ON SAINT LEO II, ROMAN PONTIFF.
A.D. 684.
A PRELIMINARY CHRONOLOGICAL SYNOPSIS.
Leo II, Roman Pontiff (S.)
D. P.
On the 28th day of June, the old Church of Rome celebrated the feast of S. Leo the Pope I, on account of a certain translation of his: which afterward it seemed ought rather to be celebrated yearly on that very day, on which his Body was first delivered to burial in the basilica of S. Peter, On which day Leo I was translated, on the 11th day of April; on which also now he is venerated; although otherwise he died on the 30th day of the preceding October, in the year 461. On the same 28th day of June, in the years thence 223, in the year of Christ 684, in the same place was solemnly entombed S. Leo II; having died (as to us at least it seems) on the 23rd of May preceding, and for a time deposited in the Lateran Basilica, Leo II was deposited in the Vatican, like others everywhere; often several months elapsing between the first and second deposition; and the second only was inscribed in the Vatican Fasti, as elsewhere has been shown.
[2] Labbe confesses, renowned for several books published into the light, and of the history of the Pontiffs and Councils, if any other, knowing; that in the whole series of the Roman Pontiffs, whose most intricate Pontificate scarcely anything occurs more intricate than the beginning, deeds, and death of Leo the Pope the second. I, adding a little to his findings, seemed to myself to have unraveled everything, by interchanging between themselves the spaces, both of the See vacant before, which was defined as one year, 7 months, 5 days; and of the same obtained, which was said to have been 10 months, 18 days. So after the death of his predecessor Agatho, who died on the 1st of November of the year 681, I seem to have extricated [it, by interchanging the time ascribed to the vacant See, with that in which he held it.] through the said 10 months, 17 days, reaching even to the 19th of October of the following year, in which Leo had been ordained on a Lord's Day; through 1 year, 7 months, 5 days, I led him to the 23rd of May of the year 684: after which day, and another vacancy of 11 months and 20 days, there succeeded in the Apostolic See, ordained, Benedict II, on the 14th of May, likewise on a Lord's Day. Thus far in this Chronology I persist: because I have not yet seen anything effective to the contrary: but by it I seem to have escaped all the difficulties, which to Labbe seemed inexplicable.
[3] It pleases not to reweave those things here at greater length, nor to reproduce the Sermon, which Leo gave on the day of his Ordination, or its Octave, as Lucas Holstenius thinks; under this beginning: The pleasantness of today's feast invites us, The decree of election sent to Constantinople, Most beloved, your fraternal concord in Christ with humble voice to exhort, etc. Nor does it please more to reproduce the Formula of the Decree, concerning the election of the same Leo sent to the Princes; to which while a response is awaited at Constantinople, it happened often in that age that the Interpontifices were longer; since indeed not from the day of Election, but of Consecration were reckoned the beginnings of Pontificates. The Decree begins: Since not without the nod of the divine mercy is it, that thus after the death of the supreme Pontiff, into the election of one all the votes concur, etc. the sermon on the day of Ordination I pass rather to the Life, as in Anastasius the Librarian it is described, to be illustrated with Notes: if one word I shall have premised about his cult. He had it on this day, as I said, Leo the first, translated, already before the middle of the 8th century, in which was written the old Roman Calendar, by John Fronto published at Paris. Gregory the Great, in his Sacramentary (if here there is nothing from the hand of an interpolator) for the word Translatio, for Leo the First once inscribed on this day in the Fasti wrote Birthday of S. Leo the Pope, certainly the First, since indeed the Second sat nearly eighty years after Gregory. The same, and not another, understood Wandelbertus of Prüm, in his metric Martyrology, where he says:
By a Prelate the fourth (before the Kalends of July) rejoices, and by a Doctor of the word, Leo.
In no other sense also speaks, augmented among the Monks of S. Genoveva, Usuardus, on the same day, The Birthday of blessed Leo the Pontiff and Doctor.
[4] But truly, after the Second of this name, raised from his burial, together with the Third and Fourth, in the oratory of Leo IV the Pope, the Second succeeded among the more recent, translated by Paschal III. of holy recollection the Lord Paschal the Pope II reposited; as in the description of the Roman Basilica, from the relation of eyewitnesses wrote the Roman Presbyter, in the time of Eugenius Pope III (but that Paschal sat from the year 1099 to 1118) there began in several Ms. copies of Usuardus, and among very many more recent, instead of the First, referred to April, to be celebrated the Second, according to Anastasius on this day deposited: which finally from Bellinus and others has been retained in the present-day Roman Martyrology, where is read: His tomb in the Vatican crypts. At Rome, of S. Leo the Pope the second: of whom also, perhaps from the time of the aforesaid Paschal, an Office is prescribed with a proper Lesson from Anastasius, as we find in the printed edition of the year 1479 and others thereafter. His tomb, like also of the other two, the aforesaid Oratory being destroyed, lest it should hinder the building of the new basilica, now is shown in the Vatican crypts, without any singular honor. But whether elsewhere Relics received thence are had, is hidden from me; while nearly all wish them to be of the First, if any they have.
[3] That this Pontiff was by country a Sicilian, since the Author of the Life asserts, no one doubts: but Messina, By country a Sicilian, as wrote D. Antoninus Languidara, most studious of our work there, by a certain proper right believes him to be its own. For, anciently to this city on the northern part there grew a suburb, which up to this day the common people call S. Leo's: in which also a very ancient church stands, dedicated to his name: and in the old Messina and Gallican Breviary, which we have read preserved up to the time of Pius V, he is believed to have been of Messina, was prescribed a Commemoration of the same to be made on this day: and the Papaleone family is thought thence to have taken its surname, by Cajetan, in memory of common origin with him. Wherefore on the gate which leads to the aforesaid suburb, this inscription carved is read; To God the Best and Greatest, to the Lord Leo II Supreme Pontiff, their fellow-citizen, where a suburb and church called after him and the Papaleone family. the Senate and People of Messina, the Leonine Gate placed, dedicated, and gave, in the month of December in the year of Christ. To the same opinion conspire Silvester Maurolycus, in the Ocean of Religions, page 92; Stephanus Maurus, in his Messina the Proto-Metropolis, page 239; Placidus Samperus of the Society of Jesus, in the Marian Iconology, page 92, Sicilians all; and Carolus Jongolinus, an Italian of Fano, in his Hendegraphia, discourse 3, chapter 104, to me by Languidara indicated: who then adds, that of the same holy Pontiff the Relics are reverently preserved in the church of the Fathers Clerks Minor, under the title of S. Agatha; and that the fame to these very times brought down flourishes, that his natal house existed in that place, The people of Aidone also say he was born among them. where now rises the most celebrated convent of Monte-Vergine, by blessed Eustochia of Messina founded. These he wrote to me on the Ides of May, in the year 1687. Yet I would not from Cajetan dissemble that the inhabitants of the town of Aidone among the Leontines, likewise as the people of Messina, of S. Leo born among them glory, and on that title have a church dedicated to him, with the inscription, To the Lord Leo Pope II, Citizen and Patron, the Order and People of Aidone erected this Basilica. Not that their town is so ancient (inasmuch as founded by the Lombards, who followed Roger the Count into Sicily, about the year 1090) but that from the ruins of old Herlita, a once splendid city, as the remaining ruins still show, it is believed to have arisen, and that Leo was of Herlita: which to the Sicilians furthermore to dispute I leave.
ACTA
From Anastasius the Librarian.
Leo II, Roman Pontiff (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR D. P.
[1] Leo, by nation a Sicilian, of his father Paul, sat ten months, seventeen days; a most eloquent man, and in the divine Scriptures sufficiently instructed; in the Greek and Latin tongue learned, in chant and psalmody preeminent, and in their senses by most subtle exercise polished; in tongue also a Scholar, eloquent, and by greater reading refined: an exhorter of all good works, instilling into very many a most flourishing knowledge: a lover of poverty; and toward the provision of the needy, not only with the piety of his mind, but also with the labor of his zeal solicitous.
[2] He received the holy sixth Synod, which by God's providence lately in the Royal city was celebrated, written in the Greek tongue, the most pious great Prince Constantine carrying out and presiding within his royal Palace, which is called Trullus. And at the same time with him the Legates of the Apostolic See, and two Patriarchs, that is of Constantinople and of Antioch, and a hundred fifty Bishops; in which were condemned Cyrus, Sergius, Honorius, Pyrrhus, Paul and Peter; and also Macarius with his disciple Stephen; but also Polychronius the new Simon, who one will and operation in the Lord Jesus Christ said and preached, or whoever finally were to preach [it] and have defended [it]: but it was decreed, that also now two wills and operations of the same dispenser Christ and Saviour our God be said; as the same Synod, most studiously into Latin translated, declares. Yet of the aforewritten defenders the chief, namely Macarius, Stephen, Polychronius and Anastasius, since they would not recede from their purpose, at Rome through various Monasteries were thrust away.
[4] Which aforesaid most holy man Leo, absolved two men in receiving communion, who from the Royal city with the aforesaid Macarius and the rest into the Roman city were sent; who not yet by the Synod had been anathematized, that is Anastasius the Presbyter and Leontius the Deacon of the Church of Constantinople, on the day of S. Theophany; setting forth namely by their own writings their faith, according to what the holy Synod also determined, anathematizing namely all the said heretics; but also the aforewritten men their accomplices, whom the holy Synod or the Apostolic See anathematized.
[5] In his times, by the running Imperial command of the most clement Prince, was restored the church of the Ravennese, under the ordination of the Apostolic See, so that, the Archbishop being dead, he who was elected, according to ancient custom, into the city of Rome should come to be ordained. He made a constitution, which is contained in the archive of the Church, that he who shall be ordained Archbishop, by no custom, for the use of the Pallium or the various Offices of the Church, ought to pay; but also that for Maurus, formerly the Bishop, the anniversary or the agenda should [not] be celebrated. But also the type of Autocephaly, which the Archbishops of Ravenna had drawn out for themselves, for cutting off scandals, to the Apostolic See they restored.
[6] He made a church in the city of Rome beside S. Bibiana, where also the bodies of the holy Simplicius, Faustinus and Beatrix and of other Martyrs he reposited; and dedicated it to the name of S. Paul the Apostle. By the command of this gracious Pontiff a church beside the Golden Veil, in honor of B. Sebastian was built, and also in honor of the Martyr George, on the 22nd day of February, where also gifts he offered.
[7] In his times on the sixteenth day of the month of April, in the eleventh Indiction, the moon underwent an eclipse. After the Lord's Supper, almost the whole night it labored in a bloody countenance, and not until after the cock's crowing did it begin little by little to grow clear, and to return to its own aspect.
[8] He made one ordination in the month of June on the twenty-seventh day, Presbyters nine, Deacons three, Bishops through various places to the number of twenty-three. He also was buried at B. Peter the Apostle on the fourth day of the Kalends of July. And the Episcopate ceased for 11 months, 22 days.
[9] Which also the aforewritten most holy man, was ordained by three Bishops, that is, Andrew of Ostia, John of Porto, and the Placentine of Velletri, for that the Albanensian Church had by no means a Bishop.
NOTES. D. P.
APPENDIX D. P.
On the body of S. Leo the Pope at Ferrara.
Leo II, Roman Pontiff (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR D. P.
[1] His cult at Ferrara on this day In the year 1660 I and my Master P. Godefridus Henschenius, setting out for Rome, through Ferrara passed in the month of November; and among other churches of that city, we visited on the 12th day of the month the Parochial church of S. Stephen, and its ornament and brightness praising, we venerated, set on each side of the choir, two notable chests, of which the left was said to contain the body of S. Romanus the Martyr, of whom there will be place to treat on the 9th of August; but in the right part the body of S. Leo the Pope II. But we were admonished by him who was conducting us, P. Andreas Lazarus, an excellent old man, and well deserving of this work several times, that an Apostolic Nuncio had forbidden, that it should be venerated as such; the Romans among themselves maintaining, that the four bodies of the holy Leos [are] there. dismissed by the command of the Pontifical Nuncio; Discontinued therefore on this day was the cult, nor was another day substituted; and no Saint of this name then occurred to us, of whom that body could be by any probable conjecture we could opine. For although that it was carried away from Vico-habentia Voghenza
was established; and that there had been a certain Bishop S. Leus or Leo, to be venerated on the 1st of August, we remembered; yet we remembered concerning his body at Monte-Feretrano (whither from destroyed Vico-habentia the Episcopal See with the Relics of the Saints was translated) to have received documents so clear, that his presence there did not seem able to be called into doubt.
[2] Thus, doubtful, we asked to have described for us the one which on the wall we read, on a marble tablet carved in gilded letters, a title; of which this is the tenor. To God the Best and Greatest, in the year from the Virgin's Childbearing 1509, on the 3rd of the Kalends of July, [a doubt being moved concerning the truth of the translation made in the year 1509] under Pope Julius II, Alfonso of Este Duke III, and Hippolytus his brother, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church and Bishop of Ferrara; in this sepulchre, where the ashes of Faustina once were reposited, the Venerable Jacobus Benzonus, Bishop and Protomartyr of this church, found a leaden chest spread with bones, in which these things carved were read: Here rests the body of S. Leo, after another of the year 1081 Pontiff and Priest of Christ, translated hither from Vico-habentia, under Gratian
Bishop of Ferrara, A.D. 1000, on the 16th of the Kalends of March, in the fourth Indiction. For which reason a supplication being appointed, by the venerable College of Priests, most religiously in the same place the same bones were reposited, in the same year (namely 1509) on the Ides of July, then falling on a Lord's day, under the course of the Dominical letter G; as also in the year 1081, the Dominical letter C running, it is to be observed, the 14th day of February concurring with a Lord's day; the number of the year squaring with the number of the Roman Indiction. Marcus Antonius Guarini, in the historical Compendium of Ferrarese affairs, page 129, with the chest of Faustina. recites the aforesaid title, and says that that sepulchre was inscribed with these letters, To the Departed Spirits. Annia Faustina living placed [it] for herself. The first letters, indicating it to be a stone sacred to the Departed Spirits, argue Faustina to have been a Gentile: yet that her ashes collected at some time there lay the inscription does not prove, but rather the contrary; inasmuch as after Faustina's death it was left imperfect; because elsewhere namely she was buried. But Guarini praises the chest, as one of the more beautiful monuments, which the Ferrarese dominion has.
[3] The same Guarini relates the history of the body brought to Ferrara of which we treat, in this manner. Anselmus, kinsman of Aistulf King of the Lombards, [Meanwhile the body is said to have been brought about 754 from Rome to Nonantola,] with the consent of Huntrudis his wife, about to begin a monastic life, to that end had founded the Nonantola monastery, under a Privilege of Zacharias the Pope for it obtained, together with the bodies of the holy Martyrs Synesius and Theopompus; to whom then Stephen II, the successor of Zacharias, added the bodies of the holy Pontiffs and Confessors, in 1006 [from Vico-habentia,] Silvester and Leo II, about the year
754. Afterward in the year 1006 a pestilence prevailed through Italy, for whose extinguishing the cause the Monks of Nonantola first the bodies of the aforesaid holy Martyrs brought forth, through the diocese of Bologna processionally to be carried about: which to their place being brought back, to be carried about likewise they decreed the body of S. Leo through the diocese of Ferrara. But its bearers, when they had come to Vico-habentia, 10 miles distant from Ferrara, and thence to Ferrara in 1081. there were all extinguished by the pestilence in the month of April; and so that sacred deposit remained there, until the year 1081, when it to Ferrara brought Gratian, as already has been said. Furthermore the successor of Gratian, Samuel, in the year 83 of the same century, on the 17th day of April, by the hand of Gregory the Priest, gave an Instrument, by which half of the church of S. Stephen he delivered to the Chapter of the Cathedral church; but the other, together with the body of S. Leo, added Guido of Arezzo, under an instrument of the year 92, on the 9th of January, by the hands of Jacobus once [son] of Peter Antonius: and this donation thereafter confirmed the Roman Pontiffs, in the year 1187 Gregory VII VIII, in 98 Innocent III; in 1275 Alexander IV.
[4] The form and situation of the aforesaid chest These things thus asserted by Guarini, if, the instruments themselves being produced, which are cited, they hold good; it could indeed be prohibited, that to S. Leo the Pope II in the city of Ferrara cult be given; but it will not be possible forthwith to dislodge the citizens from their ingrained and from their ancestors received belief, that his body, or a great part of it, is among them; unless perhaps, the chest which at Rome is still shown being opened, they shall have shown that there is still held entire the number of sacred bones once reposited. I to prejudge neither of the contending parties intend; but what I have found, I simply report: and what our Father John
Paul Senerthus, being asked to send us an accurate description of that chest, submitted as follows, received from a learned and pious man.
[5] The body of S. Leo the Pope anciently rested in a leaden chest, of length about five palms, and of height one; but this was enclosed in another chest likewise, but of marble of the stone commonly called Travertine or Macigno, inserted in the wall of the church of S. Stephen at the left side outside the greater chapel; on two bases so resting, that almost wholly it projected outside the wall raised above the pavement ten palms. The form of the chest was altogether flat, on whose front face these words were read; The Body of S. Leo the Pope. The cover wrought with scaly work (such namely as is that of the urn, at the 6th of June in the second Norbertine Corollary, number 38, represented) projecting at the four corners as many human heads of low relief. That chest was long sixteen, high six palms. the specification of the bones reposited in it. But now that cover and the bases, shapeless stones, lie outside the church: but the chest has been made a repository of another wooden one, sculpted and gilded, in which the leaden one is enclosed, and at the same time placed under the high altar, to which was translated the body of that holy Pontiff, as appears from the title placed at the right side of the same altar. On occasion of the translation the leaden chest was opened, and found therein were three oblong bones, namely of the legs or hips, with the bone commonly called Scio (Ischion), some little ribs and many ashes, and nothing else. The body therefore is said to be a notable part of the body, which to be present among the Ferrarese, they will not, I believe, wish to deny, the Romans, unless the same which here are named bones, the sepulchre likewise being opened, they are prepared to show. Accordingly deservedly will the Ferrarese act, that their ancient use be restored to them.