Leo I The Great

              (CE:1440a-1442b)
LEO I THE GREAT (c. 400-461), pope who asserted
uncompromisingly the primacy of the papacy, opposing both the
doctrinal and ecclesiastical claims of Alexandria, represented by the
patriarch DIOSCORUS I. He also helped to defend Rome against
threatened attack by the Huns. He is regarded as a doctor of the
church and saint in the Roman Catholic church (feast day: 10 Nov.)
and as a saint in the Orthodox church (feast day: 18 Feb.).
Leo was an Italian, if not a Roman, by birth. Perhaps he is to be
identified with the "acolyte Leo" who brought letters from the
deacon Sixtus (afterward Pope Sixtus III) to Aurelius, Augustine,
and other African bishops in 418 (Augustine, Letters 191, 194.1). If
so, his date of birth would be about 395. Under Pope Celestine I he
was deacon and, according to Gennadius (De viris illustribus 61), he
was archdeacon of Rome. In the doctrinal struggle between CYRIL
I, patriarch of Alexandria, and NESTORIUS on the nature of Christ,
he was on the anti-Nestorian side, according to Cassian (De
incarnatione, praefatio) and the recipient of a letter from Cyril
urging him not to sanction the promotion of Juvenal of Jerusalem to
patriarchal status. This is his first recorded contact with Alexandria,
and it was a friendly one.
Leo continued to be influential during the pontificate of Sixtus
III, and in 439 Prosper Tiro records in his Chronicon his warning
against readmitting former Bishop Julian of Eclanum to the church,
on the grounds that he had not recanted his Pelagian errors. In 440
Leo was head of a diplomatic mission to Gaul, to heal the breach
between the general Aetius and the pretorian prefect Albinus, when
Sixtus died in mid-August. The Roman church waited for him to
return to consecrate him pope on 29 September 440.
The first five years of Leo's pontificate were occupied mainly
with problems of the church in Rome and the West. His early letters
and sermons denounce the heretical views of Manichees,
Priscillianists, and Pelagius (see PELAGIANISM). In these works
he makes it clear that he regards himself, as bishop of Rome, to be a
mouthpiece of Peter. It was this "power that lives and his authority
that prevails in his See" (Sermon 3.3). In 445, the Western emperor,
Valentinian III, pronounced that in the provinces under his rule,
"whatever the authority of the Apostolic See has enacted, or may
hereafter enact, shall be the law for all." Bishops summoned for trial
before the bishop of Rome would be compelled to attend. Though
Valentinian's edict was aimed at settling a dispute between Hilary,
bishop of Arles, and the pope, it set a precedent for papal supremacy
in the Western church throughout the Middle Ages.
The position of the papacy in the East, however, was to be vastly
different. Dioscorus I succeeded his uncle, Cyril, as patriarch of
Alexandria in June 444. The first contacts between him and Leo
were friendly enough, with Leo offering some well-meant if
patronizing advice, as if counseling an inexperienced subordinate.
He told Dioscorus that he should not hesitate to celebrate the liturgy
twice on the same day if necessary, and gave instructions on how to
ordain clergy according to the proper procedure. Leo was not the
only bishop of that time to misjudge Dioscorus.
Leo does not appear to have had an agent in the imperial capital,
Constantinople, and the ever-increasing complications of the dispute
between Flavian, patriarch of Constantinople, and the monophysite-minded
archimandrite EUTYCHES passed him by. When the crisis
erupted in the winter and spring of 448-449, he was on the sidelines
and surprised at the fuss. Eutyches had written to him in 448
deploring the revival of "Nestorianism," and Leo had replied on 1
June, thanking him for his solicitude. After his condemnation by the
synod at Constantinople on 22 November, Eutyches had included
Leo among the senior ecclesiastics to whom he appealed against his
sentence. Breakdowns in communication between Rome and
Constantinople prevented Flavian's report of the synod's proceedings
from reaching Rome. Leo was irked by what appeared to be
Flavian's neglect and failed to give his colleague in Constantinople
timely support. It was exactly a month from 13 May, when he
received his summons to the "Robber Council" that the Eastern
emperor had convoked at Ephesus, to his dispatch of his letter to
Flavian on 12 June, affirming in uncompromising terms the doctrine
of the two natures of Christ. This letter, number 28, has become
known to history as the Tome of Leo.
Leo's object was to steer between the teachings of Nestorius and
of Eutyches on the basis of accepted doctrine in the West. Christ
was to be recognized in two natures, the properties of each nature
being present in the other (the COMMUNICATIO IDIOMATUM).
Although Leo sent similar letters to the emperor's sister, Pulcheria,
and to the council via his legate, the Tome was for the time being
ineffective. It arrived too late to help Flavian; and, not unreasonably,
Dioscorus, who presided at the council, which opened on 8 August,
considered that the emperor's letters and the issue between Flavian
and Eutyches should be judged first. The Tome was not refused a
reading but was placed far down the agenda. Before it was reached,
Eutyches had been acquitted of heresy, and Flavian had been
condemned for disturbing the good order of the church and seeking
to add to the Nicene Creed (by teaching the recognition of two
natures in Christ). He was declared deposed. The papal legate, the
deacon Hilarius (later pope), and Julius, bishop of Puteoli, were
grossly insulted. It was perhaps fortunate that the Tome had not been
read, for the prevailing mood of the council would have led to its
condemnation and its author's excommunication.
So long as Emperor Theodosius II lived, Alexandria was the
"city of the orthodox," and a Monophysite interpretation of Cyril's
theology was the faith accepted by Eastern Christendom. In
Flavian's place was Dioscorus' trusted deacon and representative in
the capital, Anatolius. Despite great activity and many
expostulations, there was little that Leo could do to alter matters. On
28 July 450, however, Theodosius died as the result of a hunting
accident. Everything changed overnight. The new ruler, Pulcheria,
and the elderly Thracian officer Marcian, whom she married on 25
August, were intent on restoring relations between Constantinople
and Rome. In the ensuing months Leo was brought round to the idea
of a new council, and Anatolius was weaned from his dependence
on Dioscorus. On 23 May 451, Pulcheria and Marcian summoned an
ecumenical council to meet at NICAEA in September. The location
was changed to CHALCEDON and the date changed to 8 October,
but the terms of reference suited Leo. The new council was "to end
the disputations and settle the true faith more clearly and for all
time."
Leo had had last-minute hesitations before accepting the
emperor's invitation. In the event, the council had elements both of
triumph and of setback for him and the Roman see. The Tome was
accepted as orthodox. Leo's formulation that "two natures are united
without change, without division and without confusion in Christ"
found its place in the final Christological definition; but his legates
failed to prevent the council from agreeing with Canon 28, which
placed Constantinople on a par with the Roman see except for the
"primacy of honor" reserved to the latter. Also, the Tome was
accepted only because the bishops, in their willingness to please the
emperors and their readiness to rid themselves of Dioscorus, were
prepared to affirm with acclamation that "Cyril and Leo taught
alike." The priority, however, was Cyril's.
For the remainder of his pontificate, Leo was occupied in long,
drawn-out disputes with the imperial court and Eastern episcopate
that were designed to safeguard the Chalcedonian definition from all
attempts to reinterpret it or undermine its authority, and at the same
time to deny the validity of Canon 28 of the council. Thus, in March
453, Leo branded those who questioned the binding character of the
definition as "Eutychians" and heretics. On 21 June 453, in response
to Marcian's request to him, as "archbishop of Rome," that he ratify
all the decrees of the council, Leo stated his reservations regarding
Canon 28. Previously he had told Anatolius that while
Constantinople might be a royal city, nothing could make it into an
apostolic see, and this remained his position.
Marcian died on 26 January 457, and his successor, Emperor
Leo I, respected the decisions of Chalcedon. However, supporters of
Dioscorus (who had died in 454) consecrated a former presbyter of
Cyril's, TIMOTHY II "the Cat," as patriarch (16 March). Twelve
days later his rival, Proterius, who had been appointed at the Council
of Chalcedon and was loyal to its decrees, was murdered (Maundy
Thursday, 28 March).
The events that followed led to a culmination of Leo's
difficulties in the East. Despite his protests, he had not been able to
prevent Anatolius from "promoting" the deacon Aetius, who had
been secretary at the Council of Chalcedon, to the rank of presbyter
in charge of unpleasant duties connected with the cemeteries of the
capital. Nor, in the same year (453), had he kept Anatolius from
consecrating the patriarch of Antioch and hence demonstrating his
position as senior bishop in the East. In July 453, the death of
Pulcheria had robbed Leo of an important supporter in
Constantinople. Now, he failed to have the murderers of Proterius
punished. Despite frantic activity in important and well-argued
letters, dispatched on 1 September 457, the future of Timothy was
decided by the emperor and the bishops of the East. A "plebiscite"
involving some 1,600 bishops came out overwhelmingly against
Timothy in early 458 and vindicated Chalcedon's value at least as a
disciplinary council that also formally protected the rights of the see
of Constantinople against all comers.
In 458 and 459, Leo attempted to justify the papal attitude
toward Chalcedon. The emperor forwarded Leo's letters to Timothy,
whose reply that he was prepared to condemn Eutyches, as well as
the Tome of Leo and the Council of Chalcedon, defined the attitude
of the anti-Chalcedonian (later, monophysite and Coptic) church in
Alexandria from thenceforth (Zacharias Rhetor Historia
ecclesiastica 4.6). The emperor was, however, dissatisfied with
Timothy's reply, and he had Timothy arrested and removed from
Alexandria at the end of 459. Leo had the satisfaction of seeing the
line of Chalcedonian patriarchs continued in Alexandria by
TIMOTHY SALOFACIOLUS ("little white turban") in the spring of
460. He showed some independence from Rome, and one of Leo's
last acts was to protest the inclusion of Dioscorus on the diptychs
containing the names of those to be remembered at the celebration
of the Eucharist in his church. His last recorded letters, sent on 22
August 461, were also to Timothy. He died on 10 November of that
year.
Leo's life and achievement must be assessed against his actions
in both the West and the East. In the West he enabled the papacy to
emerge as the one authoritative and stabilizing force in a period of
crisis and confusion resulting from the invasion of Attila the Hun
and constant movements of the Germanic peoples in the former
provinces of the Western empire.
In the East, however, he was less successful, and his effect on
the Coptic church was wholly negative. Anti-Chalcedonian (and
later, monophysite) opinion was not alienated from the Roman see
as such; Pope Julius I was believed by SEVERUS OF ANTIOCH,
on the strength of Apollinarian forgeries, to have favored the "one
nature" Christology. The Tome of Leo, however, was associated
with the Council of Chalcedon as an impious and heretical
document. "Cursed be the Council. Cursed be the Tome of Leo"—
the outcries of the populace of Antioch at the time of Severus'
enthronement as patriarch on 6 November 518 (John of Beit-
Aphthonia, Life of Severus, p. 111)—were typical of reactions in the
East. In Egypt, condemnation of the Tome figured, with the
abrogation of Chalcedon, as the basic requirement in every
negotiation between the Coptic-Monophysite church and the
imperial authority. For the Coptic church Leo and Cyril did not
teach alike, and no one has convinced its adherents that they did.W. H. C. FREND