6. Gieseler's Ecclesiastical History. 7. Southey's Common-Place Book. 8. Abbott's History of Julius Cæsar.

9. Dante's Divine Comedy.

10. Professor Tyler's Tacitus.

11. The Good and the Bad in the Roman Catholic Church.

12. Mornings among the Jesuits at Rome.

13. The Scenes where the Tempter has Triumphed.

14. Melville's Typee.

15.

16.

Bogue's Theological Lectures.

Franklin's Bible Cartoons.

17. Dr. Bethune's Cambridge Oration.

18. Tendency of Convict Separation.

19. Leaf from the Book of Nature and the Word of God.

20.

Professor Hickok's Protestantism in the middle of the Nineteenth Century.

21. History of the American Bible Society. 22. The Magic of Kindness.

ERRATA.

Through the absence of the authors and the loss of a part of the copy, a few slight errors crept into the articles by Drs. Cheever and Beecher, which we are

enabled to correct.

Page 576, line 36, for secured, read seemed. P. 579, line 27, for thus, read this; line 36, for Pavier, read Pavia. P. 583, line 29, for interpretation, read interpolation. P. 588, line 1, for manicheaism, reed manicheeism; line 37, for Pelageans, read Pelagians. P. 589, line 7, and p. 595, line 24, for Hagenback, read Hagenbach. P. 592, line 29, before decree, read the. P. 594, line 10, omit that, after rejoice. P. 671, line 25, for judgings, read findings. Do. line 46, before deserved, read sense of. P. 673, line 9, for mighty wrath, read righting wrong. Do. line 37, for some, read one. P. 674, line 27, after touch, read upon. Do. line 31, for natural, read mental. P. 675, line 37, for his read her. P. 677, line 13, for on, read and. P. 707, line 46, for these, read three. P. 712, line 17, for the, read but. P. 718, line 28, for used, read fixed. P. 719, line 15, for his, read they. P. 720, line 24, for Thaumaturges, read Thaumaturgus. P. 721, line 25, for Jn. 14: 16, read 14-16 chaps. The same p. 726, line 8. P. 731, line 17, for it, read he.

THE

BIBLICAL REPOSITORY

AND

CLASSICAL REVIEW.

THIRD SERIES, NO. XX.—WHOLE NUMBER, LXXVI.

OCTOBER, 1849.

ARTICLE I.

LIFE AND TIMES OF LEO THE GREAT.

By Rev. EDWARD BEECHER, D.D., Boston.

History is made up of two elements, facts which transpire in this world, and the relations of those facts to the universal system. That there was such a man as Leo the Great, that he lived in the fifth century, that he was a leading spirit of his age, that he was engaged in divers controversies, and aimed at certain definite ends, these and similar things, are facts easily ascertainable, and capable of a definite and precise statement. Nor with regard to the leading facts of his life is there any controversy.

But when we pass to the consideration of the relations of these facts to the universal system, we enter at once a new world. Whilst generations of men die, higher and permanent orders of spiritual beings meet our eyes. Each generation of men has its principles, ends and aims, but no common intelligible human plan runs through the history of all ages. To discover such a plan we must pass into the invisible world, and study the designs of Him, of whom, and through whom, and to whom are all things, and who worketh all things after the council of his own will.

To give the relations of the facts of history from this point of vision is by no means so easy as to state the facts. It leads us at once, upon controverted ground. The moment we raise this question as it regards Leo, we meet the great controversy of the age. To the partizans of Rome, he is Leo the Great; to their opponents he is but a prominent founder of a terrific and malignant antichristian system which was matured and perfectly developed by Gregory VII. and Innocent III.

God only can write a perfect history of the world from this point of vision, and at the day of the revelation of his just judgment he will do it. Meantime there is to be even on earth, under the guidance of his Spirit a historical day of judgment. On no subject has more illusion and fraud been practiced, especially since the days of Christ, than on the history of this world. But the day cometh that shall burn as a an oven. God is yet to reign, and He will reign by the truth and not by delusion and fraud. therefore, is more concerned in promulgating and establishing correct views of the history of this world than he. In all our inquiries then let us entreat Him to dissipate all delusions, to open our eyes, to purify our hearts, and to touch our lips as with a coal from his own altar.

In the historical sketch which we have undertaken to present, we have chosen an individual to stand as the central figure of the picture, and yet our main design is, through him to evolve the principles and spirit of the age in which he lived.

Leo was chosen bishop of Rome A. D. 440, and died A. D. 461, after an eventful reign of twenty-one years. From 423 to 455, Valentinian III. was Emperor of the West, Maximus, Avitus, Majorianus, ruled during the remaining six years of his life. From 408 to 450, Theodosius II. was emperor of the East; Marcian from 450 to 457; Leo, also called the Great, from 457 to 474. Such were his cotemporary civil rulers.

As to his parentage and early education, little is known. He was a Roman by birth. His father's name was Quinctianus. His first appearance in history is just before his choice as bishop of Rome. He was sent by Pope Sixtus III. to effect a reconciliation between Aetius and Albinus, in Gaul, of which we shall soon speak. During his absence Sixtus died and Leo was chosen in his place.

The main characteristic of the age of Leo was the approaching destruction of those institutions of Roman civil society, which paganism had formed. Concerning these, Guizot remarks, "The civil society of the Roman world, to all outward appearances secured Christian, equally with the religious society. The great majority of the European nations and kings had embraced Christianity, but at the bottom the civil society was pagan. Its institutions, its laws, its manners, were all essentially pagan. It was entirely a society formed by paganism; not at all a society formed by Christianity. Christian civil society did not develop itself till a later period, till after the invasion of the barbarians. It belongs in point of time to modern history. In the fifth century, whatever outward appearances may say to the contrary, there existed between civil society and religious society, incoherence, contradiction, contest; for they were essentially different, both in their origin and in their nature.

"I would pray you never to lose sight of this diversity; it is a diversity which alone enables us to comprehend the real condition of the Roman world at this period."

This political society, was enervated, and rapidly approaching dissolution and death-slavery, and the deep degradation of the masses of the people were the main cause of this state of things. The Barbarians were God's instruments for breaking in pieces. that old fabric which was tottering to its fall, and ready soon to vanish away.

Hence the names of Alaric, Attila, and Genseric, begin to figure on the page of history, and the Vandals, Franks, Goths, Visigoths, and Burgundians, under the guidance of such leaders issue from the North to execute the purposes of God.

A period of political dissolution and chaos is to ensue-during which a new religious society is to exercise a centralizing and organizing power. Of this society Leo claimed to be the divinely ordained head-and his whole energies were put forth to develop and establish the principles of the papal monarchy. Never was there a point in which a great mind swayed by ambition and not controlled by a regard to truth, had a finer opportunity to exercise a creative and organizing power.

In various ways the bishop of Rome had already obtained great influence. But he was by no means monarch of the Christian world. Indeed, never was there a time when he had rivals so powerful as were now the patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, and especially of Constantinople.

The power of these bishops originated from two sources: one, political, the other, spiritual. The former was in fact the only source of the extraordinary and despotic powers they were intent on establishing. Of this we have a full illustration in the history of the see of Constantinople. The Bishop of Byzantium was at first, but a suffragan to the bishop of Heraclea-exarch of the diocese of Thrace.

But Constantine made Byzantium a new Rome, and lo the bishop of Byzantium, soon becomes the leading patriarch in all the East, for it was not fit that the emperor's bishop should be inferior in rank or power to any of the bishops of the East. His central political position too gave him the same means of augmenting his power, which the bishop of Rome enjoyed at the West, and diligently and skilfully did he use them, and rapidly did he gain on the bishops of Rome in the race.

And if the political basis of the bishop's power were to continue the main one, it was plain that if Old Rome fell, and New Rome stood, the patriarch of Constantinople might finally win in the

race.

It was certainly a critical period; some .master-spirit was needed fully to develop and establish the doctrine that the power of

the bishop of Rome had a higher origin than that of the bishop of Constantinople, so that even if Old Rome fell his spiritual kingdom might not only remain unshaken, but take her place and rise upon her ruins.

Such a master-spirit was needed. In Leo he was found. A Roman by birth, of powerful intellect, indomitable will, dauntless courage, vivid imagination, great power of emotion, a finished education, extensive learning, a majestic person, and fervid eloquence, he was beyond all doubt immeasurably superior, in most of those elements which give power over mind, to all the men of his age. He is worthy to be placed side by side with Gregory VII. and Innocent III.

But considering the claims of the see of Rome to be the great preserver of the faith on earth, it is not a little remarkable that Leo is the first theological writer of any ability which the see of Rome produced-the first who has left any important works for the benefit of posterity, if we omit the apostle Peter, and the evangelical, and primitive Clement.

Before Leo, the leading champions of the faith did not come from the see of Rome. So far from it was the fact, that the faith would have been betrayed had it been left solely to the bishop of Rome. Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, was the great pillar of the doctrine of the trinity, whilst pope Liberius signed an Arian creed. Augustine, bishop of Hippo, was the great champion of the doctrine of human depravity and the sovereign grace of God, whilst pope Zosimus, became the champion of Pelagianism till compelled by the power and perseverance of Augustine to recant. Popes Julius and Felix, long before Eutyches, had promulgated the Eutychian doctrine, which the whole energy of Leo and after ages labored in vain utterly to overthrow and eradicate.

The great writers of the East and the West, Augustine and Basil, Athanasius, and Ambrose, the Gregories, and Chrysostom, had adorned their respective sees, whilst Rome remained in a state of comparative intellectual and theological barrenness, till Leo

arose.

But the moment he appeared on the stage the centre of both ecclesiastical and intellectual power was no doubt at Rome. With a strong hand and a determined will, he grasped all the great questions of the age, and made an impress on the world, that is felt to this day. He gave a decided turn to theology and to the current of events, in favor of the see of Rome; nor, judging by their standards, have the partizans of that see erred, in calling him LEO THE GREAT.

The acts of his life may be arranged in five classes.

1. Those which related to the existing interests of the Roman Empire, as endangered by the Barbarians.

2. Those which relate to the powers of the see of Rome.