Having thus seen how this epistle carries within it- self the proofs of its spuriousness, the question arises. When was it written? If it were included in the works of Anselm, we would have to consider it as having been composed in the Uth centur3^ Yet it is simply append- ed to the works of this author, and was never made use of until the 15th century, to give favor to an opinion which the monks had an interest to propagate. Lau- rentius Valla, who lived in the loth century, -was the first who made any mention of it in his argument against the pseudo donation of Constantine. A postscript of great interest is appended to the 2d Jena MS., and it, in our estimation, tends to reveal the true character of the work : " Explicit epistola Jacobi de Columpna anno Domini 14-21 reperit eam in annalibus Romte, in libro anti(iuissimo in Capitolio ex dono Patriarchte Constanti- nopolitani." If this postscript is to be relied on, this epistle was sent to Rome in the Uth century by a patri- arch of Constantinople as a present, just as it was after- wards sent to the elector Frederick tlie Wise of Saxony by pope Leo. But as from Constantinople there were generally sent Greek MSS. only, and as there is no men- tion made of the name of the patriarch supposed to have sent it, and as, moreover, the work is claimed to be a very old one, it is most likely that this description is a Latin translation of that of Nieephorus, which we gave above, that the translator added the postscript with the intention of rendering his spurious work more credible, and that consequently both epistle and postscript are spurious. Tlie imitator or translator of Nicephorus, who gives ample jiroofs in his work of the source whence he tb-ew when he speaks of the stature of Christ (in a copy in (Joldast we find, after statitra procerus, " scilicet xv palniorum et medii"), gave the work the form of an epis- tle, aud gave it the name of Lentulus, taken from some tradition, or which otherwise seemed suitable to him. It is now evident that the epistle could only have been written at some lime after Nicei)horns, and before the 3-car l.')0(t, consequently in the lltli centurv. Dr. Ed- ward Robinson, after carefully examining all flie evi- dences for and against the authenticity of this work, thus ijrcsents the results of Ids iniiuiry ; '' In favor of the autlu-nticity of the letter we have only tlie purport of the inscription. There is no external evidence what- ever. Afjainst its authenticity we have 'the great dis- crc])ancies and contradictions of the inscription; the fact that no such official person as Lentulus existed at the time and place specified, nor for many years before
and after ; the ntter silence of history in respect to the existence of such a letter; the foreign and later idioms of its style ; the contradiction in which the contents of the epistle stand with estal)lished historical facts; and the probability of its having been produced at some time not earlier than the 11th centurj-." See Job. Be- ned. Carpzov, Theolo(ji IJelmstadiensis protjrumma : de oris et corporis Jesu Christi, etc. (Helmstadt, 1774, 4to) ; Joh. Phil. Gabler, Theologus A Itorfeiisis an. 1819 ami 18-22 in A uthentiam epistolte PuUii Lentuli ad Senatum Roma- num de Jesu Christo scriptxe ; Herzog, Reul-Encyklopd- die, viii, 29-2 sq. ; Dr. Robinson in Biblical RejMsitory, ii, 367; Schalf, 6'A. //isMii, 569 ; Jamieson, 0«rZo?-(/, i, 35; Friends^ Review, March 3, 1867, p. 769 sq. See Jesus Chkist.
Leo OF AcHRis or Achridia (now Ohl-rida, in Al- bania), was so called because he held the archbishopric of Achris, in the Greek Church, among the Bulgarians. He joined about A.D. 1053, with Michael Cerularius, pa- triarch of Constantinople, in writing a very bitter letter against the pope, which they sent to John, archbishop of Trani, in Apulia, to be distributed among tlie mem- bers of the Latin Church — prelates, monks, laity. A translation of this letter is given by Baronius (Annal, Eccles. ad ann. 1053, xxii, etc.). Pope Leo IX replied in a long letter, which is given in the Concilia (vol. ix, col. 949, etc., ed. Labbe ; vol. vi, col. 927, ed. Hardouin ; vol. xix, col. 035, ed. Mansi), and the following year both Cerularius and Leo of Achris were excommunicated by cardinal Humbert, the papal legate (Baronius, ad ann. 1054, xxv). Leo wrote many other letters, which are extant in ISIS, in various European libraries, and are cited by Allatius, in his De Consensu Eccles. Orient, et Oc- cident. ; hy Beveridgc, in his Codex Canonum ; by Alex- is Aristenus, in his Synopsis Epistolarum Canonicarum ; and by Comnenus Popadopoli, in his Prceiwtiones Mys- tagogicce. See ¥abr\.c\.u», Biblioth. Grmca, ii, 715; Cave, Uist. Litt. ii, 138, ed. Oxon. 1740 ; Oudin, De Scripiorib. et Script is Eccles. ii, 003. — Smith, Diet, of Greek and Ro- man Biog. ii, 741.
Leo jEgypth-s, or the Egyptian. The early Chris- tian writers, in their controversy with the heathen, re- fer not unfrequently to a Leo or Leon as having admit- ted that the deities of the ancient Gentile nation had originally been men, agreeing in this respect with Eve- merus, with -whom he was contemporary, if not per- haps rather earlier. Augustine (^De Consensu Evangel, i, 33, and De Cir. Dei, viii, 5), who is most explicit in his notice of him, says he was an Egyptian priest of high rank, " magnus antistes," and that he expounded the popular mythology to Alexander the Great in a manner which, though differing from those rationalistic explanations received in Greece, accorded with them in making the gods (including even the Dii majorum gen- tium) to have originally been men. Augustine refers to an account of the statements of Leo contained in a letter of Alexander to his mother. It is to be observed, though Leo was high in his priestly rank at tlie time when Alexander was in Egypt (B. C. 33-2-331), his name is Greek ; and Arnobius {adv. Gentes, iv, 29) calls him Leo Pellwus, or Leo of Pella. an epithet which Fabricius does not satisfactorily explain. \\'orth {Not. ad Tatian. p. 96, ed. Oxford, 1700) would identity our Leo with Leo of Lampsacus, the husband of Themista or Thcmisto. the female Epicurean (Diog. Lacrt. x, 5, 25); Init tlie hus- liaud of Themista was more correctly called Lconteus, while the Egyptian is never called by any other name than Leo. Arnobius speaks in such a way as to lead us to think that in his day the writings of Leon on the hu- man origin of the gods were extant and accessible, but it is possible he refers, like Augustine, to Alexander's let- ter. The reference to Leon in Clemens Alexandrinus is not more exjilicit {Stromata, i. 21. § 106, p. 139, Syl- burg ; p. 382, edit. Pott ; ii, 75, edit. Klotz, Lipsi;r, 1831, l"2mo). But Tatian's distinct mention of the 'VTrojurr/- ftara, or Commentaries of Leo, shows that this system