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Summary
- Leo is not a personal name in the Bible. It is Latin for lion, and the lion appears around a hundred and fifty times, in more registers than any other animal.
- The Lion of Judah begins with Jacob’s blessing (Genesis 49:9) and travels with David’s line for a thousand years.
- Revelation 5:5-6 is the turning point of the book: John is told to look at the Lion and sees a Lamb looking as if it had been slain. The substitution is made without comment.
- Scripture also uses the lion for danger — 1 Peter 5:8 — and God compares himself to one in Hosea 5:14, not gently.
- Fourteen popes have taken the name. Leo XIII wrote Rerum Novarum in 1891, and Leo XIV, elected May 2025, said he chose the name with him in mind because of a new industrial revolution in artificial intelligence.
Bibliography (Click to show)
Sources: Behind the Name entry for Leo (Latin for lion); Scripture quotations from the NIV via BibleGateway (Genesis 49:9; 1 Samuel 17:34-36; Proverbs 28:1; Hosea 5:14; Daniel 6:18; 1 Peter 5:8; Revelation 5:5-6). Leo I’s meeting with Attila in 452 and his Tome adopted at Chalcedon, and Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum (1891), are matters of record. Leo XIV was elected in May 2025 and gave his reason for the name in his own remarks, citing Leo XIII and the questions raised for work and human dignity by artificial intelligence.
