Leo I

“ The son of a village carpenter, small, ill formed, insignificant in appearance, he possessed the shrewd, practical mind and indomitable will of the born ruler of men. It is said that in boyhood his companions found him tracing with the chips and shavings of his father’s workshop the words, ‘I shall reign from sea to sea’, yet he began his career by deliberately accepting exile with the best of the Popes deposed by the Council of Sutri; and it was Leo IX, who, hearing of his genius, found him and brought him back to Rome. ”

“ As a theologian Leo is thoroughly Western in type, being not speculative but dogmatic: no one was better suited in God’s Providence to give the final completeness to the Church’s Doctrine of the Incarnation than this clear-sighted, unimaginative, and persistent bishop of Rome. ”

“ And perhaps oftenest of all they offered up that prayer of Leo’s which, intertwining commands and promises, unfolds the depths of both command and promise for earth and heaven—“Almighty and everlasting God, give unto us the increase of faith, hope, and charity; and that we may obtain that which Thou dost promise, make us to love that which Thou dost command.”
Thus, often resting their hearts on the staff of Leo’s faithful words, the two women lived through those days of terrible suspense. And on the fourth came the good tidings, that once more, as far as possible, Leo had saved Rome. ”

“ Leo III deems it his duty to give the title to him who already has the power, and, in the year 800, at the feast of Noel, places on the head of the son of Pepin the crown of the Emperor of Rome. [16] From that time the pope belongs to the empire of the Franks, and his relations with the East are ended. He detaches himself from a rotten tree which is about to fall, in order to engraft himself on a vigorous wild stock. Among the Germanic races, to which he devotes himself, a destiny awaits him to which he had never ventured to aspire. ”

“ Damaris thought a little, and then she said humbly and softly—
“There is our own Leo, thank God. God forbid we should be among those who only recognize the saints when we have to build their sepulchres.”
Lucia knelt down beside her mother’s couch.
“Father says Bishop Leo is a real Roman, not in miniature,” she said; “and Marius says, though a priest, he is worth all the generals and consuls and prefects together. Oh, mother, it is good to hear of some one strong and good in these days.” ”

“ When Leo the Thirteenth had been on the throne only a few weeks, there was sold everywhere a comic print representing the Pope, with a huge broom, sweeping all the useless people pell-mell down the steps of the Vatican into the Piazza of Saint Peter's. As often happens, the caricaturist saw the truth. In a reign that has lasted twenty years, Leo the Thirteenth has done away with much that was useless, worthless and old-fashioned, and much that cumbered the narrow patch of earth on which so important a part of the world's business is transacted. ”

“ Leo's first words on taking his place in the Vatican were addressed to his brother Giuliano: 'Let us enjoy the Papacy, now that God has given it to us;' and his notion of enjoyment was to surround himself with court-poets, jesters, and musicians, to adorn his Roman palaces with frescoes, to collect statues and inscriptions, to listen to Latin speeches, and to pass judgment upon scholarly compositions. Any one and every one who gave him sensual or intellectual pleasure, found his purse always open. ”

“ All this did Leo, and his immediate successors. And when he superadded to the functions of a great religious magistrate the virtues of the humblest Christian,--parting with his magnificent patrimony to feed the poor, and proclaiming (with an eloquence unusual in his time) the cardinal doctrines of the Christian faith, and setting himself as an example of the virtues which he preached,--we concede his claim to be numbered among the great benefactors of mankind. How much worse Roman Catholicism would have been but for his august example and authority! ”

“ Leo the Thirteenth need speak but half a dozen words, with one glance of his flashing eyes and one gesture of his noticeably long arm and transparently thin hand, and the moral distance between his predecessor and himself is at once apparent. There is strength still in every movement, there is deliberate decision in every tone, there is lofty independence in every look. ”

“ Spain was in the hands of Arians; Gaul torn between contending races and beliefs; Britain had relapsed into heathenism. The one thing needful at the moment seemed to be Unity, and for this unity Leo sacrificed, strove, and toiled. And his own soul being a city at unity within itself, with primitive simplicity of character, Roman strength of will, Christian singleness of heart, this unity he succeeded in preserving through that distracted age. But always with him unity was a means and not an end, the essential condition of life, valued for the sake of the life it guarded ”

“ When he looked to the eastern emperor, now become in the eyes of the Church the legitimate sovereign of Rome, by whose commission Odoacer professed to rule, instead of a Marcian, the not unworthy husband of St. Pulcheria, instead of Leo I., who was at least orthodox, and had been succeeded by his grandson the young child Leo II., he found upon the now sole imperial throne that child's father Zeno. He was husband of the princess Ariadne, daughter of Leo I., [25] a man of whom the Byzantine historians give us a most frightful picture. ”

“ Leo X (1513-21) has given his name to this age of papal culture, but he was not entitled to the honour; he had the inborn Medicean interest and enjoyment in intellectual matters, a nice taste, and some delicacy of perception, but it needs no more than a look at his fat jowl in Raphael's portrait to see that he could not have been a motive force in a great period. He stands on an historic eminence as the last Pope to wield the Italian sceptre over all Europe, the last to send his tax-collectors from Sicily to England, from Spain to Norway, the last to enjoy the full heritage of Imperial Rome. ”

“ The favourable opinion entertained of Leo X by his contemporaries long held the field in history. His reign has been regarded as at once the zenith and cause of the greatest period of the Renaissance. His wide liberality, his unfeigned enthusiasm for the creations of genius, his unprejudiced taste for all that beautifies humanity, and his sympathy for all the culture of his time have been the theme of a traditional chorus of laudation. More recent criticism has recognised in the reign of Leo a period of incipient decline, and has traced that decline to the follies and frailties of the Pontiff. ”

“ Leo, Great Pontiff of the age, thou mayest well lay down the burden of thy four score years and ten! Thou deservest well of humanity. You have been a great leader in the Church of God. The weary pilgrimage of a desert land is over, and from Nebo's height there stretches before you the Promised Land of rest and joy and everlasting bliss. ”

“ His pension was still paid in 1391, in the fifteenth year of the unlucky king: at that time Leo, it was said, had been driven from his dominions; the pension was to be continued until he regained them. Fortunately for the English exchequer, it was not required, for according to the epitaph of King Leo in the Church of the Celestines at Paris, the very noble and very excellent Prince Lyon of Lusignan, fifth Latin king of Armenia, rendered his soul to God Nov. 29, 1393. He left no legitimate issue, and his claims devolved on his cousin of Cyprus. ”

“ Leo did his best to restore peace to Italy, and raised Rome to the dignity of a great capital. Few princes have ever been more richly endowed than he with the qualities which make princedom popular; a liberality which bordered on profuseness, a generous readiness to reward merit, and a charming urbanity of manners, which made every one who approached his person believe himself the object of the Pope’s particular regard. Erasmus felt the magical influence of his presence, and wrote to his friends, saying, that Leo was as far superior to the rest of men, as men are superior, to beasts. ”

“ These culminated in the seven revolutions terminated by that of Leo III. Then the strong man, armed, rode his charger right into the Church of God and strove to add the Popes of Rome to the number of patriarchs whom he raised, deposed, blinded, and executed as he pleased. He made them ecumenical and trod upon them when so made, with the heel of the imperial buskin. And now we come from the first oppression in confirming the Pope, and the second in reducing him to a captive vassal, to the third of subjecting [pg 392] him as the chief teacher of the Church to the lay power of the emperor. ”

“ I never saw a human being so like a spirit as Leo XIII. He looked as white as his mitre as he leant forward and stretched his arm out in benediction from side to side, borne high above the helmets of the Noble Guard. One heard cheers in all languages, and a curious effect was produced by the whirling handkerchiefs, which made a white haze above the dark crowd. I have often heard secular monarchs cheered, and that very heartily, but for a Pope it seems that more than ordinary loyalty prompts the cheerers. The people seem to give out their whole being in their voices and gestures. ”

“ Attila’s movements were not slow, nor his decisions vacillating. He saw Leo and believed in him. But what can any of us say as to the Presence he felt in Leo, or round about Leo? Legend has told and Raphael has painted in his immortal picture, that he saw the apostles Peter and Paul hovering about Leo in the air, as the champions of Rome, and that Attila and his Huns cowered in terror before the heavenly vision. Prosper, Leo’s own secretary, tells us [218] simply that Leo “committed himself to God, Who never fails to aid the labours of those who trust Him ”

“ Is it possible to conceive a greater contrast that that presented by Leo III. and his son Kopronymus on the one hand, and the three pontiffs, the second and third Gregories and Zacharias, on the other; or between the governments of the blinding, scourging, maiming, and torturing sovereigns of the East, and the pastors ruling with beneficence and risking [pg 350] their lives for their flock in the West? Thus had the Popes become the protectors of desolated Italy; therefore had the Kings Liutprand and Rachis offered their royal mantles at the shrine of St. Peter. ”

“ Thenceforth Rome and her Pope were identified. The magic of her old Imperial name was transferred to him; the granite of his ancient Roman character guarded her. Leo spoke “to the City”; the city still spoke, as no other voice could speak, to the world. The “ad Urbem” and “ad Orbem” were thenceforth not to be dissociated.
We do not hear of any pomp and ovation to do him homage on his return. The city was saved; but the salvation was from a humiliation only possible through the degradation and corruption of the city itself. And this moral degradation continued. ”

“ Leo I., saint, surnamed the Great; was distinguished for his zeal against heretics, presided at two councils, and persuaded Attila to retire from Rome on his invasion of Italy, as he persuaded Genseric four years later to moderate the outrages of his troops in the city; his letters are in evidence of the jurisdiction of the Roman over the universal Church. Festival, Nov. 10.
Leo III., proclaimed Charlemagne emperor of the West in 800; driven in 799 from the papal chair by a conspiracy, he was reinstated by Charlemagne, who next year visited the city and was crowned by him emperor. ”

“ In one sense it was a complete triumph for the Pope; but Leo was a clear-sighted statesman and knew that the power to which he had been restored rested on a weak foundation. The very fact that he had been compelled to appeal for justice to a temporal sovereign lowered the office that he held in the eyes of the world; and he possessed no guarantee that, once the Franks had left Rome, his enemies would not again attack him. Without a recognized champion, always ready to enforce her will, the Papacy remained at the mercy of those who chose to oppose or hinder her. ”

“ When the judgment of posterity has passed into a proverb it is too late to question its equity, or to appeal from its fiat, and the name of Leo the Tenth will thus remain identified with his age as the star whence its lustre was derived, although Italy was then brightened by not a few orbs of scarcely inferior brilliancy or less genial influence. ”

“ Rome had ceased to be the imperial city. Did the loss of its bishop's prerogatives follow? Did they pass to Byzantium because it was become the imperial city, because the sole emperor dwelt there? Thus, about a hundred years after the repulse of the ambitious exaltation sought by Anatolius, its rejection by the provident wisdom and resolute courage of St. Leo was more than justified by the course of events. St. Leo's action was based upon the constitution of the Church, and therefore did not need to be justified by events. ”

“ Not only had Leo III., in his wrath at being foiled by the elements, confiscated the patrimonies of the Church in the southern provinces of Italy which he possessed, and in Sicily, and in his realm generally, but he interfered with the immemorial spiritual jurisdiction of the Pope as patriarch, and assigned to his own patriarch at Constantinople the privileges which by the appointment of St. Leo had been given to the great metropolis, Thessalonica. This jurisdiction the patriarchs of Constantinople had coveted for centuries. ”