Relevant
books
available at Amazon
Leo studies and translations
with links to Amazon
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STUDIES (Click on images below.)
 
The Soteriology of Leo the Great
Bernard Green --------------
 
Leo the Great
and the Spiritual Rebuilding
of a Universal Rome
Susan Wessel --------------
TRANSLATIONS
 
St Leo the Great
Letters
Edmund Hunt
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St Leo the Great
Sermons
Freeland and Conway --------------
 
Leo the Great
Selection of Letters and Sermons
Bronwen Neil --------------
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I. The Incarnation an unceasing source of joy.
Though all the divine utterances exhort us, dearly beloved, to “rejoice in the
LORD always,” yet to-day we are no doubt incited to a full spiritual joy, when
the mystery of the LORD’S nativity is shining brightly upon us, so that we may
have recourse to that unutterable condescension of the Divine Mercy, whereby the
Creator of men deigned to become man, and be found ourselves in His nature whom
we worship in ours. For GOD the Son of GOD, the only-begotten of the eternal and
not-begotten Father, remaining eternal “in the form of GOD,” and unchangeably
and without time possessing the property of being no way different to the Father
He received “the form of a slave” without loss of His own majesty, that He might
advance us to His state and not lower Himself to ours. Hence both natures
abiding in possession of their own properties such unity is the result of the
union that whatever of Godhead is there is inseparable from the manhood: and
whatever of manhood, is indivisible from the Godhead.
II. The Virgin’s conception explained.
In celebrating therefore the birthday of our LORD and Saviour, dearly beloved,
let us entertain pure thoughts of the blessed Virgin’s child-bearing, so as to
believe that at no moment of time was the power of the Word wanting to the flesh
and soul which she conceived, and that the temple of Christ’s body did not
previously receive its form and soul that its Inhabitant might come and take
possession but through Himself and in Himself was the beginning given to the New
Man, so that in the one Son of GOD and Man there might be Godhead without a
mother, and Manhood without a Father. For her virginity fecundated by the Holy
Spirit at one and the same time brought forth without trace of corruption both
the offspring and the Maker of her race. Hence also the same LORD, as the
Evangelist relates, asked of the Jews whose son they had learnt Christ to be on
the authority of the Scriptures, and when they replied that the tradition was He
would come of David’s seed, “How,” saith He, “doth David in the Spirit call Him
LORD, saying, the LORD said to my LORD: sit thou on My right hand till I place
thy enemies as the footstool of thy feet?” And the Jews could not solve the
question put, because they did not understand that in the one Christ both the
stock of David and the Divine nature were there prophesied.
III. In redeeming man, justice as well as mercy had to be considered.
But the majesty of the Son of GOD in which He is equal with the Father in its
garb of a slave’s humility feared no diminution, required no augmentation: and
the very effect of His mercy which He expended on the restitution of man, He was
able to bring about solely by the power of His Godhead; so as to rescue the
creature that was made in the image of GOD from the yoke of his cruel oppressor.
But because the devil had not shown himself so violent in his attack on the
first man as to bring him over to his side without the consent of His free will,
man’s voluntary sin and hostile desires had to be destroyed in such wise that
the standard of justice should not stand in the way of the gift of Grace. And
therefore in the general ruin of the entire human race there was but one remedy
in the secret of the Divine plan which could succour the fallen, and that was
that one of the sons of Adam should be born free and innocent of original
transgression, to prevail for the rest both by His example and His merits. Still
further, because this was not permitted by natural generation, and because there
could be no offspring from our faulty stock without seed, of which the Scripture
saith, “Who can make a clean thing conceived of an unclean seed? is it not Thou
who art alone?” David’s LORD was made David’s Son, and from the fruit of the
promised branch sprang One without fault, the twofold nature joining together
into one Person, that by one and the same conception and birth might spring our
LORD Jesus Christ, in Whom was present both true Godhead for the performance of
mighty works and true Manhood for the endurance of sufferings.
IV. All heresies proceed from failure to believe the twofold nature of
Christ.
The catholic Faith then, dearly beloved, may scorn the errors of the heretics
that bark against it, who, deceived by the vanity of worldly wisdom, have
forsaken the Gospel of Truth, and being unable to understand the Incarnation of
the Word, have constructed for themselves out of the source of enlightenment
occasion of blindness. For after investigating almost all false believers’
opinions, even those which presume to deny the Holy Spirit, we come to the
conclusion that hardly any one has gone astray, unless he has refused to believe
the reality of the two natures in Christ under the confession of one Person. For
some have ascribed to the LORD only manhood, others only Deity. Some have said
that, though there was in Him true Godhead, His flesh was unreal. Others have
acknowledged that He took true flesh but say that He had not the nature of GOD
the Father; and by assigning to His Godhead what belonged to His human
substance, have made for themselves a greater and a lesser GOD, although there
can be in true Godhead no grades: seeing that whatever is less than GOD, is not
GOD. Others recognizing that there is no difference between Father and Son,
because they could not understand unity of Godhead except in unity of Person,
have maintained that the Father is the same as the Son: so that to be born and
nursed, to suffer and die, to be buried and rise again, belonged to the same
Father who sustained throughout the Person of both Man and the Word. Certain
have thought that our LORD Jesus Christ had a body not of our substance but
assumed from higher and subtler elements: whereas certain others have considered
that in the flesh of Christ there was no human soul, but that the Godhead of the
Word Itself fulfilled the part of soul. But their unwise assertion passes into
this form that, though they acknowledge the existence of a soul in the LORD, yet
they say it was devoid of mind, because the Godhead of Itself was sufficient for
all purposes of reason to the Man as well as to the GOD in Christ. Lastly the
same people have dared to assert that a certain portion of the Word was turned
into Flesh, so that in the manifold varieties of this one dogma, not only the
nature of the flesh and of the soul but also the essence of the Word Itself is
dissolved. V. Nestorianism and Eutychianism are
particularly to be avoided at the present time.
There are many other astounding falsehoods also which we must not weary your
ears, beloved, with enumerating. But after all these various impieties, which
are closely connected by the relationship that exists between one form of
blasphemy and another, we call your devout attention to the avoiding of these
two errors in particular: one of which, with Nestorius for its author, some time
ago attempted to gain ground, but ineffectually; the other, which is equally
damnable, has more recently sprung up with Eutyches as its propounder. The
former dared to maintain that the blessed Virgin Mary was the mother of Christ’s
manhood only, so that in her conception and childbearing no union might be
believed to have taken place of the Word and the Flesh: because the Son of GOD
did not Himself become Son of Man, but of His mere condescension linked Himself
with created man. This can in no wise be tolerated by catholic ears, which are
so imbued with the gospel of Truth that they know of a surety there is no hope
of salvation for mankind unless He were Himself the Son of the Virgin who was
His mother’s Creator. On the other hand this blasphemous propounder of more
recent profanity has confessed the union of the two Natures in Christ, but has
maintained that the effect of this very union is that of the two one remained
while the substance of the other no longer existed, which of course could not
have been brought to an end except by either destruction or separation. But this
is so opposed to sound faith that it cannot be entertained without loss of one’s
Christian name. For if the Incarnation of the Word is the uniting of the Divine
and human natures, but by the very fact of their coming together that which was
twofold became single, it was only the Godhead that was born of the Virgin’s
womb, and went through the deceptive appearance of receiving nourishment and
bodily growth: and to pass over all the changes of the human state, it was only
the Godhead that was crucified, dead, and buried: so that according to those who
thus think, there is no reason to hope for the resurrection, and Christ is not
“the first-begotten from the dead;” because He was not One who ought to have
been raised again, if He had not been One who could be slain.
VI. The Deity and the Manhood were present in Christ from the very first.
Keep far from your hearts, dearly beloved, the poisonous lies of the devil’s
inspirations, and knowing that the eternal Godhead of the Son underwent no
growth while with the Father, be wise and consider that to the same nature to
which it was said in Adam, “Thou art earth, and unto earth shalt thou go,” it is
said in Christ, “sit Thou on My right hand.” According to that Nature, whereby
Christ is equal to the Father, the Only-begotten was never inferior to the
sublimity of the Father; nor was the glory which He had with the Father a
temporal possession; for He is on the very right hand of the Father, of which it
is said in Exodus, “Thy right hand, O LORD, is glorified in power;” and in
Isaiah, “LORD, who hath believed our report? and the arm of the LORD, to whom is
it revealed?” The man, therefore, assumed into the Son of GOD, was in such wise
received into the unity of Christ’s Person from His very commencement in the
body, that without the Godhead He was not conceived, without the Godhead He was
not brought forth, without the Godhead He was not nursed. It was the same Person
in the wondrous acts, and in the endurance of insults; through His human
weakness crucified, dead and buried: through His Divine power, being raised the
third day, He ascended to the heavens, sat down at the right hand of the Father,
and in His nature as man received from the Father that which in His nature as
GOD He Himself also gave. VII. The fulness of the
Godhead is imparted to the Body (the Church) through the Head, (Christ).
Meditate, dearly beloved on these things with devout hearts, and be always
mindful of the apostle’s injunction, who admonishes all men, saying, “See lest
any one deceive you through philosophy and vain deceit according to the
tradition of men, and not according to Christ; for in Him dwelleth all the
fulness of the Godhead bodily, and ye have been filled in Him.” He said not
“spiritually” but “bodily,” that we may understand the substance of flesh to be
real, where there is the dwelling in the body of the fulness of the Godhead:
wherewith, of course, the whole Church is also filled, which, clinging to the
Head, is the body of Christ; who liveth and reigneth with the Father and the
Holy Ghost, GOD for ever and ever. Amen.
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