Saint Leo the Great

The ceremony of his exaltation took place on a Sunday, September 29, 440. If one wishes to know the sentiments that animated the new Pope, one should read the sermons he delivered on each anniversary of his pontificate. In one, he says that he was frightened upon hearing the voice of God calling him to govern the Church; he proclaims himself too weak for such a heavy burden, too small for such greatness, and too devoid of merit for such an august dignity. However, he does not lose courage, because he expects nothing from himself, and everything from Him who works within him: What, without discouraging the pontiff, nevertheless frightened him, was that the Church found itself attacked on all sides by vice and error. Let us say, in a few words, how he defended it and what his glorious victories were. He took care to associate with his battles persons full of doctrine and piety, among others , Saint Prosper of Aquita saint Prosper d'Aquitaine Secretary and advisor to Saint Leo. ine, the most learned man of his time: he made him his advisor and secretary, just as Saint Damasus had once done with Saint Jerome: then he began the reform with the Roman people, so that the mother Church might be the model for all other churches. Not content with inciting it to virtue by his own examples, he also instructed it through his preaching, imitating in this, he says, the example of his predecessors. This part of the episcopal ministry was then much more mandatory than it is today, because only bishops could exercise it.

Nothing shows us better than his letters, one hundred and forty-five in number, with what vigilance, what skill, and what authority the holy Pontiff regulated what needed to be regulated, in matters of faith and discipline, in all parts of the world.

In Africa, Mauretania Caesariensis, today the province of Algiers, still belonged to the Western Empire, but it had suffered greatly from the Vandal invasion. Saint Leo wrote a decretal letter to the bishops of that country to reform the province and ensure the execution of the canons. After settling the main affairs, he concluded with these words, which clearly show us, even at that time, the primacy of the Holy See in full exercise: "If other causes arise, which concern the state of the churches and the concord of the bishops, we wish them to be examined on the spot, in the fear of the Lord, and that a complete account of all arrangements made or to be made be sent to us, so that what has been defined justly and reasonably, according to the custom of the Church, may also be confirmed by a sentence."

Among the Africans who took refuge in Rome to escape the violence of the Vandals were many Manichaeans; they initially hid their sentiments because the emperors had, in their edicts, threatened this sect with severe penalties; but Leo eventually learned of their errors and secret crimes. Here is how he proceeded against them: assisted by bishops, priests, sepulchres, and other illustrious persons, who formed a respectable assembly of judges, he summoned the accused. They publicly acknowledged that they held several impious dogmas, subversive of morality and society, as well as of the Catholic religion; they even confessed themselves guilty of a crime that modesty does not permit to be named. Saint Prosper says that their books were burned, and that many of them repented and returned to the bosom of the Church. Saint Leo, upon receiving their abjuration, commended them to the priests of the faithful people. Those who persisted obstinately in their error were banished.

Let us briefly name the other countries that the Vicar of Jesus Christ regenerated, consoled, supported, and assisted. Sicily had been ravaged by the Vandals; he sent aid to Pascasius, bishop of Lilybaeum, with letters of consolation. Several abuses had crept into ecclesiastical discipline in Italy: on October 10, 443, he addressed a decretal to the bishops so that they might work to eradicate them.

They support each other. Among these works are nine sermons on the fast of the tenth month or the Ember days of December. According to the holy doctor, the Church instituted the Ember days in the four seasons of the year in order to sanctify them all through fasting. She also wished thereby to provide weapons for her children against dissipation, and to lead them to thank God for the fruits and other benefits they continually receive from His love. The holy Pope often returns to the amendment of giving alms. "This obligation," he says, "suffers no dispensation. God has given riches to men only so that they may pour them into the bosom of indigence. It is therefore going against His intention to hoard them in advance or to consume them in superfluities. Thus, the sentence that Jesus Christ must pronounce on the last day will bear primarily on the conduct one has held toward the poor. The Savior wished to teach us by this that alms are the key to heaven and the channel of graces. The obligation to give alms," he adds, "is not measured by the quantity of goods, but by the sentiments of the heart. It is common to all men, since all must love their fellow men and desire to assist them. As for the rich, they are bound to seek out the inactive poor and assist them to enable them to emerge from their misery." He shows that the institution of collections for the poor comes from the Apostles themselves, and that the Church has never ceased to compose a fund from the liberality of the faithful to relieve those in need. One cannot doubt that Saint Leo is filled with strength and eloquence when he treats the matters of which we have just spoken: but he surpasses himself in a way when his discourses have as their subject the mystery of the Incarnation, and the incomprehensible love that led the Son of God to clothe Himself in our nature and our miseries.

Illyria fell under the patriarchate of Rome; the bishop of Thessalonica represented the Popes th mystère de l'Incarnation Central mystery of Bérullian theology. ere as apostolic vicar. But for some time, the Illyrian bishops had shown themselves little disposed to obey him. In 444, Leo confirmed the authority of the bishop of Thessalonica; in the instructions he gave him, he recommended above all the elections of bishops, where one should look only at the merit of the person and the services rendered to the Church, without any view to favor or interest. "No one," he says, "should be ordained bishop in these churches without consulting you; for they will be chosen with more mature examination when your examination is feared, and we shall not hold as bishops those whom the metropolitan has ordained without your participation. As the metropolitans have the right to ordain the bishops of their provinces, we wish you to ordain the metropolitans, and to choose them with greater care, as they are to govern the others." He concludes by saying: "You will send back to us, according to ancient tradition, the appeals and major causes that cannot be terminated on the spot."

Priscillianists, so named from Priscillian their leader, were renewing in Spain a portion of the Manichaean impurities, believing, for example, in fate, in the influence of the stars, proscribing marriage, and indulging in secret acts of debauchery and impure mysteries. Saint Turibius, bishop of Astorga, who fought them with courage, consulted the Pope. Leo, in his response, grants his zeal just praise, sends him the acts of the proceedings he had conducted in Rome against the Manichaeans to serve as a model, and awakens the attention of the other bishops of Spain to this heresy, of which he shows them the horror and the fatal consequences. He orders them to assemble in a council to remedy it.

Saint Hilary, bishop of Arles, having deposed a bishop named Chelidonius, the latter appealed the sentence passed against him to Saint Leo, who, after judging him again, restored him to his see. He took from Hilary his right as metropolitan to give it to the bishop of Vienne. It must be noted that the Pope does not dispute Saint Hilary's jurisdiction over Chelidonius. The latter was undoubtedly a suffragan of the bishop of Arles, or else, if he were, as some claim, bishop of Besançon, the jurisdiction of the bishop of Arles is still understandable, for the Popes had granted to the bishops of that city, the civil metropolis of the Gauls, a kind of supremacy: they had named them their vicars. Hilary went himself to Rome, in the middle of winter, to have his sentence against Chelidonius confirmed; but the latter produced testimonies of his innocence, against which Hilary, who was present, remained silent. Moreover, he abused his authority in a circumstance perhaps even more serious. Having learned that Projectus, a bishop in a province other than that of Arles, was ill, he went there unexpectedly and ordained a bishop in his place, as if the church had been vacant. Projectus, having returned to health, complained of this procedure to Pope Saint Leo. Hilary therefore well deserved to be stripped of his metropolitan title, and should have found himself "fortunate to retain his see, through the indulgence of the Apostolic See," as our holy Pope says in the decretal written on this subject to the bishops of Gaul.

All the ecclesiastical laws that he reminded others of, he observed scrupulously himself; he was especially attentive to choosing well those whom he admitted to holy orders. He established for those who were to be ordained ministers of the altars this rule of the Apostle, which has passed from his works into the body of canon law: Lay hands suddenly on no man. He desired that only those of mature age be raised to the priesthood, who had been tested for a sufficient time, who had given proof of their submission to the rules, of their love for discipline, and of their zeal in observing it. The author of the Spiritual Meadow reports something that is too edifying and too instructive to omit here. He recounts that he had heard Amos, Patriarch of Jerusalem, say to several abbots: "Pray for me. The terrible burden of the priesthood frightens me beyond all expression; but what I dread most is the charge of conferring orders. I have found it written that the blessed Pope Leo, equal to the angels, had watched and prayed for forty days at the tomb of Saint Peter, asking, through the intercess ion of that saint Pierre Apostle mentioned for the setting of the procession date. apostle, for the remission of his sins, and that after this, Saint Peter had said to him in a vision: The Lord forgives you all your sins, except those you have committed in conferring holy orders and for which you are still charged to render a rigorous account."

In the East, the issue was to maintain not only ecclesiastical discipline but the Christian faith. Eutyches, a monk of Constantinople and abbot of a monastery, teaching the error opposite to that of Nestorius, claimed that in Jesus Christ there is only one nature, whereas there are two: the divine nature and the human nature, united in one person, without confusion of their properties or their operations. Condemned by Saint Flavian, Bishop of Constantinople, he found a protector in a eunuch of the court, a favorite of Emperor Theodosius the Younger, who had Saint Flavian condemned in an assembly known as the Robber Council of Ephesus. Flavian was not only deposed but treated so brutally that he died a few days later. The legates of Pope Saint Leo refused to subscribe to this unjust sentence. They even took his side with a courage that drew the admiration of the entire Christian world.

Before Rohrbacher, it had not been sufficiently noted that in this affair of Eutyches, as in that of Nestorius, all parties addressed and appealed to the Holy See of Rome: Saint Flavian of Constantinople, Emperor Theodosius, and Eutyches himself. The Robber Council of Ephesus had taken place in 448. Through the efforts of Leo, seconded by Marcian and Pulcheria, who had succeeded Theodosius, a new Council was held in 451 at Chalcedon, composed of six hundred and t hirty bisho Chalcédoine Ecumenical council confirmed by Hilary. ps. The Pope presided over it through his legates: Paschasinus, Bishop of Lilybaeum; Lucentius, Bishop of Ascoli; and Boniface, a priest of Rome.

The memory of Saint Flavian was restored there. Dioscorus, Patriarch of Alexandria, the author, or at least the executor, of all the disorders of Ephesus, was excommunicated and deposed for several crimes: for example, for having claimed to hold a Council without the authority of the Pope, which, the Fathers of the Council said, had never been permitted and had never been done, and for not having had the letter that Saint Leo had written to Flavian read in the assembly of Ephesus, specifically for the future Council. When this letter, which is comparable only to the Gospels and which has always been considered in the Church as the most exact, the most noble, and the most august expression of the Catholic belief on the admirable dogma of the Incarnation, was read at the Council of Chalcedon, there was but one cry of admiration. The six hundred bishops exclaimed: "Peter has spoken through Leo."

In the Spiritual Meadow of John Moschus, an abbot recounts having heard Patriarch Eulogius of Alexandria give the following account: "Gregory, a distinguished deacon of Rome, informed me that the pious Pope Leo, after having written the letter to Flavian, placed it on the tomb of the Prince of the Apostles, beseeching him, through vigils, fasts, and prayers, to correct any faults or errors that might have slipped into it due to human weakness. Four days later, the Apostle appeared to him and told him that he had read his letter and had made the necessary corrections. The Pope, having taken the letter back from the tomb, indeed noticed the corrections executed by the hand of Saint Peter."

When they had made their decrees, the Fathers of the Council of Chalcedon sent them to the Pope with a letter in which they said to him: "It is you who have presided over us, as the head presides over the members." Our Saint confirmed the first twenty-seven canons of the Council which concerned matters of faith, and they were received by the whole Church with the greatest respect, but he opposed the twenty-eighth, which had been made in the absence of his legates. In it, the title of patriarch, and even of first patriarch of the East, was given to the Archbishop of Constantinople. Later, despite this just and farsighted opposition from Rome, contrary to apostolic traditions, the see of Constantinople obtained from the emperors, from custom, or rather from the weakness and guilty flattery of the other Eastern churches, this title and this preeminence of the patriarchate, which was to lead to the schism and the depravation of the Greek churches.

While the Eastern Empire was troubled by heretical factions, the Western Empire was on the verge of disappearing; the civilized world was saved once more on this side by the Christian religion, and above all by the Pope. The Huns, a ferocious people from Scythia, after having ravaged the borders of the Roman Empire and grown in Germany to the point of forming an army of seven hundred thousand men, entered Gaul, commanded by Attila, who called himself the Scourge o f God. Attila Leader of the Huns responsible for the destruction of Besançon. Tongeren, Trier, and Metz were sacked; Troyes was saved by Saint Lupus; Orléans by Saint Aignan. Defeated on the plains of Châlons by the combined efforts of Aetius, the Roman general; Merovech, King of the Franks; and Theodoric, King of the Visigoths, Attila soon repaired his losses and fell upon Italy in the year 453. Having become master of Aquileia, he reduced it to ashes and put the whole country to fire and sword. People fled everywhere before him; some took refuge in small islands in the middle of the lagoons of the Adriatic Gulf, and this was the origin of the city of Venice. Attila continued his ravages; he sacked Milan and took Pavia. Emperor Valentinian III, no longer believing himself safe in Ravenna, where he had shut himself up, fled like a child; where? To Rome, to the Pope. The Emperor, the Senate, and the people had but one feeling: terror; they saw only one possible savior, Saint Leo. A deputation of Romans came to beg him to go and meet Attila and to intervene for them; the mission was difficult and perilous, had God Himself not intervened. The Saint undoubtedly counted on it, for it was hardly likely that Jesus Christ would allow the capital of His kingdom here below to be entirely ruined like other cities. Moreover, it was a matter for Leo of saving his homeland, his people, and the Christian world; he did not hesitate to face the presence of this barbarian who made the whole earth tremble. On June 11, 452, he left Rome, accompanied by Avienus, a consular figure, by Trigetius, governor of the city, and by several members of his clergy. He met the Huns on the banks of the Mincio, not far from Mantua, at a place occupied today by the small town of Peschiera. Before showing himself to the barbarians, he donned his pontifical vestments, and followed by his priests and deacons in priestly robes, he approached Attila. The latter welcomed him with respect, promised to live in peace with the Empire in exchange for an annual tribute; he immediately ceased all acts of hostility; and some time later, faithful to his word, he crossed back over the Alps. The barbarians asked their leader why, contrary to his custom, he had shown such respect to the Pope, to the point of obeying him in everything he had commanded. Attila replied: "It is not the word of the one who came to find me that inspired such respectful fear in me, but I saw beside this Pontiff another personage, of a much more august figure, venerable for his white hair, who stood upright in priestly habit, a naked sword in his hand, threatening me with a terrible air and gesture if I did not faithfully execute everything that was requested by the envoy." This personage was the apostle Saint Peter: according to another tradition, the apostle Saint Paul also appea l'apôtre saint Pierre Apostle mentioned for the setting of the procession date. red. No contemporary account of this intervention of the apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul remains to us; but the tradition that tells us of it is consecrated by the authority of the Roman Breviary and admitted by scholars such as Baronius; it is also confirmed by what we are about to relate. Upon his return, Saint Leo was received with the liveliest enthusiasm.

The Pope immediately prescribed public prayers to thank God; but this fickle, ungrateful, and corrupt people, after a few days devoted to these testimonies of gratitude, rushed with more fury to the games of the circus, to the theaters, and to debauchery. Emperor Valentinian gave the example of this degradation through acts of the most revolting immorality. The wits of the time, to excuse themselves from rendering thanks to God and His Saints for the retreat of Attila, attributed the success of Saint Leo's embassy to the salutary influence of the stars. The heart of the Pontiff was deeply afflicted at the sight of these disorders and this guilty ingratitude. The day of the feast of the apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul having arrived, Saint Leo pronounced this homily before the people, with the accents of the most expressive sorrow and a severity softened by a truly paternal tenderness:

"My beloved, the religious solemnity established on the occasion of the day of our deliverance, where the whole multitude of the faithful flocked in emulation to render thanks to God, has lately been almost universally neglected: this is a fact made evident by the small number even of those who attended this holy ceremony: such a general abandonment has cast a deep sadness into my heart and penetrated it with the liveliest apprehensions. For there is much danger for men to show themselves ungrateful toward God and to put His benefits into oblivion, without being touched by repentance, despite the punishments He inflicts, and without feeling any joy, despite the pardon He grants. I fear, therefore, my beloved, that one might apply to such indifferent spirits this word of the Prophet: 'You struck them, and they did not feel it; you broke them with blows, and they did not want to submit to the punishment!' What amendment, indeed, can one perceive in people in whom one notices such a pronounced detachment? I blush to say it; but I am obliged to declare it: one spends more on demons than on the Apostles; insane spectacles attract a more hurried crowd than the basilica of the blessed martyrs. Who then saved this city? Who snatched it from captivity? Who finally shielded it from the horrors of carnage? Is it to the amusements of the circus that we are indebted, or to the solicitude of the Saints? Let us not doubt it, it is by their prayers that divine justice allowed itself to be bent; it is thanks to their powerful intercession that we were reserved for a merciful indulgence, when we deserved only an implacable anger.

"I conjure you, my beloved, let yourselves be touched by this reflection of the Savior, who, after having healed the ten lepers, observed that there was only one among them who had returned to thank Him: marking by this that the other nine, who had also recovered their health without showing the same gratitude, could not have failed in this duty of piety without a manifest impiety. Thus, my beloved, so that one cannot apply to you the same reproach of ingratitude, return to the Lord: understand well the wonders that He has deigned to work among us; take care not to attribute our deliverance to the influence of the stars, as the impious imagine: but attribute it entirely to the ineffable mercy of an all-powerful God, who deigned to soften the furious hearts of the Barbarians. Gather all the energy of your faith to engrave in your memory such a great benefit. A rare negligence must be repaired by an even more brilliant satisfaction. Let us profit from the gentleness of the Master who spares us to work on correcting ourselves, so that Saint Peter and all the other saints who have helped us in an infinity of afflictions and anguishes may deign to second the tender supplications that we address for you to the God of mercy, through Our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen!"

This language proves evidently that Saint Leo believed "in the deliverance of Rome by a visible help of divine Providence and by the effective protection of the holy apostles."

The memory of this miraculous deliverance of Rome was entrusted, by Saint Leo himself, to a famous bronze statue, which represents the head of the Apostles and is found today in Saint Peter's Basilica. Raphael also made it the subject of one of his masterpieces: it is a magnificent painting, part of the frescoes executed from 1510 to 1515 in the second room of the Vatican. In 1649, under the pontificate of Innocent X, the solemn inauguration of a colossal bas-relief took place at Saint Peter's in Rome, in which Raphael Algardi, one of the famous artists of that era, represented the meeting of Saint Leo and Attila. Here is how Father Doissin, of the Society of Jesus, describes this bas-relief in his Latin poem on sculpture:

"I take as witness a bas-relief executed with rare perfection, where the ingenious chisel of a skillful artist has represented the sovereign Pontiff Saint Leo, remarkable for his august aspect, and his head encircled by the triple diadem, approaching the King of the Huns, who meditates on the ruin of the Roman nation and who prepares to put the inhabitants of Rome to the sword. The holy Pope appeases the barbarian prince with his words, and, taking him by the hand, forbids him from carrying his reckless march any further, while Saint Peter and Saint Paul, his faithful companion, sent by the supreme King of heaven to the aid of Rome, appear in the air, surrounded by a cloud, and armed with a terrible sword, threatening Attila with a prompt death if he does not immediately lift the siege of a city protected by God Himself, and if he does not take care to return his sacrilegious sword to its scabbard. Attila raises his eyes toward the two Apostles; but his gaze cannot sustain such great brilliance; his weak eyelid is dazzled by it. It is thus that when one wants to fix the sun in the middle of its course, and in serene weather, its light, too brilliant, wounds the sight, and the rays of this annoying brightness offend the membrane of the eye. A numerous retinue of priests, dressed in pompous costume, accompanies the Pontiff and follows him slowly, without neglecting any of the duties of their office, and without leaving their rank, their spirits full of a holy confidence, and ready to save their unhappy city, or to expose themselves, for its deliverance, to a certain death. In another part of the bas-relief, the soldiers of Attila crowd around their distraught king, and like him, their hearts frozen by fear, they hasten to beat a retreat, and to leave the borders of the Roman Empire precipitously and in disorder. A confused noise is heard in the distance in the camp: the terrified earth trembles under the feet of the cavalry and the infantry; in the middle of the tumult, a cloud of dust rises in a whirlwind and obscures the atmosphere with its undulating waves."

However, Rome, so ungrateful to God who had saved it from the fury of Attila, was to be chastised: Saint Leo had predicted it. Moreover, the last vestiges of the Roman Empire, having become an obstacle to Christian society, were to disappear. In 455, Gaiseric, King of Genséric King of the Vandals and Alans, conqueror of Carthage and Rome. the Vandals, who had already seized Africa, Corsica, Sardinia, and Sicily, marched on Rome with a formidable army; the emperor, the senate, and the officials sought their salvation in flight; no one thought to defend themselves; the gates of Rome were opened, and the trembling citizens awaited death. Saint Leo went to meet Gaiseric and obtained from him that he would be content to pillage the city, without shedding blood or setting it on fire. The Vandals withdrew after fifteen days, carrying away immense booty and taking a large number of prisoners. The holy Pope provided for the spiritual and bodily needs of the latter by sending zealous priests and considerable alms to Africa; he restored the devastated churches for worship and provided them with sacred vessels and ornaments, for only those of the churches of Saint Peter and Saint Paul had been saved from the pillage.

Saint Leo spent the rest of his life repairing the abuses that had crept into ecclesiastical discipline following the invasion of the Barbarians. He died on November 10, 461, after having reigned for twenty-one years, one month, and thirteen days. His body was buried in Saint Peter's Church; it was later raised from the ground to be transported to another location within the same church. This ceremony took place on April 11, the day on which his name is found in the Roman calendar. There was a new translation of his relics in 1715; they were enclosed in a lead box and placed on the altar dedicated to the invocation of Saint Leo in the Vatican basilica.

An author, who delights in launching the most venomous satirical barbs against the Popes, could not help but pay a tribute of praise to Saint Leo. "He was," he says, "a man who possessed extraordinary talents. He far surpassed all those who had preceded him in the government of the Roman Church, and there have been few among his successors whose merit has approached his own."

Saint Leo owes to his writings a portion of the glory he has always enjoyed in the Church. They are, in fact, the most authentic monuments of his piety, his knowledge, and his genius. His thoughts are true, full of brilliance and strength. His expressions have a beauty and magnificence that charm, astonish, and transport. He is everywhere like himself; everywhere he sustains himself, without ever letting any inequalities appear. His diction is pure and elegant; his style is concise, clear, and pleasant. What would pass for bombast in an ordinary writer is only grandeur in Saint Leo. One notices, even in the places where he is most elevated, an ease that removes any appearance of affectation, and which shows that he was merely following the impression of a genius naturally noble and inclined toward the sublime.

The manner in which Saint Leo conveys his ideas deserves even less attention than the importance of the subjects he treated. One finds in his sermons and letters a consummate piety and a perfect knowledge of theology, which causes the reader to be at once instructed and edified. They can be compared to a kind of arsenal where the Church will find in every century weapons suitable for confounding heretics. The Saint explains, with as much solidity as clarity, the orthodox doctrine on the Incarnation, and proves, against the Eutychians, that Jesus Christ has a true body, because his body is truly received in the Eucharist. In lamenting the spiritual evils that reigned in Alexandria during the persecution of the Eutychians, he sees nothing comparable to the interruption of the sacrifice and the blessing of the holy chrism; he is very formal regarding the primacy of Saint Peter and that of his successors. He often commends himself to the prayers of the Saints who reign in heaven, and especially to those of Saint Peter; he also exhorts the faithful to seek their intercession with a firm hope of being heard. He shows himself very religious toward their relics and their feasts, and teaches us that lamps were maintained in churches dedicated under their invocation. He thinks, like the Church of today, on the fast of Lent and the Ember Days, etc.

Benedict XIV speaks highly of the profound knowledge and eminent holiness of Saint Leo. Benoît XIV Pope who beatified Jerome Emiliani. These praises are read in the decree he published in 1744, ordering the proper Mass of the Doctors to be said on the day of his feast.

It remains for us to say that the liturgy owes much to Saint Leo; he introduced into the canon of the Mass these words: *sanctum sacrificium, immaculatam hostiam*; he knew how to make order, pomp, and an admirable majesty reign in the holy ceremonies. Fleury gives us this beautiful description of the solemnity celebrated on the eve of Easter by Saint Leo:

"Let us imagine the faithful of Rome assembled on the eve of Easter, under Pope Saint Leo, in the Lateran Basilica. After the blessing of the new fire, when an incredible number of lights made this holy night as beautiful as a fine day, it was undoubtedly a charming spectacle to see this august place filled with an innumerable multitude of people, without tumult or confusion, each being placed according to age, sex, and the rank they held in the Church. One looked, among others, at those who were to receive baptism on this very night, and those who, two days before, had been reconciled to the Church after having completed their penance.

"The eyes were struck on all sides by the marbles and paintings, and by the brilliance of the silver, gold, and precious stones that shone on the sacred vessels, particularly near the holy altar. The silence of the night was interrupted only by the reading of the prophecies, distinct and intelligible, and by the chanting of the verses that are interspersed, to make both more pleasant. By this variety, the soul, struck at once by great and beautiful objects, was much better disposed to profit from these divine readings, being prepared for them moreover by a continual study.

"What was the modesty of the deacons and other sacred ministers chosen and raised by such a prelate, and serving in his presence, or rather in the presence of God, whom piety always made them feel! But what was the majesty of the Pope himself, so venerable for his doctrine, his eloquence, his zeal, his courage, and all his other virtues! With what respect and what tenderness of piety did he pronounce over the sacred fonts those prayers that he had composed, and that his successors have found so holy that they have preserved them for us over the course of twelve centuries! I am no longer astonished if the Christians forgot on these occasions the care of their bodies, and if, after having fasted all day, they still spent this whole holy night of the resurrection in vigils and prayers, without taking any food until the next day."

A fresco painted by Raphael, in the Vatican, and often reproduced by engraving, represents Saint Leo going to meet Attila. It is Raphael who made the presence of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, signaling to Attila to obey the Vicar of Jesus Christ, so to speak, classic. Angelico da Fiesole painted the holy Pope full-length: his painting is also in the Vatican.