The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 1

II. Leo I Attempts to Materialize Augustine’s Kingdom Claims

1. DECLARES RIGHT TO VACANT ROMAN THRONE

The Western empire perished through internal weakness and barbarian inroads. National misfortune and imperial favor were the twin causes of ecclesiastical Rome’s successful early advance. Alaric the Goth was reluctant to begin his siege of Rome, the eternal embodiment of universal power and past terror to the barbarians. But he found himself, he declares, impelled by some hidden and irresistible impulse to accomplish the enterprise ⁴ which is significant. When the city succumbed, in 410, there was no great imperial leader to defend it, the throne of the West having been removed to Ravenna. But no barbarian chief really aspired to the role of emperor. PFF1 497.4

In 452 Rome again trembled, this time before the approach of the Huns under Attila. But the Roman bishop Leo (I) the Great (440-461) prevailed upon him to retire from Italy. ⁵ And three years later, when Genseric, leading the Vandals, became master of the capital, Leo’s intercession again spared the lives of the Romans. Thus this Roman bishop came to be recognized as a powerful protector, capable and energetic. PFF1 498.1

These barbarian chiefs did not venture to set themselves up as Roman emperors, and fill the “vacant shrine of the imperium.” And Leo began to feel that the time had come to materialize the claims of Augustine regarding the temporal millennial kingdom of Christ, and with his avowed vested powers of loosing and binding openly to declare his right to the vacant throne as the fitting seat of Christ’s universal kingdom. In this way the Roman church pushed its way into the place of the Western empire, of which it is “the actual continuation.” ⁶ Thus the empire did not perish; it only changed its form. The pope became Caesar’s successor. This was a long stride forward. PFF1 498.2

2. PRIMACY BASED ON CLAIMS TO PETER’S POWERS

Earlier in the fourth century, the Roman bishop’s precedence among equals, formerly accorded to him, had first been demanded on a new ground that was reiterated time after time until the Roman bishop received supremacy of dominion. ⁷ The second Ecumenical Council at Constantinople (381), in Canon 2, had confirmed the various metropolitans—such as those of Alexandria, Antioch, and Ephesus—in their respective spheres; ⁸ but it also decreed (Canon 3) that “the Bishop of Constantinople shall hold the first rank after the Bishop of Rome.” ⁹ PFF1 498.3

Innocent I (d. 417) had maintained that Christ had (a) delegated supreme power to Peter and (b) made him bishop of Rome, and that as Peter’s successor he was entitled to exercise Peter’s power and prerogatives, and Boniface I (d. 422) had spoken similarly. ¹⁰ At the Council of Ephesus, in 431, the legate of Pope Celestine had proclaimed publicly before all Christendom: PFF1 499.1

“There is no doubt, and it is noted by everybody, that the holy and most blessed Peter is the leader and head of the apostles, a pillar of the faith, and the foundation of the Catholic Church, and that he received from our Lord Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of the human race, the keys of rulership with which power is given to absolve and to bind sins; who [Peter] till our time and forever lives and exercises judgment in his successors.” ¹¹ PFF1 499.2

Some twenty years later Leo saw the force implied by this claim, and entrenched himself behind it. He first outlined clearly the extreme limits of the claims of the medieval Papacy to universal rule of the church. Thus the church of Rome moved on toward the spiritual dictatorship of Christendom. More, perhaps, than any other, Leo laid the early foundations of that imposing edifice that towered among the nations for more than a thousand years, when papal bulls instead of imperial decrees began to rule the world. ¹² PFF1 499.3

3. LEO ENVISIONS HEADSHIP OF THE WORLD

Leo’s concepts are well set forth in Sermon 82, “On the Feast of the Apostles Peter and Paul,” before his Roman congregation. Declaring that these were the men through whom the light of the gospel first shone on Rome, he says: PFF1 499.4

“These are they who promoted thee to such glory, that being made a holy nation, a chosen people, a priestly and royal state, and the head of the world through the blessed Peter’s holy See thou didst attain a wider sway by the worship of GOD than by earthly government. For although thou wert increased by many victories, and didst extend thy rule on land and sea, yet what thy toils in war subdued is less than what the peace of Christ has conquered.” ¹³ PFF1 499.5

Contending that the spiritual extension of the Roman Empire was the carrying out of the divine scheme of Rome as the “head of the world,” he continues: PFF1 500.1

“For the Divinely—planned work particularly required that many kingdoms should be leagued together under one empire, so that the preaching of the world [another Latin text can properly be translated here, “preaching of regeneration”] might quickly reach to all people, when they were held beneath the rule of one state. And yet that state, in ignorance of the Author of its aggrandisement though it rule almost all nations, was enthralled by the errors of them all, and seemed to itself to have fostered religion greatly, because it rejected no falsehood. And hence its emancipation through Christ was the more wondrous that it had been so fast bound by Satan.” ¹⁴ PFF1 500.2

This sermon became, in turn, a text upon which his successors loved to expand, exulting in the firm foundation laid and the actuality of the establishment of the new Jerusalem that had come down from heaven. And it was a foundation that survived the centuries. PFF1 500.3

That success attended Leo’s scheme to make the seven-hilled city the center of the Christian world, is evident from the imperial authority secured from Valentinian 3, in 445, for his Western supremacy. PFF1 500.4

“Since therefore the merit of St. Peter, who is the first in the episcopal crown and the dignity of the Roman city and the authority of the sacred synod, has established the primacy of the Apostolic See, let no unlawful presumption try to attempt anything beyond the authority of that see.... By this perpetual sanction we decree that neither should a Gallic bishop nor one of other provinces be permitted to undertake anything against the old customs without the authority of the venerable man the pope of the eternal city, ... so that whoever among the bishops when summoned to the court by his Roman superior neglects to come, let him be forced to attend by the moderator of the province.” ¹⁵ PFF1 500.5

4. LEO PROTESTS EQUALITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE

When, however, the general Council of Chalcedon (451) asserted, in Canon 28, the equal dignity and privilege of the see of Constantinople with the see of Rome, ¹⁶ Leo indignantly protested, writing letters to the emperor and others, declaring it a deviation from the canons of Nicaea. ¹⁷ He wrote to the bishops assembled at Chalcedon that the bishop of Rome was officially “guardian of the Catholic faith, and of the traditions of the fathers, ¹⁸ thus asserting guardianship of the unwritten as well as the written rules of faith. But the time of full recognition of Rome’s headship over all the churches had not yet come. PFF1 501.1

In Leo’s time we have encountered a legal sanction for the pope’s superior jurisdiction in a decree of Theodosius and Valentinian. There had previously been another important edict, that of Gratian and Valentinian II in 378 or 379. Let us now examine the successive steps in the legal recognition of the pope’s supremacy by imperial edicts. PFF1 501.2