[De haeresi Pelagiana]
Leo of Rome, surnamed the Great, was born in Tuscany around A.D. 400 and ruled as Bishop of Rome from 440 until his death in 461. Though corrupted by the trappings of the papacy—in that he is much looked upon as strengthening the Roman See to heights greater than that of his predecessors—yet in his doctrine concerning the Person of Christ, he stood as a bulwark against heresy in an age of perilous deviation. The Lord, who oftentimes useth even the instruments of corruption to manifest His glory, raised up Leo in a time when the Church groaned under the twin weights of ecclesiastical ambition and doctrinal confusion. Chief among his contributions was the famous Tome of Leo, a theological epistle so consonant with the apostolic faith that the Council of Chalcedon received it with cries that “Peter hath spoken by Leo.” In it, the true doctrine of our Lord’s hypostatic union was vigorously defended: that He is very God and very man, two natures in one Person, without confusion or division. Against the heresies of Eutyches and the arrogance of eastern patriarchs, Leo contended earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints. While his pretensions to what may be early seeds of papalism are not to be commended—for Christ alone is Head of the Church, and not Peter nor his successors—yet Leo’s zeal for orthodoxy, his labors amidst Roman calamity, and his steadfastness before Attila the Hun manifest the courage of a pastor watchful over the Lord’s flock. His sermons, rich with Christological glory and exhortations to godliness, remain as monuments to the truth that even amidst Babylon, the Lord hath not left Himself without witness.
Table of Contents:
Among the disciples of Coelestius, it is already well established from ecclesiastical records and the laws of imperial decrees that Julian, Bishop of Eclanum, held the principal place. Therefore, as long as Saint Innocent, the first pope, lived (from whom he had received the order of bishop), he endeavored to conceal the wicked poison of that heresy with divers arts of simulation; and under the veil of piety and charity toward the needy, he sought to cover all the impiety of his mind. Verily, if we give credence unto Marius Mercator, the same Julian, to do a thing pleasing unto the holy pontiff Innocent, outwardly, without any simulation whatsoever or wrapping of words, did not refuse to condemn openly Pelagius and Coelestius as deserters of the Catholic faith. Indeed, the aforesaid Coelestius and Pelagius seem not then first to have been condemned by Zosimus of holy memory, but by his predecessor, Innocent of holy memory, by whom also Julian had been ordained; for after their condemnation, until the departure of the aforesaid Innocent from this life, remaining in his communion and persevering in sincere judgment, and communicating with the aforesaid condemner, he also without doubt condemned Pelagius and Coelestius with him. Would that therefore Innocent had stood long among the living, or that Julian had met death afore his decease! For the Church had not suffered such great calamities, nor had so many once most holy bishops of Campania and Italy, with Julian as their leader and standard-bearer, stained the purity of the Catholic faith; neither, finally, had so many and so great writings, sprinkled with blasphemies and filled with impieties, been sent to and fro, as it is most certain came to pass through the impetus and fury of the Bishop of Eclanum. But what he did, or what Julian, after Innocent’s death, attempted to contrive, we are verily and most fully taught by ecclesiastical records. For then, no longer able to restrain his hatred against the apostolic doctrine, as if made powerless by his angers, he openly taught the people those things which he had already learned from Coelestius; he feared not to carp at and pluck at the most holy and otherwise most learned bishops of the Catholic Church; he called down dire curses upon Augustine and the other Fathers of Africa, and growing worse day by day, having first despised the authority, doctrine, and admonitions of the holy Pope Zosimus, he led many into evil faith. Then at last, having rejected the dogmatic epistle of the same supreme pontiff (which they call thetractatoria, and which all the bishops of the Catholic society had received with the highest veneration of mind, as a rule of faith), he most impudently refused to subscribe thereunto together with other bishops.
Nevertheless, he delayed not long to pay the penalties of such great wickednesses. For first he was cast down from the first grade of the priesthood, then stripped of his episcopal see, and finally, by imperial sanction, proscribed from all the shores of Italy, he received himself as an exile among the Easterners, finally frustrated in all hope of ever being able, either his own or any other episcopal throne, to ascend. But contrariwise, others of the bishops whom he had taken as companions in his wickedness, fearing especially the force, magnitude, and ignominy of the punishments, considered with themselves that it were too shameful not to obey the judgments of the apostolic see; wherefore, having forsaken Julian and condemned Pelagius and Coelestius, they presented suppliant petitions unto the apostolic see, by which they were mercifully received and restored unto their own sees. But others, who with stubborn mind feared not to undergo imperial and ecclesiastical punishments, were perpetually deposed and deprived of authority, and driven beyond all the bounds of Italy. The whole matter Marius Mercator expounded in the place cited in these words well-nigh: To which (namely, the epistle of Zosimus) Julian and the rest of his accomplices, refusing to subscribe and unwilling to make themselves agreeable unto the same Fathers, were not only deposed and deprived of authority by imperial laws, but also by priestly statutes, and were driven out from all Italy; of whom very many, coming to their senses and corrected from the aforesaid error, returned as suppliants unto the apostolic see, and being received, recovered their churches.
These things, moreover, being recounted from Marius Mercator concerning the deeds of the most holy pontiff Zosimus, a most ample field should be opened unto us for overthrowing all the lies and slanders wherewith the thirteenth dissertation on the African Councils, which Paschasius Quesnellus wrote against the apostolic see, is filled. For therein, confounding all things upside down and turning them licentiously, he carps at the holy pontiff Zosimus and vehemently upbraids him, blaming him for too great leniency with the Pelagians; he describeth also the clergy of the Roman Church as though stained with the soot of Pelagianism; he extendeth the authority of the provincial councils in Africa beyond the due limits prescribed by divine laws; finally, he endeavored not only to diminish but even to cast down the jurisdiction and dignity of the apostolic see, which the African Fathers then followed with the highest reverence. But with these impostures what? He could boldly impose them only upon his own followers, not upon us, who from Prosper, in the Life of Augustine, know full well that the African Fathers, then most especially depending upon the judgment of the apostolic see, never wished to convene in a plenary synod until after the decree of Pope Zosimus had come unto them. To which decree thereafter two hundred and twelve Fathers, that they might in all things consent, published eight canons, which are wrongly attributed unto the second synod of Milevis. But that Milevis, saith the most learned Petavius, decreed naught against the Pelagians; and of those eight canons, the third, fourth, and fifth are cited by Pope Celestine under the name of the Council of Carthage. These things, verily, we have preferred to pass over in silence rather than bring forth into the midst, since it is not presently in our mind to meet and refute each lie and fraud of the praised dissertation; especially since anyone hath abundant matter to reject them, already prepared long since by the most eminent Cardinal Norisius in his books on the History of the Pelagians. Following also his aids, we have deemed it meet to touch only upon those things which seem to pertain unto the time of this heresy’s rise, unto its authors and leaders, and unto the deeds of certain Roman pontiffs; that, to wit, with a very brief history of the matter set forth, we might prepare an easier way for those things which we shall soon undertake to expound concerning the holy pontiff Leo. But other matters which touch the cause of the African councils and vindicate the apostolic see from all blemish, we have reserved to be treated elsewhere.
Therefore, to return unto the matter proposed, let no man persuade himself that Julian with his companions in impiety so peacefully underwent exile and other punishments that he attempted not to deceive Pope Celestine and Sixtus his successor, that he might be absolved. Nor let any think that the City, Campania, and other regions of Italy, after the expulsion of Julian and the other bishops, remained wholly free from the plague of the Pelagians. Julian especially, having obtained for himself the protection of Nestorius, Bishop of Constantinople, endeavored with deceit and fraud to plead his own cause and that of his companions before Saint Celestine, before whom he very often pressed, that the episcopal sees might be restored unto him and his expelled companions. Meanwhile also the Pelagians, scattered hither and thither throughout Italy and growing, were cherished by the hope that at some time their own pastors should be restored unto them, and therefore ceased not from complaints, from tumult, nor from curses. Wherefore, scarce had Celestine died and Sixtus been set in his see, when Julian dared to try his faith and apostolic vigor; for, having presented suppliant petitions unto him, he feigned to profess the Catholic faith, that the pontiff might restore unto him the former honor of the episcopate and its duties. The matter Prosper of Aquitaine narrateth in his Chronicle, adding moreover that Julian was deceived by none other than Saint Leo, then archdeacon of the Roman Church, who with all the contention of his powers wrought before the holy pontiff that he might beware, for himself and for the whole Church, of the feigned repentance of the heretical man. ‘At this time,’ saith he, ‘Julian of Eclanum, the most boastful assertor of the Pelagian error, whom for a long time the intemperate desire of his lost episcopate had disquieted, with manifold art of deceiving, presenting the appearance of correction, endeavored to creep into the communion of the Church. But Pope Sixtus, at the exhortation of the deacon Leo, vigilantly meeting these snares, suffered no access to be open unto the pestiferous attempts, and so made all Catholics to rejoice at the rejection of the deceitful beast, as if then for the first time the apostolic sword had cut off the most proud heresy.’ Thus wrote the praised Prosper unto the consulship of Theodosius XVII and Festus, which, according to the tables of Petavius, is to be set in the year of Christ 439, as also the most eminent Cardinal Norisius hath noted.
So great therefore was the marvelous prudence and sagacity of mind of Saint Leo, yet a deacon, that straightway he perceived the guiles, evil faith, and simulations of this standard-bearer of the Pelagians, who, driven only by the more intemperate desire of his lost episcopate, demanded with all honors and duties to be admitted into the communion of the Catholics, that he might again trouble the Church and assail it with new devices. But after the same Leo, superior in mind unto all perils, had met these evils, he deemed that the heretics, both Nestorians and Pelagians, should also be assailed with writings. And accordingly, as if foreknowing by divine prescience his own election unto the supreme pontificate of the Church, he stirred with frequent exhortations the modest silence of Cassian, presbyter of Marseilles, and with praiseworthy zeal and most commanding affection overcame his purpose and judgment, and, as it were, impelled him to write and publish seven books against Nestorius concerning the Incarnation. Moreover, in those same books he showed no favor at all unto the Pelagians, but assailed and cut them down. Wherefore, though Cassian, having long since completed his books of Spiritual Conferences, had considered and resolved with himself to place himself in the haven of silence, excusing through the modesty of taciturnity the boldness of loquacity, and to wipe away the stain of favoring the Semipelagians, falsely altogether imputed unto him, yet from so high a retreat of premeditated silence, at our Leo’s exhortation and command, he came forth into the public and fearful judgment, and undertook a new labor, though still blushing for the past. Thus indeed confessed the same Cassian in his dedicatory epistle unto Leo, wherein he also thus addresseth him: For now thy cause more than mine is here in question; thy judgment more than my duty is in peril. For me, whether I be equal unto thy command or no, the very reason of obedience and humility doth in some measure excuse . . . And a little after he addeth: Thine therefore is this matter, thine affair, the work of thy honor.