Pope St. Leo I (the Great)
Place and date of birth unknown; died 10 November, 461. (Reigned 440-61).
Place and date of birth unknown; died 10 November, 461. (Reigned 440-61).
Leo’s pontificate, next to that of St. Gregory I, is the most significant and important in Christian antiquity. At a time when the Church was experiencing the greatest obstacles to her progress in consequence of the hastening disintegration of the Western Empire, while the Orient was profoundly agitated over dogmatic controversies, this great pope, with far-seeing sagacity and powerful hand, guided the destiny of the Roman and Universal Church.
Leo was descended of a noble Tuscan family, but born at Rome. His father’s name was Quintianus. Our earliest certain historical information about Leo reveals him a deacon of the Roman Church under Pope Celestine I (422-32). Even during this period he was known outside of Rome, and had some relations with Gaul, since Cassianus in 430 or 431 wrote at Leo’s suggestion his work “De Incarnatione Domini contra Nestorium” (Migne, P.L., L, 9 sqq.), prefacing it with a letter of dedication to Leo.
During the pontificate of Sixtus III (422-40), Leo was sent to Gaul by Emperor Valentinian III to settle a dispute and bring about a reconciliation between Aëtius, the chief military commander of the province, and the chief magistrate, Albinus. This commission is a proof of the great confidence placed in the clever and able deacon by the Imperial Court. Sixtus III died on 19 August, 440, while Leo was in Gaul, and the latter was chosen his successor. Returning to Rome, Leo was consecrated on 29 September of the same year, and governed the Roman Church for the next twenty-one years.
Whilst the Eastern empire was distracted by heretical factions, the Western was harassed by barbarians. Attila the Hun, enriched with the plunder of many nations and cities, marched against Rome. The Huns, a savage nation from that part of Scythia which now lies in Muscovy, had passed the Palus Mæotis, in 276, and made their first inroads upon the coasts of the Caspian Sea, and as far as Mount Taurus in the East. Almost two hundred years after this, Attila, the most powerful and barbarous of all the kings of that nation, in 433, had marched first into the East, then subject to Theodosius the Younger, and having amassed a vast booty in Asia, returned into Pannonia, where he was already master of a large territory.
His next expedition was directed against the western part of the empire. His army marching through Germany, drew along with it additional supplies from all the barbarous nations near which it passed, and amounted at length to the number of five hundred, Jornandes says seven hundred thousand fighting men; all stirred up by no other motive than the hope of great spoils from the plunder of the richest countries of the empire. Entering Gaul, Attila laid in ruins Tongres, Triers, and Metz. Troyes was spared by him, at the entreaty of St. Lupus, and St. Nicasius preserved Rheims. The barbarian had just taken Orleans by storm, when Aëtius, the Roman general, came up with him, expelled him that city, and followed him to the plains of Mauriac or Challons, which, according to Jornandes, were extended in length one hundred miles, and seventy in breadth, and seem to have comprised the whole country, known since the sixth century under the name of Champagne. Here Attila halted, and when Aëtius with the Romans, Visigoths, and Burgundians, came up, these vast fields seemed covered with troops. In a most bloody battle, the Huns were here discomfited. Attila, enraged at this defeat, and having repaired his losses of the former year, entered Italy by Pannonia, in 453, took and burned Aquileia, and filled the whole country with blood and desolation. Some of the inhabitants, who fled from his arms into the little islands in the shallow lakes at the head of the Adriatic Gulf, here laid the foundations of the city of Venice, which we find named by Cassiodorus, fifty years after this event. Attila sacked Milan, razed Pavia, and wherever he passed laid waste whole provinces. The weak Emperor Valentinian III shut himself up in Ravenna, and the Romans, in the utmost terror, expected to see the barbarian speedily before their gates. Such was the state of affairs when Leo went to meet Attila.
