Leo the Great — Commentary on Scripture

Psalms 2:8

Therefore, let us rejoice in the day of our salvation, dearly beloved. We have been taken up through the new covenant into participation with him who was told by the Father through a prophet, “You are my Son; this day I have begotten you. Ask it of me, and I will give you the of the earth for your possession.” Let us glory, therefore, in the mercy of the one adopting us.

SERMON 29:3

Psalms 6:6

In hell there is no amendment. No means of satisfaction can be given where no act of the will remains any longer, as David says in prophecy: “Since in death there is no one who remembers you, who will give you thanks in hell?” Let us flee harmful pleasures, dangerous joys and desires that perish right away. What fruit is there, what use is there, in wanting these things incessantly, things that we must abandon even if they do not abandon us? Let the love of ephemeral things be transferred to incorruptible ones. Let hearts called to lofty things find their enjoyment in heavenly delights.

SERMON 35:4

Psalms 9:18

Let Christian kindness overflow in you, dearly beloved. As you desire the recurring seasons of the year to be filled with fruit, so let your hearts be generous in feeding the poor. Assuredly, God … could produce the necessary materials for them, since all things are his. He could distribute so much goods to them that they would need nothing from your generosity. Much of the matter of virtue would be lacking to them and to you, if their want did not drive them to the crown of patience or your abundance lead you to the glory of compassion. Divine Providence has wonderfully arranged it that there should be in the church both holy poor and good rich people, who in turn benefit each other from their very diversity. In order for the eternal and incorruptible rewards to be gained, those receiving give thanks to God, and those distributing give thanks to God, for as it is written, … “the patience of the poor will not perish forever,” and “God loves a cheerful giver.”

SERMON 89:6. 1

Psalms 15:5

The evil of usury must be shunned, and the profit that lacks all human kindness must be avoided. The means for unjust and grievous gain is increased, but the essence of the soul is worn down, since usury in money is the ruin of the soul. The holy prophet David showed what God thinks about the people of this kind when he says, “Lord, who will dwell in your tent, or who will rest on your holy mountain?” Those are taught by the reply of the divine voice, and those know that they have a part in eternal rest if, among the other rules of a holy life, “they do not give their own money at usury.” They are shown to be strangers to the “tent” of God and foreign to his “holy mountain” if they seize a deceitful profit for their money by usury, and, while they want to be rich through another’s loss, they are worthy to be punished by eternal penury. But you, dearly beloved, who have believed the promises of the Lord with your whole heart, flee the foul leprosy of avarice and make a holy and wise use of God’s gifts. Since you enjoy his generosity, take care that you may be able to have companions o…

The evil of usury must be shunned, and the profit that lacks all human kindness must be avoided. The means for unjust and grievous gain is increased, but the essence of the soul is worn down, since usury in money is the ruin of the soul. The holy prophet David showed what God thinks about the people of this kind when he says, “Lord, who will dwell in your tent, or who will rest on your holy mountain?” Those are taught by the reply of the divine voice, and those know that they have a part in eternal rest if, among the other rules of a holy life, “they do not give their own money at usury.” They are shown to be strangers to the “tent” of God and foreign to his “holy mountain” if they seize a deceitful profit for their money by usury, and, while they want to be rich through another’s loss, they are worthy to be punished by eternal penury. But you, dearly beloved, who have believed the promises of the Lord with your whole heart, flee the foul leprosy of avarice and make a holy and wise use of God’s gifts. Since you enjoy his generosity, take care that you may be able to have companions of your joy. The things that are supplied to you are lacking to many, and in their need the material has been given to you for imitating the divine goodness, so that through you the divine goodness might pass over to others. As you give out your temporal goods well, you are acquiring eternal.

SERMON 17:3-4

Psalms 17:8

This should be the careful consideration of wise people, that since the days of this life are short and the time uncertain, death should never be unexpected for those who are to die. Those who know that they are mortal should not come to an unprepared end. Therefore this, which has been proclaimed by the voice of the prophet, should be taken up in the hearts of those praying, so that it may be said, not with the lips only but also with the heart.… For we are always in need of divine help. This is the unconquerable courage of human devotion, that we always have a protector without whom we are not able to be brave.

SERMON 90:4.1

Psalms 19:1

All nature serves the Word of God for our instruction. Through all the turning points of the year, as if through the four Gospels, we learn from the unceasing trumpet both what we should preach and what we should do.… What is there through which the truth does not speak to us? Its voice is heard in the day, it is heard in the night, and the beauty of all things, established by the work of one God, does not cease to put into the ears of our hearts a ruling order, to let us see the “invisible things of God through those which have been made intelligible to us,” and it is subject not to the creatures but to the Creator of all things.

SERMON 19:2

Psalms 19:12

Although in any time there are many who lead an innocent life, and very many commend themselves to God by their habitual performance of good deeds, we should not however trust in the integrity of our conscience to such a point that we think that human weakness, living among scandals and temptations, can meet nothing that will harm it. The chief of prophets says, “Who will boast that they have pure hearts or that they are cleansed from sin?” [Here in this psalm] he says, “From my hidden faults cleanse me, O Lord, and from dangerous ones spare your servant.”

SERMON 44:1

Psalms 27:1

In rendering service to the grace of God, we are not only made subject to our King through obedience but are even joined to him through the will. If we are of one mind with him (willing what he wills, disapproving of what he disapproves), he himself will bring us victory in all our battles. He who has given the “will” will bestow also the ability. In this way can we “cooperate” with his works, speaking that prophetic utterance in the exultation of faith: “The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the defender of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid?”

SERMON 26:4.2

Psalms 34:8

God’s people have spiritual feasts and pure delicacies that it is healthy for them to look for and laudable for them to desire, for the prophet says in praise of them, “Taste and see that the Lord is sweet.” Whoever have touched with the taste of their hearts the sweetness of the justice and mercy of God, by which all his ordinances are carried out, and have drunk from the experiences of supernal joys never to be diminished by any pride, they will despise the corruptible and temporal good in their admiration of the eternal, and they will glow in that fire that the love of God kindles. As when cold is changed to warmth and night is changed to daylight, the Holy Spirit by one stroke in the hearts of the faithful takes away darkness and destroys sin.

SERMON 50:2

Psalms 41:1

You should “recognize” Christ “in the needy” to the extent that your resources “allow.” Christ our Lord gives testimony to the fact that he is the one whom we clothe, support and feed in them. That is how strongly he has recommended the poor to us.

SERMON 6:2

Psalms 43:3

The beam that emanates from light does not come after the light. True light never lacks a beam, having it as part of its substance to shine, just as it always has it as part of its substance to exist. But the manifestation of this beam has been called a “sending,” by which Christ appeared to the world. Although he filled all things with his invisible majesty, he came, nevertheless, to those who had not known him, as if from a very remote and deep seclusion. At that time, he took away the blindness of ignorance, as it has been written: “For those sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death, a light has risen.” Of course the light of truth has been sent out in prior ages to enlighten the holy fathers and prophets, as when David said, “Send out your light and your truth.” Of course the divinity of the Son has made clear the works of his presence “in various ways and by many signs.” Yet all these prefigurations and all these miracles bore testimony about that “sending” of which the apostle speaks: “When the fullness of time came, God sent his Son, made from a woman, made under the Law…

The beam that emanates from light does not come after the light. True light never lacks a beam, having it as part of its substance to shine, just as it always has it as part of its substance to exist. But the manifestation of this beam has been called a “sending,” by which Christ appeared to the world. Although he filled all things with his invisible majesty, he came, nevertheless, to those who had not known him, as if from a very remote and deep seclusion. At that time, he took away the blindness of ignorance, as it has been written: “For those sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death, a light has risen.” Of course the light of truth has been sent out in prior ages to enlighten the holy fathers and prophets, as when David said, “Send out your light and your truth.” Of course the divinity of the Son has made clear the works of his presence “in various ways and by many signs.” Yet all these prefigurations and all these miracles bore testimony about that “sending” of which the apostle speaks: “When the fullness of time came, God sent his Son, made from a woman, made under the Law.”

SERMON 25:3.2-4:1

Psalms 55:19-23

May human obedience never withdraw itself from the grace of God, nor may it fall from that good without which it cannot be good. If it feels anything impossible for itself or arduous in the performance of the commandments, let it not abide in itself but return to the one who commanded it, for he gives an order to excite desire and afford help, as the prophet says: “Cast your care on the Lord, and he himself will support you.” Are there any so immoderately proud that they assume themselves to be so perfectly untouched and unstained that they need no renewal? Such an opinion is thoroughly mistaken, and they grow old in excessive vanity if, among the temptations of this life, they believe themselves immune from every wound. Everything is full of danger, everything full of pitfalls. Desires drive us, enticements lure us, money attracts us, loss hinders us, and the tongues of slanderers are bitter. The mouths of those who praise us are not always trustworthy; here hate rages, there a lying service deceives, so that it is easier to avoid discord than to escape falsehood.

SERMON 43:1

Psalms 69:20-29

You have truly and in very many places read something that pertains to the detestable wickedness of your crime and to the voluntary suffering of the Lord. He himself speaks through Isaiah: “I gave my back to the scourges, my cheeks to striking hands; my face I did not shield from the insult of spittle.” He says through David, “They put gall in my food, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.” On yet another occasion, he says through David, “Many dogs surround me, a pack of evildoers closes in on me. They have pierced my hands and my feet, they have numbered all my bones. They watched me carefully and examined me. They divided my garments among them and cast lots for my clothes.” Lest only the kind of your crime might seem to be predicted and the power of the crucified one not foretold, you certainly did not read that the Lord descended from the cross. You did, however, read, “The Lord has reigned from the cross.”

SERMON 55:2

Psalms 69:30-32

Always indeed, dearly beloved, “the earth is full of the Lord’s kindness,” and the nature of things itself is the teacher to each one of the faithful in the worship of God, while “heaven and earth, the sea and all things that are in them” proclaim the goodness and power of their Creator. The wonderful beauty of the elements that serve him demands a due thanksgiving from the understanding creature.

SERMON 44:1

Psalms 73:1-3

Although the hearts of all the faithful do not doubt that divine providence is never absent in any part of the world or at any time or that success in temporal affairs does not rest on the power of the stars (which is no power) but it acknowledges that all things are disposed according to the most just and most kind decision of the King on High, as it is written: “All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth.” Still, since some things do not happen according to our desires, and since the cause of the wicked is often favored over that of the righteous in the mistakes of human justice, it is a fact very near to us and well known that these things trouble even great souls and drive them to some complaint of an unlawful matter. Even David, most renowned of prophets, confessed himself distressed by these diversities to the point of danger and said, “My feet were almost stumbling, my steps were all but slipping, because I was envious of the arrogant, seeing the prosperity of the sinners.”

SERMON 43:2

Psalms 77:5-10

What mind can understand this mystery, what tongue has the capability of explaining this grace? Iniquity turns back into innocence, oldness into newness. Strangers come into adoption, and foreigners enter on an inheritance. Godless people have started to be just, the covetous to be beneficent, the incontinent to be chaste, the “earthly” to be “heavenly.” What has effected “this change” but the “right hand of the Most High”? For “the Son of God came to undo the devil’s works.” He grafted himself into us and us into himself in such a way that God’s descent to human affairs became the elevation of human beings to those divine.

SERMON 27:2.2

Psalms 116:15

Renounce pleasure, turn away from uncleanness, dispel luxury, flee unrighteousness, resist falsehood. When you see that you are waging a battle on many fronts, then you must also, in imitation of the martyrs, pursue a many-sided victory. Every time we die to sins, the sins die in us, and this “death of his holy ones is precious in the sight of the Lord,” because a “human being” dies “to the world” not by the destruction of senses but by the death of vices.

SERMON 84B.2

Psalms 116:15

Your blessed co-apostle, Paul, “vessel of election” and special teacher of the nations, coming to this city, was your associate at that time when all innocence, all honor, all liberty was suffering under the will of Nero. Nero’s rage, inflamed by an excess of all vices, in this time drove him up to such a flood of insanity that he was the first to bring on the honor of a general persecution for the name of Christian. He seemed to think that the grace of God might be cut off through the slaughter of God’s holy ones. Nero did not know that the religion founded on the mystery of the cross cannot be extinguished by any kind of cruelty, since “precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.” This does not diminish, but it increases, the church. As if the grace of God could be blotted out by the slaughter of his holy ones, for whom it was the greatest profit that the contempt of this failing life brought the knowledge of eternal happiness. Therefore this failing life brought the knowledge of eternal happiness. Therefore “precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his s…

Your blessed co-apostle, Paul, “vessel of election” and special teacher of the nations, coming to this city, was your associate at that time when all innocence, all honor, all liberty was suffering under the will of Nero. Nero’s rage, inflamed by an excess of all vices, in this time drove him up to such a flood of insanity that he was the first to bring on the honor of a general persecution for the name of Christian. He seemed to think that the grace of God might be cut off through the slaughter of God’s holy ones. Nero did not know that the religion founded on the mystery of the cross cannot be extinguished by any kind of cruelty, since “precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.” This does not diminish, but it increases, the church. As if the grace of God could be blotted out by the slaughter of his holy ones, for whom it was the greatest profit that the contempt of this failing life brought the knowledge of eternal happiness. Therefore this failing life brought the knowledge of eternal happiness. Therefore “precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.”

SERMON 82:6

Psalms 130:7

But satisfaction must not be ruled out or absolution denied to those who in time of necessity or in the moment of pressing danger beg for the protection of penance followed by absolution. For we cannot put limitations on the mercy of God or fix limits to times. With him there is no delaying of pardon when the conversion is genuine, as the Spirit of God says through the prophet: “If being converted you lament, you will be saved”; and elsewhere: “Tell me your sins first in order that you may be justified”;7 and again: “Because with the Lord there is mercy; and with him plentiful redemption.” Consequently, we must not be stingy in dispensing the gifts of God or disregard the tears and groans of those accusing themselves, since, in our opinion, the very desire for penance was conceived through the inspiration of God, as the apostle says: “Lest by chance God give them repentance … so that they may recover themselves from the snare of the devil, at whose pleasure they are held captive.”

LETTER 108

Psalms 144:5-7

The psalmist is a witness of this matter when he says, “All have gone astray together; they have become worthless.” And Christ’s prophets, praying for help, said, “Lord, bow down your heavens and descend”; not that he might change the places in which all things are now located but that he might take on the flesh of human weakness for our salvation. Paul says the same thing: “How, being rich, he became poor for our sakes, that by his poverty we might become rich.” And he came to the earth and proceeded as a man from the virgin’s womb, which he sanctified. Confirming by this process the interpretation of his name, Emmanuel, that is, “God with us,” he began in a marvelous way to be what we are and did not cease to be what he was. He assumed our nature in such a way as not to lose what he himself was.

TESTIMONIA 19