448 L E N L E
Sea-lentil is a name sometimes applied to the gulfweed Sargassum vulgare.
See Bentley and Trimen, Medicinal Plants, No. 76; Pharmaceutical Journal (3), Tol. x. p. 481; Watts, Dictionary of Chemistry, vol. iii. pp. 668-71; Yvon, Cours Complet d'Agriculture, xiv. p. 672.
LENTINI. See LEONTINI.
LEO I., who alone of Roman pontiffs shares with Gregory I. the surname of the Great, pope from 440 to 461, was a native of Rome, or, according to a less probable account, of Volterra in Tuscany. Of his family or of his early education nothing is known; that he was highly cultivated according to the standards of his time is obvious, but it does not appear that he could write Greek, or even that he understood that language. No certain traces of his early ecclesiastical career have been discovered. In one of the letters (Ep. 104) of Augustine, an acolyte named Leo is mentioned as having been in 418 the bearer of a communication from Sixtus of Rome (afterwards pope of that name) to Aurelius of Carthage against the Pelagians; but it is possible that this Leo is rather to be identified with the Leo a priest who is recorded to have been sent by Pope Celestine to Africa with reference to the matter of Apiarius about the year 425. In 429, when the first unmistakable reference to Pope Leo occurs, he was still only a deacon, but already a man of commanding influence; it was at his suggestion that the De Incarnatione of the aged Cassianus, having reference to the Nestorian heresy, was composed in that year, and some two years later (about 431) we find Cyril of Alexandria writing to him that he might prevent the Roman Church from lending its support in any way to the ambitious schemes of Juvenal of Jerusalem. In 440, while Leo was in Gaul, whither he had been sent to compose some differences between Aetius and another general named Albinus, Pope Sixtus III. died, and the absent deacon, or rather archdeacon, was forthwith unanimously chosen to succeed him, and received consecration on his return six weeks afterwards (September 29). In 443 he began to take measures against the Manichæans (who since the capture of Carthage by Genseric in 439 had become very numerous at Rome), and in the following year he was able to report to the Italian bishops that some of the heretics had returned to Catholicism, while a large number had been sentenced to perpetual banishment "in accordance with the constitutions of the Christian emperors," and others had fled; in seeking these out the help of the provincial clergy was sought. It was during the earlier years of Leo's pontificate that the events in Gaul occurred which resulted in his triumph over Hilarius of Arles, signalized by the edict of Valentinian III. (445), denouncing the contumacy of the Gallic bishop, and enacting "that nothing should be done in Gaul, contrary to ancient usage, without the authority of the bishop of Rome, and that the decree of the apostolic see should henceforth be law." In 447 he held the correspondence with Turribius of Astorga which led to the condemnation of the Priscillianists by the Spanish national church, and to the putting to death of Priscillian – an act which met with Leo's approval. In 448 he received with commendation a letter from Eutyches, the Constantinopolitan monk, complaining of the revival of the Nestorian heresy there; and in the following year Eutyches wrote his circular, appealing against the sentence which at the instance of Eusebius of Dorylæum had been passed against him at a synod held in Constantinople under the presidency of the patriarch Flavian, and asking papal support at the œcumenical council at that time under summons to meet at Ephesus. The result of a correspondence was that Leo by his legates sent to Flavian that famous epistle in which he sets forth with great fulness of detail the doctrine ever since recognized as orthodox regarding the union of the two natures in the one person of Jesus Christ. The narrative of the events at the "robber" synod at Ephesus belongs to general church history rather than to the biography of Leo; suffice it to say that his letter, though submitted, was not read by the assembled fathers, and that the papal legates had some difficulty in escaping with their lives from the violence of the theologians who, not content with deposing Flavian and Eusebius, shouted for the dividing of those who divided Christ. When the news of the result of this œcumenical council (œcumenical in every circumstance except that it was not presided over by the pope) reached Rome, Leo wrote to Theodosius "with groanings and tears," requesting the emperor to sanction another council, to be held this time, however, in Italy. In this petition he was supported by Valentinian III., by the empress-mother Galla Placidia, and by the empress Eudoxia, but the appeal was made in vain. A change in the position of affairs, however, was brought about by the accession in the following year of Marcian, who three days after coming to the throne published an edict bringing within the scope of the penal laws against heretics the supporters of the dogmas of Apollinaris and Eutyches. To convoke a synod in which greater orthodoxy might reasonably be expected was in these circumstances no longer difficult, but all Leo's efforts to secure that the meeting should take place on Italian soil were unavailing. When the synod of Chalcedon assembled in 451, the papal legates were treated with great respect, being provided with seats on the immediate right of the president, and Leo's former letter to Flavian was adopted by acclamation as formulating the creed of the universal church on the subject of the person of Christ. Among the reasons urged by Leo for holding this council in Italy had been the threatening attitude of the Huns; the dreaded irruption took place in the following year (452). After Aquileia had succumbed to Attila's long siege, the conqueror set out for Rome. Near the confluence of the Mincio and the Po he was met by Leo, whose eloquence persuaded him to turn back. Legend has sought to enhance the impressiveness of the occurrence by an unnecessarily imagined miracle. The pope was less successful with Genseric when the Vandal chief arrived under the walls of Rome in 455, but he secured a promise that there should be no incendiarism or murder, and that three of the oldest basilicas should be exempt from plunder, – a promise which seems to have been faithfully observed. The death of Leo occurred in 461, according to the Roman breviary on April 11, on which day the festival of "Pope Leo, confessor and doctor of the church" is celebrated (duplex). The title of "doctor ecclesiæ" was given by Benedict XIV. The successor of Leo was Hilarius or Hilarus, who had been one of the papal legates at the "robber" synod in 449.
As bishop of the diocese of Rome, Leo distinguished himself above all his predecessors by his preaching, to which he devoted himself with great zeal and success. From his short and pithy Sermones many of the lessons now to be found in the Roman breviary have been taken. Viewed in conjunction with his voluminous correspondence, the sermons sufficiently explain the secret of his greatness, which chiefly lay in the extraordinary strength and purity of his convictions as to the primacy of the successors of St Peter at a time when the civil and ecclesiastical troubles of the civilized world made men willing enough to submit themselves to any authority whatsoever that could establish its right to exist by courage, honesty, and knowledge of affairs. The works of Leo I. were first collectively edited by Quesnel (Lyons, 1700), and again, on the basis of this, in what is now the standard edition by Ballerini (Venice, 1753-56). Ninety-three Sermones and one hundred and seventy-three Epistolæ occupy the first volume; the second contains the Liber Sacramentorum, usually attributed to Leo, and the De Vocatione Omnium Gentium, also ascribed, by Quesnel and others, to him, but more probably the production of a certain Prosper, of whom nothing further is known. The works of Hilary of Arles are appended.
LEO II., pope from August 682 to July 683, was a Sicilian by birth, and succeeded Agatho I. Agatho had
