image of Pope Leo the Great (440-461). He defended the city of Rome when it was threatened with destruction on two occasions. In the year 452 A.D., Attila and the Huns had broken into Italy and sacked cities. About to do the same to Rome, Leo went out into the mountains to meet Attila and persuaded him not to sack the city by God’s grace. How was this accomplished? According to sr. Catherine Goddard Clark:
Attila's servants, so the story is told, asked him why he had reversed his custom and capitulated so easily to the Bishop of Rome. The brigand chief answered that all the while the Pope was speaking, he, Attila, the generator of terror in others, was himself consumed in fear, for there had appeared in the air above the Pope's head a figure in the dress of a priest, holding in his hand a drawn sword with which he made as if to kill him unless he consented to do as Leo asked. The figure was that of Peter!"
In 455 A.D. Genseric (Gunderic) the Vandal threatened also to destroy Rome, but this time Leo could only convince them not to destroy the city, which they sacked. He appealed to him to not mercilessly slaughter the population. It was the Pope and Christian bishops who remained with the people, stood in the gap and cared for them as good shepherds as the society was disintegrating around them. Thus, Leo is an example of heroism.
By the year 476 we have the last of the Roman emperors in the West, Romulus "Augustulus," was deposed by the Gothic king Odoacer. At that point all of the rulers of the West came from these various tribes. Christianity was tolerated, somewhat persecuted, but the Western empire was dead. In the midst of this were seeds of a new birth. Christianity’s task was to convert these conquerors. Christians were not totally destroyed, though there cities might have been, so there task was to convert these tribes.
This excerpt from St. Leo's Sermon 2 on the Ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ (Sermo 2 de Ascensione1-4: PL 54,397-399) is used in the Roman Catholic Office of Readings for Friday of the 6th week in Eastertide. He explains how the Ascenion increases our faith and how our Redeemer's visible presence after the Ascension passes into the sacraments.
At Easter, beloved brethren, it was the Lord’s resurrection which was the cause of our joy; our present rejoicing is on account of his ascension into heaven. With all due solemnity we are commemorating that day on which our poor human nature was carried up, in Christ, above all the hosts of heaven, above all the ranks of angels, beyond the highest heavenly powers to the very throne of God the Father. It is upon this ordered structure of divine acts that we have been firmly established, so that the grace of God may show itself still more marvelous when, in spite of the withdrawal from men’s sight of everything that is rightly felt to command their reverence, faith does not fail, hope is not shaken, charity does not grow cold.
For such is the power of great minds, such is the light of truly believing souls, that they put unhesitating faith in what is not seen with the bodily eye; they fix their desires on what is beyond sight. Such fidelity could never be born in our hearts, nor could anyone be justified by faith, if our salvation lay only in what was visible.
And so our Redeemer’s visible presence has passed into the sacraments. Our faith is nobler and stronger because sight has been replaced by a doctrine whose authority is accepted by believing hearts, enlightened from on high. This faith was increased by the Lord’s ascension and strengthened by the gift of the Spirit; it would remain unshaken by fetters and imprisonment, exile and hunger, fire and ravening beasts, and the most refined tortures ever devised by brutal persecutors. Throughout the world women no less than men, tender girls as well as boys, have given their life’s blood in the struggle for this faith. It is a faith that has driven out devils, healed the sick and raised the dead.
Even the blessed apostles, though they had been strengthened by so many miracles and instructed by so much teaching, took fright at the cruel suffering of the Lord’s passion and could not accept his resurrection without hesitation. Yet they made such progress through his ascension that they now found joy in what had terrified them before. They were able to fix their minds on Christ’s divinity as he sat at the right hand of his Father, since what was presented to their bodily eyes no longer hindered them from turning all their attention to the realization that he had not left his Father when he came down to earth, nor had he abandoned his disciples when he ascended into heaven.
The truth is that the Son of Man was revealed as Son of God in a more perfect and transcendent way once he had entered into his Father’s glory; he now began to be indescribably more present in his divinity to those from whom he was further removed in his humanity. A more mature faith enabled their minds to stretch upward to the Son in his equality with the Father; it no longer needed contact with Christ’s tangible body, in which as man he is inferior to the Father. For while his glorified body retained the same nature, the faith of those who believed in him was now summoned to heights where, as the Father’s equal, the only-begotten Son is reached not by physical handling but by spiritual discernment.
