The Presbyters Project

Letter 12

First Leo condemns tumultuous episcopal ordinations, forbids to ordain bishops too hastily.

3. Dicente enim Apostolo ut inter alias electionis regulas is episcopus ordinetur quem unius uxoris virum fuisse aut esse constiterit, tam sacrata semper habita est ista praeceptio, ut etiam de muliere sacerdotis eligendi eadem intelligeretur servanda conditio; ne forte illa, priusquam in matrimonium eius veniret, qui aliam non habuisset uxorem, alterius viri esset experta coniugium. Quis igitur tolerare audeat quod in tanti sacramenti perpetratur iniuriam, cum huic magno venerandoque mysterio nec divinae quidem legis statuta defuerint, quibus evidenter est definitum ut virginem sacerdos accipiat uxorem, et alterius torum nesciat coniugis, quae uxor futura est sacerdotis? Iam tum enim in sacerdotibus figurabatur Christi et Ecclesiae spiritale coniugium, ut quoniam vir caput est mulieris, discat Sponsa Verbi non alium virum nosse quam Christum, qui merito unam eligit, unam diligit et aliam praeter ipsam suo consortio non adiungit. Si ergo etiam in veteri Testamento haec sacerdotalium coniugiorum forma servata est, quanto magis sub Evangelii gratia constituti, apostolicis debemus servire praeceptis, ut quamlibet quis bonis moribus praeditus, et sanctis operibus inveniatur ornatus; nequaquam tamen vel ad diaconi gradum, vel ad presbyterii honorem, vel ad episcopatus culmen ascendat, si aut ipsum non unius uxoris virum, aut uxorem eius non unius viri fuisse claruerit?

(Patrologia Latina 54, 648-649 = Ballerini 1753: 660-661)

Letter 12

First Leo condemns tumultuous episcopal ordinations, forbids to ordain bishops too hastily.

3. For as the Apostle says that among other rules for election he shall be ordained bishop who is known to have been or to be "the husband of one wife," [1 Tim. 3:12] this command was always held so sacred that the same condition was understood as necessary to be observed even in the wife of the priest-elect: lest she should happen to have been married to another man before she entered into wedlock with him, even though he himself had had no other wife. Who then would dare to allow this injury to be perpetrated upon so great a sacrament, seeing that this great and venerable mystery is not without the support of the statutes of God's law as well, whereby it is clearly laid down that a priest is to marry a virgin [Lev 21:13-14; Ezech 44:22], and that she who is to be the wife of a priest is not to know another husband? For even then in the priests was prefigured the Spiritual marriage of Christ and His Church: so that since "the man is the head of the woman," [Eph 5:23; 1 Cor 11:3] the spouse of the Word may learn to know no other man but Christ, who did rightly choose her only, loves her only, and takes none but her into His alliance. If then even in the Old Testament this kind of marriage among priests is adhered to, how much more ought we who are placed under the grace of the Gospel to conform to the Apostle's precepts: so that though a man be found endowed with good character, and furnished with holy works, he may nevertheless in no wise ascend either to the grade of deacon, or the dignity of the presbytery, or to the highest rank of the bishopric, if it has been spread abroad either that he himself is not the husband of one wife, or that his wife is not the wife of one husband.

(trans. Ch. Lett Feltoe 1895: 13; summary M. Szada)

Place of event:

Region

Rome
Latin North Africa

City

Rome

About the source:

Author: Leo the Great
Title: Letters, Epistulae
Origin: Rome (Rome)
Denomination: Catholic/Nicene/Chalcedonian

Leo the Great was the bishop of Rome from AD 440 to his death in AD 461. We have the collection of 173 letters of Leo. Dating of the present letter to the year 446 is based upon a few premises:

1. the correspondence between Africa and Rome would be impossible in the times of was, i.e. before AD 442;

2. from the Novella 13 of Valentinian III dated to 21 June AD 445 we know about the legacy from Numidia and Mauretania Sitifensis to Rome; from those envoys Leo the Great could have learnt the events in Mauretania Caesariensis (he says about "frequent accounts of those who visited us" (ad nos commenatium sermo));

3. the letter could have not been written after 455, that is after the death of Valentinian III when the Vandals retook Mauretanias.

Editors of the letters of Leo proposed then the year 446 as the earliest possible date of the composition. On the letter and the intervention of Leo in Mauretania see Lepelley 1967, Adamiak 2016: 133-134.

Edition:

P. and G. Ballerini eds., Sancti Leoni Magni Romani pontificis opera, vol. 1, Venice 1753

Patrologia Latina, vol. 54

Translation:

Leo the Great, Letters, trans. Ch. Lett Feltoe, [in:] The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, 2nd series, vol. 12, Edinburgh 1895, 1-114

Bibliography:

S. Adamiak, Carthage, Constantinople, and Rome.Imperial and Papal Interventions in the life of the Church in byzantine Africa (533-698), Rome 2016

C. Lepelley, "Saint Léon le Grand et l'Eglise maurétanienne. Primauté romaine et autonomie africaine au Ve siècle", Les cahiers de Tunisie 15 (1967), 189-204

Categories:

Family life - Marriage

Family life - More than one marriage

Described by a title - Presbyter/πρεσβύτερος

Impediments or requisits for the office - Marriage

Public law - Ecclesiastical

Relation with - Wife

Relation with - Woman

Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL: M. Szada, Presbyters in the Late Antique West, ER1673, http://www.presbytersproject.ihuw.pl/index.php?id=6&SourceID=1673