316 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
auist, the Pelagian, and other heresies, aud won an immortal name as the finisher of the ortliodox doctrine of ihe jDerson of Christ.
The time and place of the bii'th and earlier life of Leo are unknown. His letters, which are the chief source of information, commence not before the year 442. Probably a Roman ' — if not one by birth, he was certainly a Koman in the proud dignity of his spirit and bearing, the high order of his legislative and administrative talent, and the strength and energy of his will — he distinguished himself first under Coelestine (423- 432) and Sixtus III. (432-440) as archdeacon and legate of the Pomau churcli. After the death of the latter, and while himself absent in Gaul, he was elected pope by the united voice of clergy, senate, and people, and continued in that office one-and-twenty years (440-401). His feelings at the assumption of this high office, he himself thus describes in one of his sermons : " Lord, I have heard your voice calling me, and I was afraid : I considered the work which was enjoined on me, and I trembled. For what proportion is there between the burden assigned to me and my weakness, this elevation and my nothingness ? What is more to be feared than exaltation without merit, the exercise of the most holy functions being intrusted to one who is buried in sin ? Oh, you have laid upon me this heavy burden, bear it with me, I beseech you ; be you my guide and my support."
During tlie time of his pontificate he was almost the only great man in the Poman empire, developed extraordinary activity, and took a leading part in all the affairs of the church. His private life is entirely unknown, and we have no reason to question the purity of his motives or of his morals. His official zeal, and all his time and strength, were devoted
' As Quesnel and most of his successors infer from Prosper's Chronicle, and a passage in Leo's Ep, 31, c. 4, where he assigns among the reasons for not attending the council at Ephesus in 449, that he could not " deserere patriam et sedem apostolicam." Fatria, however, may as well mean Italy, or at least the diocese of Rome, including the ten suburbican provinces. In the Liber pontificalis he is calk! "natione Tuscus,^ but in two manuscript copies, "natione Rcmanusy Canisiua, in the Acta Sanctorum, adopts the former view. Butler reconciles the diflBculty by supposing that he was descended of a noblo Tuscan family, but born at Rome.
§ 63. LEO THE GREAT. 317
to the interests of Christianity. But with him the interests of Chi'istianitj were identical with the universal dominion of the Roman church.
He was animated with the unwavering conviction ihat the Lord himself had committed to him, as the successor of Peter, the care of the whole church.' He anticipated all the dogmatical arguments by which the power of the papacy was subsequently established. He refers the ^etra, on which the church is built, to Peter and his confession. Though Christ himself — to sum up his views on the subject — is in the highest sense the rock and foundation, besides which no other can be laid, yet, by transfer of his authority, the Lord made Peter the rock in virtue of his great confession, and built on him the indestructible temple of his church. In Peter the fundamental relation of Christ to his church comes, as it were, to concrete form and reality in history. To him specially and individually the Lord intrusted the keys of the kingdom of heaven ; to the other apostles only in their general and corporate capacity. For the faith of Peter the Lord specially prayed in the hour of his passion, as if tlie standing of the other apostles would be the firmer, if the mind of their leader remained unconquered. On Peter rests the steadfastness of the whole apostolic college in the faith. To him the Lord, after his resurrection, commit ted the care of his sheep and lambs. Peter is therefore the pastor and prince of the whole church, through whom Clirist exercises his universal dominion on earth. This primacy, however, is not limited to the apostolic age, but, like the faith of Peter, and like the church herself, it perpetuates itself; and it perpetuates itself through the bishops of Pome, who are related to Peter as Peter was related to Christ. As Christ in Peter, so Peter in his successors lives and speaks and perpetually executes the commission : " Feed my sheep." It was by
' Ep. V. ad Episcopos Metrop. per Illyricum constitutes, c. 2 (ed. Ball. i. 617, m Migne's Patristic Libr. vol. liv. p. 515) : " Quia per (ymnes ecclesias cura nostra disteuditur, exigente hoc a nobis Domino^ qui apostolicae dignitatis beatissimo apostolo Petro primatum fidei sua) remuneratione coitunisit, universalem ecclesiam in fundamenti ipsius [Quesnel proposes istius for ipsius\ soliditate constituens, nccessitatenj sollicitudinis quam habemus, cum his qui nobis coUegii caritate juncti sunt, soci