Leo, bishop, to Rusticus, bishop of Narbonne.
Leo’s Preface: On Pastoral Perseverance, and the Method of Responding to the Inquiries
I have gladly received the letters of your brotherhood, which your archdeacon Hermes delivered, and I have read them with careful attention. Having taken in the substance of your whole account and reviewed what took place at the inquiry of the bishops and honorable men, we understand that the presbyters Sabinian and Leo lacked confidence in your action, and that no just cause of complaint remains to them, seeing that they withdrew of their own accord from the discussion that had been begun. As for what form and measure of justice you ought to observe with regard to them, I leave to your own discretion — advising you, however, with the exhortation of charity, that in healing the sick you ought to apply spiritual medicine; and since the Scripture says Do not be overly just (Eccl. 7:17), you should deal more gently with those who seem to have exceeded the bounds of vengeance in their zeal for chastity — lest the devil, who deceived the adulterers, should triumph over the avengers of the adultery.
I am astonished, however, that your charity is so disturbed by adversities arising on every occasion that you speak of preferring to withdraw from the labors of the episcopate and to live in silence and ease rather than to remain in what has been committed to you. The Lord says: Blessed is he who perseveres to the end (Matt. 24:13) — whence comes blessed perseverance, except from the virtue of patience? For according to apostolic preaching, all who wish to live piously in Christ will suffer persecution (2 Tim. 3:12). Nor is this to be reckoned only in what is done against Christian piety by sword or fire, since the savagery of persecutions is also filled by differences of conduct, the stubbornness of the disobedient, and the weapons of evil tongues. When all the members are always beaten by these conflicts and no portion of the pious is free from temptation, how will the labor of the oarsmen steer the ship if the helmsman abandons his post? Who will guard the sheep from the snares of wolves, if the shepherd does not keep watch? (John 10:12). One must remain firm in what has been undertaken. Constancy must be maintained, and clemency generously offered. Sins are to be hated, not the people who commit them. The turbulent must be corrected with severity; the infirm endured with patience. And if a heavier trial bears down, let us not be alarmed as though resisting adversity by our own strength — since our counsel and our fortitude is Christ, without whom we can do nothing (John 15:5), and through whom we can do all things (Phil. 4:13). He who confirms the preachers of the Gospels and the ministers of the sacraments says: Behold, I am with you all days until the end of the age (Matt. 28:20). And again: In me you will have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but take courage — I have overcome the world (John 16:33). Since these promises are beyond doubt manifest, we must not be weakened by scandals, lest we appear ungrateful to God, whose aid is as sure as his promises are true.
On the consultations of your charity, which your archdeacon separately set out in writing — what ought to be determined on individual points would be better sought in colloquy than in writing, if the opportunity of meeting with you were available to us. For since some of the questions seem to exceed the bounds of diligence, I understand them as more fitting for discussion than easily resolved in writing. But since some points cannot be resolved by any reasoning, and many must be moderated according to the circumstances of persons or the necessity of conditions — in all things that may be doubtful or obscure, we will follow what is contrary neither to the evangelical commandments nor to the decrees of the holy Fathers.
Here begin the responses to the inquiries of the same bishop.
Inquiry I: On a Presbyter or Deacon Who Falsely Claimed to Be a Bishop, and on Those Whom Such Men Ordained
Response. There is no justification for counting among bishops those who were neither elected by the clergy, nor sought out by the people, nor consecrated by the provincial bishops with the judgment of the metropolitan. Since the question of illegitimately assumed honor often arises, who would doubt that these men are not to be credited with what is not shown to have been legitimately conferred? But if any clerics were ordained by such pseudobishops in those churches belonging to proper bishops, and their ordination was performed with the consent and judgment of the presiding bishops, it may be held valid — so that they remain in those same churches. Otherwise what was created neither founded on lawful ground nor strengthened by proper authority must be held as worthless.
Inquiry II: On a Presbyter or Deacon Convicted of a Crime — Whether the Remedy of Penance May Be Given Through the Laying On of Hands
Response. It is contrary to ecclesiastical custom that those consecrated in the presbyteral or diaconal grade should, for any crime of their own, receive the remedy of penance through the laying on of hands. This without doubt descends from apostolic tradition, according to what is written: If a priest sins, who will pray for him? (Lev. 5, LXX). Therefore for those who have so fallen, in order to obtain the mercy of God, private withdrawal is to be sought, where their satisfaction, if worthy, may be fruitful. But when, after the fall, the exaction of penance has been satisfied, it suffices to receive the grace of communion — without the honor of the rank lost through their fault being restored.
Inquiry III: On Deacons — Whether They Must Like Bishops and Presbyters Abstain From Conjugal Relations, Though Not Dismiss Their Wives
Response. The law of continence is the same for the ministers of the altar as for bishops and presbyters. When they were laymen or readers, it was lawful for them to take wives and beget children. But once they have arrived at the aforesaid ranks, what was lawful becomes unlawful. Therefore, that their marriage may be spiritual and not carnal, they must retain their wives as though they had none — so that the love of their wives is preserved while conjugal activity ceases. The operation of marital works must stop; but the charity of companionship must remain.
Inquiry IV: On a Presbyter or Deacon Who Gave His Daughter in Conjugal Union to Someone Who Already Had a Concubine and Even Children by Her
Response. Not every woman joined to a man is his wife, since not every son is his father’s heir. Nuptial bonds between free persons are legitimate and among equals — established from the beginning by the Lord himself (Gen. 2:24) before the origin of Roman law. Therefore it is one thing to be a wife, another to be a concubine — just as it is one thing to be a handmaid and another a freewoman. The Apostle, precisely to make manifest the distinction between these persons, adduces the testimony from Genesis, where it is said to Abraham: Cast out the handmaid and her son; for the son of the handmaid shall not be heir with my son Isaac (Gal. 4:30; Gen. 21:10). Since, therefore, nuptial society is constituted from the beginning so that beyond the union of the sexes it possesses in itself the mystery of Christ and the Church (Eph. 5:32), a man does not sin who gives his daughter in marriage to one who had a concubine — provided he has dismissed the concubine and contracted a public and legitimate marriage. For it is not duplicity of marriage, but advancement in honorable conduct.
Inquiry V: On Girls Who Were Joined in Marriage to Men Who Already Had Concubines
Response. By paternal authority girls joined in marriage to such men are without fault — if the women previously kept by those men were not in the status of wives.
Inquiry VI: On Those Who Leave the Women by Whom They Had Children and Take Wives
Response. Since it is one thing to be a wife and another a concubine, to put away a handmaid and take a wife of legitimate free status is not duplicity of marriage but an advancement in honorable conduct.
Inquiry VII: On Those Who in Sickness Accept Penance but, When They Have Recovered, Still Put Off Completing It
Response. Such negligence is indeed blameworthy, but must not be entirely despaired of. They must be urged by frequent exhortations — incited by what they necessarily undertook — to faithfully complete what they began. No one is to be despaired of while he remains in this body, since what the weakness of age has deferred is sometimes accomplished by more mature deliberation.
Inquiry VIII: On Those Who Accept Penance While Dying and Die Before Receiving Communion
Response. The cause of these persons must be reserved to the judgment of God, in whose hand it lay that their departure from this life was delayed from the remedy of communion. As for those to whom we cannot give the viaticum — since death has come before the completion of their penance — we do not presume to close against them the door which the Lord opened to all who turn to him. We must not be found more severe than the divine mercy.
Inquiry IX: On Those Who With Great Pain Request Penance, and When the Priest Comes Ready to Give What They Sought, the Pain Diminishes and They Refuse
Response. This evasion can arise not from contempt for the remedy but from fear of sinning more gravely. Therefore when the penance that was deferred is earnestly sought, it must not be denied — so that in whatever way possible the wounded soul may arrive at the medicine of pardon.
Inquiry X: On Those Who Have Professed Penance but Then Litigate in Court
Response. It is one thing to reclaim what is legitimately owed, another to despise one’s own perfection out of love for possessions. But one who petitions for pardon for illicit acts must also abstain from many licit ones, as the Apostle says: All things are lawful, but not all things are expedient (1 Cor. 6:12). Therefore if a penitent has a cause that he cannot in conscience neglect, he should more readily seek the judgment of the Church than that of the court.
Inquiry XI: On Those in Penance Who Pursue Profitable Trading
Response. It is contrary to ecclesiastical rule that those doing penance engage in profitable trading. For it is more fitting for them to renounce their earthly goods than to acquire more. The desire for gain must be suppressed by those who are seeking to obtain the remedy of sins through penitential satisfaction.
Inquiry XII: On Those Who Return to Secular Military Service After Penance
Response. It is entirely contrary to the ecclesiastical rule for anyone to return to secular military service after penance, as the Apostle says: No one serving God entangles himself in secular affairs (2 Tim. 2:4). Therefore regularity of penitential discipline, once undertaken, must not be abandoned to the license of secular life — since those who after penance prefer their earthly safety to their soul’s danger show that they value temporal life more than eternal.
Inquiry XIII: On a Young Man Who in Some Pressing Danger Undertook Penance and When the Danger Passed Could Not Contain Himself
Response. In adolescence, it is the constitution of the body that differs, not the counsel of a more mature deliberation. No one in this situation is so desperate that as long as he lives the medicine of priestly solicitude must be withheld. If a young man has in urgent and imminent peril undertaken penance and then after the peril could not contain himself — while we do not approve of this leniency — since it is better to use the legitimate remedy of marriage than to burn (1 Cor. 7:9), we deal more moderately with one whose situation admits no complete resolution by either condition alone.
Inquiry XIV: On One Who Has Abandoned the Monastic Vow
Response. The monastic profession, freely and voluntarily undertaken, cannot be abandoned without sin. What you have vowed to God, you must render (Deut. 23:21; Ps. 49:14). Therefore one who has strayed from the singularity of his profession must be purged by public penance — since what he vowed to God he may not revoke with impunity, and the engagement freely entered into divine service is not to be surrendered to the license of the world or of military life.
Inquiry XV: On Virgins Who, Not Under Compulsion but of Their Own Will, Chose Virginity — but Have Not Yet Been Consecrated — and Afterwards Married
Response. Girls who were not compelled by parental authority but of their own free will chose the proposition of virginity — if they subsequently commit themselves to marriage — err, even if the consecration has not yet taken place. For their intention already counts as the vow. However, since consecration has not yet taken place, the question is whether there was genuine consent and a publicly contracted and acknowledged engagement in the proposition of virginity. They must not be defrauded of their status — but what was voluntarily and permanently placed under that pledge cannot be revoked without fault.
Inquiry XVI: On Small Children Left Behind by Christian Parents Who Cannot Be Found — Whether They Are to Be Baptized
Response. If there are no near relations, neighbors, or acquaintances who can furnish any information about whether such children were baptized — so that nothing beyond bare unverifiable suspicion stands in the way — they are to be baptized. For the ratio of their case is not demonstrated by any clear evidence, and one must proceed to what the care for their salvation demands.
Inquiry XVII: On Small Children Who Were Captured by Enemies and Baptized — Who Now Come to Roman Territory and Seek Communion
Response. Those who remember that they came to church with their parents can remember it — and it should not be withheld from them, since no recklessness of presumption intervenes where diligence of piety stands. If nothing stands in the way beyond bare suspicion, what they cannot demonstrate by clear fact must not cause them to remain without the remedy of regeneration.
Inquiry XVIII: On Those Who Came From Africa or Mauritania and Were Baptized in Some Sect — What Is to Be Observed Concerning Them
Response. Those who do not know whether they were baptized but were of the faith of those who were baptized — even if they cannot attest it themselves — have received the form of baptism and are not to be baptized again. But through the laying on of hands, with the invocation of the virtue of the Holy Spirit — which heretics were unable to give — they must be joined to the Catholic faithful.
Inquiry XIX: On Small Children Who Were Gently Captured, Who Now as Young People Have Come to Roman Territory, and Who Seek Communion — What Is to Be Observed
Response. If they used only the feasts and food of idol-worshippers, they can be purged by penance: henceforth abstaining from idol-worship, they may be participants in the sacraments of Christ. But if they adored idols, or were implicated in homicide or fornication, they must not be admitted to communion except through public penance.
Given on the eleventh day before the Kalends of April, in the consulship of Majorian Augustus.
Footnotes
- ↩ This letter, dated March 22, 459, is the most extensive canonical rescript in the Leonine corpus. Rusticus of Narbonne had submitted a formal dossier of nineteen specific pastoral-canonical questions to Rome through his archdeacon Hermes. The questions arose from the disorders of the barbarian invasions of southern Gaul — the Hunnic incursions of the 440s, the Vandal persecution in North Africa, and the Visigothic settlement in Aquitaine — which had produced a generation of disrupted communities, uncertain sacramental records, displaced clergy, and compromised Christians. Rusticus has not written to a regional synod or to the metropolitan; he has written to Rome, in the form of a numbered dossier awaiting authoritative Roman response. Leo answers in exactly the same form: numbered inquiry, numbered response — the structure of the Roman imperial rescript made the vehicle of papal canonical governance.
- ↩ The presbyters Sabinian and Leo had apparently been involved in a disciplinary proceeding at a local episcopal inquiry in Narbonne — related to adultery cases — and had subsequently withdrawn from the proceedings, losing confidence in Rusticus’s action. Leo’s advice is characteristically balanced: he leaves the specific disciplinary measure to Rusticus’s discretion while directing him toward pastoral moderation grounded in Ecclesiastes 7:17. The citation — “do not be overly just” — is Leo’s way of saying that rigorism in punishment can itself become a form of injustice when it forgets the medicine of souls. This brief section establishes the pastoral register of the whole letter before the more formal canonical responses begin.
- ↩ This ruling — that valid episcopal consecration requires election by the clergy, acclamation by the people, and consecration by the provincial bishops with the metropolitan’s approval — reflects the canonical norms established in earlier councils and consistent with the Roman tradition running from Leo’s own Letter X (Hilary of Arles case) onward. Leo does not allow pragmatic exceptions: however many people such a pseudobishop ordained, his own acts are invalid; what was done in the churches by those he “ordained” is valid insofar as it pertains to the proper bishops of those churches, but the acts of the pseudobishop himself are void.
- ↩ The Latin is unambiguous: Alienum est a consuetudine ecclesiastica — “contrary/alien to ecclesiastical custom” — that clerics in major orders receive penance through the laying on of hands. The laying on of hands in this context is a quasi-ordination rite, and to impose it on a cleric who has lapsed would be to treat him as though being newly ordained — which is inappropriate both because it resembles ordination and because it is the layman’s remedy. Leo’s ruling is that clerics who have lapsed must seek private withdrawal and personal satisfaction, not the public lay rite of penance. After satisfaction, they may receive communion but not the restoration of their rank.
- ↩ Leo’s ruling on clerical continence is precise: from the time of ordination to the diaconate or above, the cleric must cease conjugal relations with his wife — but he may not dismiss her. The marriage bond remains; conjugal activity ceases. This is the Western Church’s developing discipline of celibacy for those in major orders, stated here as a binding canonical norm, not a counsel of perfection. The contrast with the Eastern discipline — which permitted ongoing conjugal relations for married deacons and priests — was already becoming a divergence between the two traditions by Leo’s time.
- ↩ This citation — Galatians 4:30 combined with Genesis 21:10 — is central to Leo’s argument and was absent from the earlier translation. Leo uses Paul’s typological reading of the Hagar/Sarah narrative to establish that the distinction between wife and concubine is not merely Roman legal convention but has scriptural foundation: the difference between legitimate heir and illegitimate offspring, between freewoman and handmaid, maps onto the difference between wife and concubine. A father who gives his daughter to a man who had a concubine does not participate in any moral duplication, because the concubine never had the standing of a wife in the first place.
- ↩ This ruling follows directly from Letters CLXVI to Neon of Ravenna (October 24, 458) and CLXVII Inquiry XIV (below), where Leo had developed the same reasoning at greater length. The consistency confirms that by this date a settled Roman canonical position on uncertain baptism had been formed and was being applied simultaneously across multiple regional churches — Ravenna, Narbonne, and others.
- ↩ March 22, 459. The dateline undecimo kalendas Aprilis = XI Kal. Apr. = March 22, counting back inclusively from April 1. The year is 459 from the consulship of Majorian Augustus. Some manuscript witnesses give an alternate dating of October 24, 458 — corresponding to the date of Letter CLXVI to Neon of Ravenna — but the main textual tradition supports March 22, 459.
Historical Commentary