ST. LEO II.

AD. 682-683.

 

EMPEROR. POGONATUS, 668-685.

KING. PERCTARIT, 672-688.               

EXARCH. THEODORE, 677-687.

       

St. Leo II, like his predecessor, a Sicilian by birth, and the son of a certain Paul, though elected, according to custom, soon after the death of Agatho, was not consecrated till August 17, 682, an interval of 584 days. Probably the business of the Sixth General Council and the negotiations carried on by the papal legates to obtain freedom from imperial confirmation were the causes of the emperor not confirming the election in good time. The Book of the Popes has bestowed a very beautiful character on this Pontiff. It depicts him as a man of learning, great eloquence, as possessed of a good knowledge of the Scriptures, as well versed in Greek and Latin, and in the theory and practice of music. Not only was he learned himself, but he was an earnest teacher of others, and he was at once a preacher and a doer of good works. For he was a lover of poverty and the poor. In a word, he was both pious and hard working. The fact that Leo is praised for his knowledge of Greek is a further proof not only that it was no longer the common possession of ‘society’ in Rome, as it was in the days of Rome’s power, but that individual knowledge of it was becoming rare in the West. The barbarians on the one hand, and religious differences on the other, were rapidly severing the last bonds that united the Latin-speaking portion of the empire with the Greek. We have already seen different popes complaining of the difficulty of getting Greek documents translated. The time was approaching when almost all knowledge of it was to be lost in the West. Pope

On his election, Leo wrote to the emperor, probably to notify his election and to ask the imperial confirmation. As we saw under Pope Agatho, Constantine wrote to the Pope—his letter is dated December 13,681—and sent him, along with the letter, his approval (dated December 23, 681) of the Sixth General Council. The legates of Pope Agatho, who were to be the bearers of these letters to his successor, would seem to have spent the winter at Constantinople. At any rate they did not reach Rome till July 682. After his consecration in the following month, Leo sent off to the emperor his confirmation of the decrees of the Sixth Ecumenical Council some time before the end of the year 682. He then took steps to have the decrees of the council published throughout the West, there are still extant four of his letters which he sent into Spain by the notary Peter. One was addressed to the Spanish bishops in general, another to Bishop Quiricus, one again to King Ervig (though some MSS. ascribe this letter to Benedict II), and another to Count Simplicius,

These four letters are practically all to the same effect. Leo knows that those to whom he is writing are anxious about the purity of the faith, for which the apostolic See, the mother of all the churches, has ever toiled, and for which it would be ready to suffer the last extremities rather than see it defiled. He then tells of the doings of the council at Constantinople, at which there were bishops from all the world, what was defined and who were condemned. He explains most carefully that Honorius was condemned for not at once extinguishing the flames of heresy, as became his apostolical authority, but for rather fanning them by carelessness. He sends the ‘definitions’ of the council and one or two of the letters in connection with the council; that is, such portions of the acts as had up to that time been translated into Latin, In his letter to the bishops he exhorts them to subscribe the decrees of the synod.

The result of these letters was the fourteenth council of Toledo, which met in November 684, and which heartily accepted the faith of the Sixth Ecumenical Council.

Mention has already been made of how Leo obtained from Constantine the revocation of the decree of Constans II, making the bishops of Ravenna “autocephalous”.

Before speaking of the Pope’s death, mention has now only to be made of the fact that he dedicated (February 22, 683) to St Paul a church, which he built near that of St. Bibiana, and in which he placed the relics of many martyrs. He also built, near the ‘velum aureum’, a church which he dedicated to SS. Sebastian and George—the Church of St. George in Velabro, a church of great interest to Englishmen, as it was the titular church of the late venerated Cardinal Newman. It is close to the arch of Janus Quadrifrons and the Cloaca Maxima. “The building of Leo II (the entrance hall is of later date) still preserves its original outlines, and is a small basilica of three naves, with sixteen ancient granite or marble columns. Scarcely any other church within the city is so pervaded by the atmosphere of early Christian times. The original form of the church—that of a basilica—its simplicity, its sculptures, its inscriptions, some of them in Greek, dating from the first centuries of Christianity, its air of spell-bound tranquility, its situation in the valley between the Capitol and the Palatine, hallowed by so many historic associations, combine to form a powerful impression on the mind of the beholder!”

Leo was buried in St. Peter’s, July 3, 683. According to Butler, he is commemorated as a saint in the Roman and other martyrologies on the 28th of June. For on that day his body was translated (688) into the church proper of St. Peter.

 

ST. BENEDICT II