The See of Peter

The Early Church and Peter's Primacy

Letter IV, from Pope Leo to the Bishops of Campania, Picenum, Etruria, and All Provinces

Synopsis: No bishop may promote another man’s slave to clerical office without the master’s consent; those married to widows or to more than one wife must be removed from ecclesiastical duties; neither clerics nor Christian laymen may demand usury; a cleric may not engage in usury under another’s name; and any bishop acting against these prohibitions must be removed from office and excluded from communion.

Leo, bishop of the city of Rome, to all bishops established throughout Campania, Picenum, Etruria, and all the provinces, greeting in the Lord.

While the peaceable order of the Churches fills us with joy, we are deeply grieved whenever we learn of anything presumed or committed against the ordinances of the canons and the discipline of the Church. If we do not vigilantly correct such things, as our duty demands, we cannot excuse ourselves before Him who made us watchmen — I have set you as a watchman over the house of Israel (Ezek. 3:17) — since we must protect the pure body of the Church, which we are bound to keep free from every stain, and must not allow its harmony to be disrupted by the wicked designs of those around it or by their pretense of membership.

I. No Bishop May Promote Another Man’s Slave to Clerical Office Without the Master’s Consent

It has become common practice to admit to holy orders those who lack dignity of birth and character — including men who could not obtain freedom from their masters — as though servile lowliness were a qualification for this honor. They are raised to the priesthood, believed capable of pleasing God when they have not yet been able to satisfy their own master. This creates a twofold wrong: the sacred ministry is contaminated by such unworthy associates, and the rights of masters are violated by this rash usurpation. Therefore, dearest brothers, let all the priests of your provinces keep away from these men — and not only from them, but from all others who are bound by birth or any condition of servitude — unless the request or free consent of those who hold authority over them has been obtained. For one who is to be enrolled in divine service must himself be free of all other obligations, and must not be drawn from the Lord’s army — where his name is enrolled — by the bonds of any necessity.

II. Those Married to Widows or to More Than One Wife Must Be Removed from Ecclesiastical Duties

Where each man’s respectability of birth and conduct is properly established, we know from the Apostle (1 Tim. 3:2; Tit. 1:6), from the divine precepts (Lev. 21:14), and from the rules of the canons, what manner of person ought to be attached to the sacred ministry of the altar. Yet we find that many of our brothers have strayed and wholly deviated from this path. Some husbands of widows have attained the priesthood; others with more than one wife — living freely in every excess — have been given open access to sacred orders, in defiance of the Apostle’s declaration and the caution of the ancient law. We command, by the authority of the Apostolic See, that all such men be removed from ecclesiastical duties and from the title of priest, for they cannot legitimately hold what they were ineligible to receive. We specifically reserve this judgment to Ourselves — ensuring that such errors are corrected rather than repeated, and that no excuse of ignorance can arise, since a priest is never permitted to be ignorant of the rules of the canons.

III. Neither Clerics nor Christian Laymen May Demand Usury

We have also judged it necessary to address the fact that some, seized by base greed, lend money at interest and seek to grow rich through usury. We grieve that this happens not only among clerics but also among laymen who wish to be called Christians. We decree that those convicted of this be sharply punished and every opportunity for this sin removed. We should pursue only that usury whereby what we mercifully give in this world is repaid manifold by the Lord — who restores in eternity what endures forever.

IV. A Cleric May Not Engage in Usury Even Under Another’s Name

We further warn that no cleric should attempt to engage in usurious lending, whether in his own name or through another — for it is unworthy to shield one’s own crime behind another’s gain. Let clerics seek only those fruits of divine usury by which what is given here with compassion may be repaid abundantly by the merciful Lord.

V. Any Bishop Who Violates These Prohibitions Must Be Removed from Office and Excluded from Communion

Our admonition hereby declares: if any brother dares to violate these rulings and commits what has been forbidden, let him know that he is to be removed from his office. He will not share Our communion who refuses to share Our discipline. And lest anything appear to have been passed over, We command your beloved brotherhood to uphold all the decretal ordinances of the blessed Innocent and of all Our predecessors concerning ecclesiastical orders and canonical discipline — so that anyone who transgresses them may know that forgiveness will henceforth be denied.

Dated the sixth day before the Ides of October, in the consulship of the most illustrious Maximus, for the second time, and Paterius.

Source/Reference

PL 54:610

Notes / Historical Commentary

Letter IV, dated October 10, 443, is one of Leo’s earliest surviving circular letters — addressed not to a single bishop but to all the bishops of the central and southern Italian regions and, in its closing formula, implicitly to all provinces. This format — the encyclical rescript issued to a whole regional episcopate simultaneously — is one of Leo’s characteristic instruments of governance, and it appears here fully formed within the first three years of his pontificate.

The three canonical subjects of the letter — the ordination of slaves without masters’ consent, the marriage discipline required for clergy, and the prohibition on usury — are not novel inventions of Leo’s. All three appear in earlier papal decretals and conciliar canons. What is characteristically Leonine is the mechanism by which they are enforced: not through a local synod or a metropolitan’s judgment, but through a direct papal rescript issued over Leo’s own name and authority to an entire region’s episcopate, with the threat of removal from office and exclusion from communion for any bishop who fails to comply.

The most significant passage for the primacy question is in Chapter II: hoc nobis specialiter vindicante — “We specifically reserve this to Ourselves.” Leo is not merely ruling that bigamists and widowers’ husbands must be removed from orders. He is specifying that this class of judgment belongs peculiarly to the Roman see’s own jurisdiction. The local bishop cannot exercise discretion here; the ruling comes from Rome, and its enforcement is accountable to Rome. This is the structure of a supreme jurisdiction, not a fraternal advisory role.

Chapter V’s closing is equally pointed. The threat of exclusion from “Our communion” — communionis nostrae — frames Roman communion as the thing at stake in episcopal compliance. A bishop who refuses Leo’s discipline is not merely in disagreement with a more senior colleague; he has stepped outside the communion of which the Roman see is the center and standard. Crucially, Leo does not present this as his own innovation: he explicitly grounds it in “the blessed Innocent and all Our predecessors” — the continuous chain of Roman bishops whose decretal legislation he is transmitting and applying. The authority he exercises here is inherited, not invented.

The letter is dated October 10, 443 — one of the earliest of Leo’s letters that can be precisely dated. Its recipient list confirms something equally important: that this kind of universal supervisory jurisdiction was not something Leo reached for in moments of crisis. He exercised it routinely, from the beginning of his pontificate, because it was the ordinary business of the office he had received.