Edmund Hunt's Fathers of the Church 34 (1957, 312 pp.) is the only modern English volume given to Leo's letters (https://hollis.harvard.edu/discovery/search?query=any,contains,Leo%20the%20Great%20letters%20Fathers%20of%20the%20Church&tab=Everything&search_scope=MyInst_and_CI&vid=01HVD_INST:HVD2&offset=0 the table of contents in the library record lists 67 items, from 'To the Bishop of Aquileia' to 'To the bishops in Egypt', so the corpus is presented in selection. Migne prints the letters in Patrologia Latina 54 numbered to CLXXIII, the same volume that carries the 96 sermons (https://archive.org/details/patrologiaecursu0054mign). Bronwen Neil's 'Leo the Great' (Routledge, The Early Church Fathers, 2009, xiv+185 pp.) is a second selection of translated texts rather than a corpus translation (https://hollis.harvard.edu/discovery/search?query=any,contains,Leo%20the%20Great%20Neil&tab=Everything&search_scope=MyInst_and_CI&vid=01HVD_INST:HVD2&offset=0 An older English rendering of letters and sermons stands in the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, second series, volume 12 (1895), translated by Charles Lett Feltoe, and its prefatory note states the limits plainly: the series connected with the Eutychian controversy 'is given nearly complete, whereas only specimens of his mode of dealing with other matters have been selected' (https://ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf212/npnf212.ii.ii.html). No complete English translation of the 173-letter corpus was located, so about a hundred letters - including most of the administrative and disciplinary correspondence - remain untranslated.
The letters are the working record of the papal office at its most assertive: the Tome to Flavian (Ep. 28) is the doctrinal text adopted at Chalcedon, and the rest run from the confrontation with Attila and the Vandal invasion to the running of the Roman see's Italian and Gallic jurisdiction. English readers have the Tome and the great set-pieces through Hunt, Feltoe and Neil, but not the bulk of the corpus, which is where Leo's government of the western churches actually shows.
| Source and licence |
|---|
| archive.org · PDF scan · public domain (Migne, Patrologiae cursus completus, Series Latina, 1844-1864); archive.org scan |
| Record | Citation |
|---|---|
| The great encyclical letters of Pope Leo XIII | "The great encyclical letters of Pope Leo XIII." New York, Cincinnati [etc.] Benziger brothers, 1903. https://hollis.harvard.edu/permalink/f/1s5nto6/990027366940203941 |
| Pope Leo xiii, his life and letters, from recent and authentic sources | Talbot, James F. "Pope Leo xiii, his life and letters, from recent and authentic sources." Boston, M. Garrison, 1886. https://hollis.harvard.edu/permalink/f/1s5nto6/99160335424403941 |
| The great encyclical letters of Pope Leo XIII | "The great encyclical letters of Pope Leo XIII." New York, Cincinnati [etc.] Benziger Brothers, 1903. https://hollis.harvard.edu/permalink/f/1s5nto6/99160296372603941 |
| The great encyclical letters of Pope Leo XIII : translations from approved sources | "The great encyclical letters of Pope Leo XIII : translations from approved sources." New York : Benziger Bros., 1903. https://hollis.harvard.edu/permalink/f/1s5nto6/990072489240203941 |
| Pope Leo XIII his life and letters, from recent and authentic sources : together with useful, instructive, and entertaining information required by all Roman Catholic people throughout the world | Talbot, James F. "Pope Leo XIII his life and letters, from recent and authentic sources : together with useful, instructive, and entertaining information required by all Roman Catholic people throughout the world." Boston : Martin Garrison, 1886. https://hollis.harvard.edu/permalink/f/1s5nto6/990024650640203941 |