Part 1 — Introduction
Part 2 — The Council of Nicaea (325)
Part 3 — The Council of Constantinople (381)
Part 4 — The Council of Ephesus (431)
Part 5 — The Council of Chalcedon (451)
Part 6 — Leo
Part 7 — Conclusion
This is part 7 of our series discussing Lawrence McCready’s article “Papal Primacy in the First Councils” from the Unam Sanctam Catholicam blog. Today, we will discuss Pople Leo I and his role in perpetuating Roman Papal Primacy, especially in light of the revelations of the fraud perpetuated by Leo (as discussed in the most recent part of the series).
In response to this shameless power grab, Pope St. Leo the Great responded quite negatively in a series of letters, wherein we see a defense of Papal Primacy at it’s finest.
I now highlight that McCready calls him “Pope Saint Leo the Great.” This is quite a mouthful. I bring this up because effusive praise is not excellent grounds for an unbiased presentation. It would be one thing to quote the epideictic and panegyrical styles of the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon as the tradition of the times. It would be quite another for a modern man to try to imitate that style unironically.
It’s hard to look at something objectively—with an eye towards historical accuracy—when you call someone Pope, Saint, and Great while having a debate over Roman and Papal Primacy. Doing this while calling his defense of Papal Primacy the “finest” is literally begging-the-question.
In part 6 we showed, at the very least, that Leo was a deeply flawed human who had a problem telling the truth with respect to the Council of Nicaea and the topic of primacy. His opinions on these matters are deeply suspect. At the very least, we need to avoid superlative praise if we actually care about accuracy.
But even that is being far too polite and generous. The reality is that the “shameless power grab” best describes Rome’s attempt to pass off a fraudulent Canon 6 of Nicaea as authentic. Here are the lines that Rome added:
The Roman Church has always had the primacy
…and…
let the churches of the larger cities have the primacy
…and…
let him [the Bishop of Jerusalem] have his consequent honour, but the rights of his own metropolis must be preserved.
That “finest” defense of Papal primacy? None of these lines exist in the authentic Canon 6 of Nicaea. Rome tried to insert primacy into Canon 6 of Nicaea. It takes tremendous self-control not to start slinging horrible, emotional-laden invectives over such fraud. To call it “a defense of Papal Primacy at it’s finest” is patently absurd.
That is why I called him “Leo the Liar.” It is far more accurate than “Pope Saint Leo the Great.” And, frankly, Leo deserves to be called far worse than “liar.” When Leo’s enemy Dioscorus excommunicated Leo, Leo had deserved it.
To begin, we quote from Epistle 98 in the Leonine writings, which was a letter addressed to Pope Leo by the Council of Chalcedon, praising him for stopping the heresy but also asking him approve Canon 28:
And we further inform you that we have decided on other things also for the good management and stability of church matters, being persuaded that your holiness will accept and ratify them, when you are told. The long prevailing custom, which the holy Church of God at Constantinople had of ordaining metropolitans for the provinces of Asia, Pontus and Thrace, we have now ratified [Canon 28] by the votes of the Synod, not so much by way of conferring a privilege on the See of Constantinople as to provide for the good government of those cities…We have ratified also the canon [Canon 3] of the 150 holy Fathers who met at Constantinople…for we are persuaded that with your usual care for others you have often extended that Apostolic prestige which belongs to you, to the church in Constantinople also… Accordingly vouchsafe most holy and blessed father to accept as your own wish, and as conducing to good government the things which we have resolved on for the removal of all confusion and the confirmation of church order. For your holiness’ delegates, the most pious bishops Paschasinus and Lucentius, and with them the right Godly presbyter Boniface, attempted vehemently to resist these decisions…
With respect to the council “praising him,” we need only note (again) the epideictic and panegyrical styles employed here. It is serious mistake to take this “praise” literally and unironically. At best it is meaningless, but polite, banter. At worst it is a deceptive lie.
The only odd thing about seeking approval from a member of the council for one of the council’s resolution is that they had to act at all. But this says more about Rome’s motivations than the Council’s. As we discussed in Part 6 during the trial of Dioscorus, the expectation in the church was that all canons would be ratified unanimously by all the Bishops. Once the decision was made, no one was supposed to dissent. For even one bishop—regardless of who it was—to refuse to accept it created a major problem of disunity to which the conciliar system was poorly equipped to resolve.
The fact that they had to ask Rome to approve of the decision—when Rome’s representatives had been present at the Council and should have approved it already—only demonstrates just how much of an aberration Rome’s behavior was from the expected norms. Far from establishing deference to Rome, this letter to Leo indicates just how much Leo’s actions were viewed as a deviation from expectations.
The “ecumenical” council made a decision that impacted Rome and the Council of Chalcedon rightly sought the acquiescence of the Roman Bishop. Considering that the Roman contingent made an objection (including submission of the fraudulent Canon 6 of Nicaea), it makes sense that the council would, alternatively, seek a peaceful resolution by asking for Rome’s withdraw of hostilities.
The Council was treating Rome like an autistic child with no social skills. They were trying to figure out a tactful way to resolve the situation without any party committing major faux pas. A letter, written in the sickly sweet prose common at the time, was their best option. As it would turn out, treating Rome this way was a major political mistake.
Now, it is notable that the reason the council gave for granting Constantinople power was secular and political, while the reason they gave for Rome’s power was an Apostolic prestige. This shows that when the Modern Catholic talks about something being “Apostolic” that he is carrying with it a weight that was not yet found in the 5th century. The Council of Chalcedon could—and did—acknowledge that Rome was apostolic without this fact affording it any special authority over the whole church.
At the time, the word “apostolic” didn’t carry the baggage that it does now among Roman Catholics. Nobody heard that Rome, Antioch, or Alexandria were apostolic and thought “we must do whatever they tell us to do.” It is only by the application of the Axiom that one can retcon Papal Primacy into the use of this term.
The Council of Chalcedon saw the Apostolic prestige of Antioch, Alexandria, and Rome as supplemental to the normal jurisdictional arrangements. Another analogous exception existed for Jerusalem, but the default organization of the church in the 4th and 5th centuries was to align to political boundaries. In any case, even among these exceptions, the alignment was still largely based on politically defined units (i.e. the chief Metropolitan city of the Diocese).
All six councils that we’ve examined in the series (Nicaea, Sardica, Constantinople, Rome, Ephesus, and Chalcedon) dealt with jurisdictional issues across or within provincial and diocesan boundaries. The predominate means of determining church jurisdiction was to follow the civil diocesan boundaries wherever possible. So strong was this tradition to rely on the civil organization that Roman Catholics still use the secular language of dioceses even today!
The metropolis of Rome was given special jurisdiction because it was a metropolis with Apostolic prestige. But, the reason it was a problem—as made clear in the various Canons—was because having two Metropolitans (a civil designation) in one jurisdiction was contentious. If Rome hadn’t been a metropolis (a civil designation), it wouldn’t have had any special jurisdiction at all, regardless of its Apostolic status. In fact, a non-Apostolic Metropolitan would be treated just like the somewhat lower-tier Jerusalem, but few talk about how Jerusalem was handled by Nicaea. McCready certainly didn’t.
McCready perceives a contradiction between the Councils handing out jurisdictions based on civil boundaries because he invoked the Axiom when he saw the word Apostolic in reference to Rome, as if the reason for Rome’s jurisdiction was only because it was Apostolic and not because of its civil status as the royal seat. Without the latter, there would have been no former. The invocation of the Axiom results in an anachronism.
For we duly regarding our most devout and Christ loving Emperors, who delight therein, and the illustrious senate and, so to say, the whole imperial city, considered it opportune to use the meeting of this ecumenical Synod for the ratification of your honour, and confidently corroborated this decision as if it were initiated by you with your customary fostering zeal, knowing that every success of the children rebounds to the parent’s glory.
The lack of separation of church and state was a serious problem. And, as we’ll see below, it wasn’t just the ecumenical Council of Chalcedon that was in bed with the Christ loving Emperors and the illustrious senate, it was the Bishop of Rome as well.
Of note, the reference to parent and child hearkens back to what I said about New Rome being the inheritor of Old Rome’s status. It is very clear that the Council intended to give Constantinople the same rights and privileges of its parent, and it wanted the parent to bless (or “foster zeal” in) his child.
I think McCready is reading the ostentatious language—which seems to be applied to anything and everyone—as if it was actually paying homage to Rome specifically rather than being a rather obnoxious social convention. Honestly, I’m not sure how this obsequious language can be interpreted as anything but meaningless social niceties.
The Council of Chalcedon clearly wanted Leo to make Rome’s “child” into the authoritative equivalent in the East that the elder Rome was in the West. Constantinople would be groomed to rule over all all the lesser Eastern dioceses, while the West would keep its ill-gotten power it had amassed in the West. Just as the Roman Empire had been split into East and West, so too would be the church.
Accordingly, we entreat you, honor our decision by your assent, and as we have yielded to the head our agreement on things honorable, so may the head also fulfill for the children what is fitting. …But that you may know that we have done nothing for favor or in hatred, but as being guided by the Divine Will, we have made known to you the whole scope of our proceedings to strengthen our position and to ratify and establish what we have done.
Again, it is unsurprising that the Council would seek the unanimous consensus of the Bishops. Why would they want conflict to result from an ecumenical council? I read this as an attempt by the council to politically coerce the Bishop of Rome to get in line, just couched in so-very-nice language.
I believe Leo got the message loud and clear.
Does this sound like the fathers of Chalcedon that saw the pope as one bishop among many, or even subordinate to the Council? Not by their own admission!
Yes, it absolutely does sound that way. I fear that McCready must always take what politicians say at face value, rather than deducing the subtext and context. After all, if Chalcedon took orders from Leo, what would be his natural response? Why, to write them a letter telling them what they must do. To wit:
In response, Pope Leo sent back various Letters, one of which was Letter 104 which he wrote in protest to the Emperor…
Leo didn’t get his way, so instead of simply writing to the Council to cite his primacy—which obviously didn’t work the first time he tried it—he responded to the Council’s obvious political appeal to the Emperor with one of his own. It was a political move in response to a political move.
Here a letter from an Ecumenical Council is begging a pope to ratify a decision, admitting without such ratification the decision would indeed be a dead letter and attack on Christ’s Body. Notice how they admit the Papal Legates adamantly rejected this decision, so they beg Leo even more to ratify it.
I’ve read Section IV of Letter 98, and I don’t draw this conclusion at all. There is no begging at all, they do not say that a failure to approve it would make the decision a dead letter, they mention nothing of an attack on Christ’s body, and they don’t mention the adamant rejection of the decision by the legates.
Instead, they gently inform Leo that he should quietly get in line with the will of the ecumenical council.
It’s curious that McCready quoted almost the whole of Section IV, but left out this line:
The council hilariously suggested that the legates opposed Canon 28 because they wanted to establish good order that starts with Rome’s personal approval, as if by personally approving Canon 28—instead of through legates—all of Rome’s concerns would be satisfied. That’s quite the spin, and reading it alone you would have no idea that Rome’s legates had adamantly and categorically rejected the decision.
I can see why McCready left this line out. It completely destroys his narrative.
All this ostentatious and obsequious language is about politely lying to each other. Did Rome’s contingent resist Canon 28 because it only wanted Rome to personally approve of it? Of course not. This whole letter is just a political speech, not-so-cleverly speaking around the issue. It’s a song-and-dance routine. Nobody, especially Leo, was naive enough to take what was said at face value.
In response, Pope Leo sent back various Letters, one of which was Letter 104 which he wrote in protest to the Emperor:
Let the city of Constantinople have, as we desire, its high rank, and under the protection of God’s right hand, long enjoy your clemency’s rule. Yet things secular stand on a different basis from things divine: and there can be no sure building save on that rock which the Lord has laid for a foundation. He that covets what is not his due, loses what is his own. Let it be enough for Anatolius that by the aid of your piety and by my favor and approval he has obtained the bishopric of so great a city. Let him not disdain a city which is royal, though he cannot make it an Apostolic See; and let him on no account hope that he can rise by doing injury to others. For the privileges of the churches determined by the canons of the holy Fathers, and fixed by the decrees of the Nicene Synod, cannot be overthrown by any unscrupulous act, nor disturbed by any innovation.
Do you know what I do when someone objects to what I say here on my blog? I don’t write to the President of the United States to overrule them. I don’t ask Congress to pass a law declaring me correct. Nor do I ask the SCOTUS to make a ruling in my favor. No, I generally give them a substantive response.
Having lost at the ecumenical council, the Pope makes a theological appeal to the Emperor. And in doing so, he once again lies about the council of Nicaea. Leo absolutely knew what the Council of Nicaea actually said, because he was involved in a dispute over it earlier in his career:
However much, then, the canons of Sardica may at Rome have been regarded as an appendix to those of Nicæa, no pope after this [the dispute over Apiarius] could, without deliberate misquotation, quote the appeal-canon as having Nicene authority. He could not plead ignorance after this clear demonstration. It must therefore be admitted that Leo in urging, as he constantly did, Nicene authority for receiving appeals from the universal Church, was distinctly and consciously guilty of a suppressio veri at any rate, which is not distinguishable from fraud.
Leo knew what he was doing—lying by omission—because he had overseen the dispute over Apiarius, which had involved the Bishop Zosimus of Rome blatantly misquoting the Council of Nicaea. Just as at the Council of Chalcedon, the African churches had brought forth the authentic Nicaean canons. Leo had been a witness to it.
With a swift and solid blow, Leo exposes and demolishes the devious and faulty attempt to turn Constantinople into anything more than an honorary bishopric. Leo goes right to the heart of the error by pointing out Constantinople’s bishop is founded on secular and political power, which is a different and inferior foundation than what the Church is built upon.
…
He also points out that Constantinople is not “an Apostolic See”; i.e., Constantinople was not founded by the Apostles, and therefore could not share in the “privileges” of the apostolic churches.
Yes, Leo is appealing to the Emperor by making a theological argument. Regardless of the merits or demerits of such an argument, there was a properly defined place for Leo to have these kinds of theological discussions with the whole of the church: an ecumenical council. But he was explicitly not doing this! Instead of working with the church, he chose the backdoor political route.
Oh, yeah, that will show the council that the church isn’t based on secular and political power. You really showed them, Leo!
Moreover, he says Canon 28 effectively tramples upon Canon 6 of Nicaea, which Leo explicitly references and which we’ve already seen confirms the papal primacy—and which Leo takes as such.
Absolutely false. I can’t call McCready a liar, because he may legitimately not know. But, Leo certainly did and he willfully and knowingly perpetuated a hoax which persists to this day. If McCready or his publisher ever happen to read this and don’t retract this statement, then they can be called a liar, but not before that.
As Leo says, Canon 28 is an “innovation,” based on an power hungry appetite which knows no limits, rightly foreseeing that Rome would be next in the crosshairs of Constantinople’s schemes.
We can all agree that “Leo says…” says it all. We just don’t agree on what it says.
This is another historical testimonial that Constantinople was not and had never been regarded as equal with Rome.
Well, two can play that game. The Council of Chalcedon—an acknowledged ecumenical council—rightly declared that Constantinople was equal with Rome, and so it was. See? It really did happen!
Leo planted the seeds for the East/West Schism. The East never truly accepted or approved the West’s authority. The East certainly went along with the charade for centuries, trying to find a way to make it work. But, the core division and disunity was always there, boiling under the surface.
Leo continued to write letters to various church officials and the Emperor contesting Canon 28. Let us examine Letter 106, which Leo wrote to the devious Patriarch of Constantinople, Anatolius:
And so after the not irreproachable beginning of your ordination, after the consecration of the bishop of Antioch, which you claimed for yourself contrary to the regulations of the canons, I grieve, beloved, that you have fallen into this too, that you should try to break down the most sacred constitutions of the Nicene canons: as if this opportunity had expressly offered itself to you for the See of Alexandria to lose its privilege of second place, and the church of Antioch to forego its right to being third in dignity, in order that when these places had been subjected to your jurisdiction, all metropolitan bishops might be deprived of their proper honor. By which unheard of and never before attempted excesses you went so far beyond yourself as to drag into an occasion of self-seeking, and force connivance from that holy Synod [Chalcedon] which the zeal of our most Christian prince had convened, solely to extinguish heresy and to confirm the Catholic Faith: as if the unlawful wishes of a multitude could not be rejected, and that state of things which was truly ordained by the Holy Spirit in the canon of Nicæa could in any part be overruled by any one. Let no synodal councils flatter themselves upon the size of their assemblies, and let not any number of priests, however much larger, dare either to compare or to prefer themselves to those 318 bishops, seeing that the Synod of Nicæa is hallowed by God with such privilege, that whether by fewer or by more ecclesiastical judgments are supported, whatever is opposed to their authority is utterly destitute of all authority.”
Here we see one of the clearest and official expositions of Canon 6 of Nicaea. It is a testimony of the Catholic interpretation of Canon 6 of Nicaea we elaborated above.
I hope you were not taking a drink when you read that, or you might have spit out your beverage. Fortunately, I was not.
Oh, for sure, Leo absolutely loved Nicaea… as long as it was the made-up version that he forced upon his peers by sheer, overwhelming repetition, until they were eventually beaten into submission.
The violence and disrespect that Leo had for Canon 6 of Nicaea is hard to overstate. Leo made a career of abusing, conflating, and rewriting the canons of the councils of Nicaea and Sardica. McCready has cited a lot of Leo’s letters, but he curiously missed Letter 6, Letter 14, Letter 16, Letter 24, Letter 33, Letter 44, Letter 56, Letter 85, Letter 105, and Letter 117.
On the other hand…. he just cited Letter 106 positively. That is about as strong of an example of the Axiom as you are bound to find. After the fraud perpetuated by Rome against Canon 6 of Nicaea, it’s hard to read Letter 106 with a straight face. But, somehow McCready pulls it off.
We’ve already looked at the most important aspects of Letter 106 (and what happend in Letter 132), but let’s now look at what McCready thinks is especially important:
…you should try to break down the most sacred constitutions of the Nicene canons: as if this opportunity had expressly offered itself to you for the See of Alexandria to lose its privilege of second place, and the church of Antioch to forego its right to being third in dignity…
Leo’s claim here is pure historical revisionism.
Let’s have a brief reminder. Nicaea had placed the Metropolitan of Oriens—the Bishop of Antioch—as first over the Bishop of Alexandria, and it did so by citing the precedent of the Bishop of Rome, who (at the time) was not even over the Metropolitan of Italy—the Bishop of Milan.
It was Rome itself, in the non-ecumenical Council of Rome in 382 which tried to assert the order of Rome, then Alexandria, then Antioch:
3. Therefore first is the seat at the Roman church of the apostle Peter ‘having no spot or wrinkle or any other [defect]’.
However the second place was given in the name of blessed Peter to Mark his disciple and gospel-writer at Alexandria, and who himself wrote down the word of truth directed by Peter the apostle in Egypt and gloriously consummated [his life] in martyrdom.
Indeed the third place is held at Antioch of the most blessed and honourable apostle Peter, who lived there before he came to Roma and where first the name of the new race of the Christians was heard.
It was Rome who claimed that Alexandria, not Antioch, was second to Rome. Logically, Antioch should have had the supremacy. Antioch had Peter, while Alexandria only had Mark, who bizarrely isn’t even considered to be Peter’s successor. Moreover, at the time of Nicaea, Antioch already had the supremacy—in diocesan and ecclesiastical terms—over both Alexandria and Rome.
Rome used a non-ecumenical council to offer to Alexandria second place as a political bribe. And then it spent the next few decades claiming that it had been Nicaea that had done this, an impossible historical anachronism.
It was at that Council that his own contingent had intentionally and unilaterally corrupted Canon 6 of Nicaea in order to pursue his political goals. I suppose, under the terms of the Axiom, he truly believed that his fraudulent additions to Nicaea were, indeed, “truly ordained by the Holy Spirit” and could not “in any part be overruled by any one.”
Beware the teller of falsehoods who convinces himself that he is doing the Lord’s work.
So we must vehemently contest McCready’s assertion that Letter 106 is “one of the clearest and official expositions of Canon 6 of Nicaea,” but we affirm—without reservation—that it is “a testimony of the Catholic interpretation of Canon 6 of Nicaea.” Indeed, we’ve seen exactly where the Catholic interpretation of Canon 6 of Nicaea comes from: fraud originating with the Bishops of Rome.
And, of course, Pope Leo is simply affirming what the Church has always held…
The Axiom is invoked.
…this makes Canon 28 of Chalcedon a “conniving” and “self-seeking” power grab aimed at trampling upon the dignity and jurisdiction of Alexandria and Antioch, all in direct violation to Canon 6 of Nicaea.
This is deeply ironic. Nicaea placed Alexandria and Antioch in different tiers of “dignity and jurisdiction.” Canon 6 of Nicaea had “trampled” on Alexandria by giving it a more limited jurisdiction than Antioch.
Maybe we should we talk about the conniving and self-seeking nature of the first session of the Council of Ephesus.
From this point on, with seedlings emerging as early as Canon 3, Constantinople and Rome would be in a power struggle that caused serious damage to the Church. As we can see, the canons and proceedings of the first four Ecumenical Councils clearly demonstrate that the ancient Church recognized a real—not merely honorary—privileged position for the Bishop of Rome. It is not (as some assert) that the Bishops of Rome only began asserting their supremacy in the Middle Ages; rather, the Bishops of Rome began making more pronounced defenses of their traditional supremacy once challenged by Constantinople at the dawn of the Middle Ages.
The key is that the privilege spoken of by Nicaea in 325 was the right to have a limited, but independent, jurisdiction within what would otherwise be the rightful domain of another Metropolitan Bishop. The Council of Constantinople in 381 repeated Nicaea’s precedent in rightly granting a jurisdiction to Constantinople, alongside the previous jurisdictional exceptions of Rome, Alexandria, and Jerusalem.
Prior to the non-ecumenical Council of Rome in 382—nearly six decades after Nicaea—there had never been an assertion of supremacy by the Bishop of Rome. The first reference to supremacy was by Damasus in the Council of Rome 382, just prior to the Middle Ages.
Damasus was the first pope to refer to Rome as the apostolic see, to distinguish it as that established by the apostle St. Peter, founder of the church.
It was a “first offensive,” not a “more pronounced defense.” Rome was the aggressor and likely invented its novel doctrine as a result of the political threat that Constantinople represented.
Regardless of who you think “started it,” we know that Rome was the one that invented primacy as a political tool to try to gain political power. Had Rome just accepted the will of the ecumenical councils, we would not even have Papal Roman Primacy today.