LEAGUE AND COVENANT, THE SOLEMN. See
Covenantees, § 4.
LEANDER, SAINT: Metropolitan of Seville; b. at Cartagena, Spain, c. 550; d. Mar. 13, 600 or 601. The brother of Isidore of Seville, Fulgentius bishop of Ecija, and Florentina prioress of a nunnery, he was for many years a monk, and even at this early period seems to have exercised the influence on the Visigothic Prince Hermenegild, son of Leovigild, which ultimately converted him from Arianism to the catholic faith. Leander was exiled when Hermenegild rebelled against his father; and between 579 and 582 he went to Byzantium to induce Tiberius II. to send troops to the aid of the catholic party headed by his convert. Despite the powerful influence of Gregory the Great, Leander met with no success at Byzantium. After his return to Spain, he was consecrated bishop, or metropolitan, of Seville, probably in 5S4. In this capacity he not only confirmed Leovigild 's successor Recared in his conversion to orthodoxy (58<), but also aided materially in overcoming the opposition of the Arian bishops and in effecting the final conversion of the Visigoths from Arianism. He pre-
RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Lea Lebanon
sided over the famous Synod of Toledo (589) which marked this event, and was the chief agent in addin» the filioque to the creed of the Visigothic Church. Hi's activity in behalf of his Church is also shown in his correspondence with Gregory the Great, who not only answered his questions carefully and cordially, but also sent him the pallium in 599 and dedicated to him his Moralia in Jobum. The extant works of Leander are: Regula sanctimonialium, sive libellus de institutione virginum et contemptu mundi ad Florentinam sororem, and Homilia de triumpho ecclesice ob conversionem Gothorum (delivered in the synod of Toledo). Both are printed in MPL, lxxii. 873-898. He also wrote two treatises against Arianism, one a sharp polemic, the other an orthodox catechism. In the ecclesiastical art of Spain Leander is always represented with his brother Isidore. (O. Zockler-)-.)
Bibliography: Isidore of Seville, De vir. ill, chap, xli.; ASB, March, ii. 275-280; ASM, i. 378-385; P. Gams, Kirchengeschichte von Spanien, ii. 2, pp. 37 sqq., 66 sqq., 3 vols., Regensburg, 1862-79; E. Gorres, in Forschungen zur deutschen Geschichte, 1872-73; idem, in ZHT, 1873, parts i, iv.; idem, in ZWT, xxv (1885), part m., xxvi (1886), part i., pp. 36-50; DCB, iii. 637-640; and the literature under Isidore of Seville.
LEATHES, STANLEY: Church of England; b. at Ellesborough (20 m. e. of Oxford), Bucks, Mar. 21, 1830; d. at Much Hadham (7 m. n.e. of Hertford), Herts, Apr. 30, 1900. He studied at Jesus College, Cambridge (B.A., 1852; M.A., 1855), and after serving various churches was appointed in 1863 professor of Hebrew in King's College, London. He was also perpetual curate of St. Philip's, Regent Street, London, 1869-80, and rector of Cliffeat-Hoo, Kent, 1880-89 and of Much Hadham, Herts, 1889-1900. He became a member of the Old-Testament company of revisers in 1870, and from 1876 until his death was prebendary of Caddington Major in St. Paul's Cathedral, examining chaplain to the bishop of Lichfield after 1891, and examiner in Scripture to the University of London after 1892. Among his publications, special mention may be made of his Witness of the Old Testament to Christ (London, 1868); The Witness of St. Paul to Christ (1869); The Witness of St. John to Christ (1870; these three volumes the Boyle lectures for 1868-70) ; The Structure of the Old Testament (1873); The Cities Visited by St. Paul (1873); The Gospel its own Witness (Hulsean lectures for 1873; 1874); The Religion of the Christ (Bampton lectures for 1874; 1874) ; The Grounds of Christian Hope (1877) ; The Christian Creed, its Theory and Practice (1877); Old Testament Prophecy, its Witness as a Record of Divine Foreknowledge (Warburton lectures; 1880); The Foundations of Morality: Discourses upon the Ten Commandments (1882) ; Characteristics of Christianity (1883); Christ and the Bible (1885); The Law in the Prophets (1891); and The Testimony of the Earlier Prophetic Writers to the Primal Religion of Israel (1898). Bibliography: DNB, Supplement, iii. 85-86.
LEBANON: The western part of the mountain system of central Syria, starting near the sources of the Jordan and stretching northeast about one hundred miles. Over against it to the east is Antilebanon, while between the two ranges is the
plain of Ccele-Syria (q.v.). The general character of the entire system is that of a mighty mountain wall between the coast and the interior. Lebanon begins at the south where the Litany breaks through on its way to the sea; its southern half reaches northward to the pass through which the railroad from Beirut to Damascus crosses at a height of 4,870 feet, and its highest point is Jabal Baruk, about 6,870 feet above the sea; its northern half extends to the valley of the Nahr al-Kabir where the latter flows westward into the Mediterranean. The northern half reaches a higher altitude and a greater variety of form than the southern. Instead of a single line of mountain crests there are numerous extended plateaus, reminding of the Alpine formation, though the Lebanon outlines are somewhat softer in outline. These plateau heights are known as Jabal Sannin (8,060 feet), Munaitira (8,680 feet), Khaswani (c. 9,000 feet), " the Cedars " (Arab. Arz Libnan, " Cedars of Lebanon "), and Akkar (6,610 feet). Arz Libnan culminates in two ranges of peaks running north and south, each row having five summits, of which the highest is Dahr al-Dubab in the western range, altitude 9,470 feet, just a little below the line of perpetual snow, if the observation of C. Diener be accepted. Yet there are isolated places where in some years snow lies continually in the hollows (Jer. xviii. 14), and moraines reveal traces of the glaciers of former times.
The cedar groves near Bsharrah (40 m. n.e. of Beirut) cover part of a somewhat hilly basin about 6,180 feet high, and are surrounded by a high wall pierced by two gates which, however, continually stand open. Leo Anderlind counted on Oct. 23, 1884, 397 trees, of which eight were outside the wall, none of them higher than seventy-eight feet. The most vigorous trees are near the The Cedars, little Maronite chapel, one of which at the height of four feet from the ground has a girth of about forty-five feet. Of trees like this, which bespeak a great age, there are seven. Rauwolf in 1573 counted only twenty-four trees, but Burckhardt in 1810 reckoned in all 375, showing a very large increase during the last 300 years. Modern investigation shows the timber not to be especially durable and aromatic, but it was much valued in ancient times (I Kings vi. 20 sqq.; Isa. xiv. 8, xxxvii. 24, xliv. 14; Ezek. xxvii. 24, and the cuneiform inscriptions).
The width of the stretch between the mountains and the sea varies from seventeen miles at Sidon, to near eighteen and a half at Beirut and twentysix and a third at Tripolis. The valleys of drainage in the south are largely the result of erosion in their lower course, in the upper course following geological cleavage. The northern watercourses are in general formed by gorges, the sides of which by the varying color of the strata and the mixture of vegetation present a beautiful effect. Sometimes these brooks have a subterranean channel, that of the Dog River (Nahr al-Kalb) having been followed for nearly two-thirds of a mile.
The descent from the crest to the shore is accomplished in great terraces, each of which has in popular usage its own name.
The lowest is al-Sahil,
Lebanon Leda Bible