CRISTO RAUL. READING HALL THE DOORS OF WISDOM |
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THE HISTORY OF THE POPES |
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THE POPES OF THE FIFTH CENTURY
SAINT INNOCENT I
A.D. 401-417
INNOCENT I, of Alba, in Montferrato,
was the son of Innocent, and a cardinal-deacon created by Saint Damasus. He was
elected pontiff at the close of 401. In 409 he went to Ravenna to converse with
the Emperor Honorius and obtain from him the confirmation of the capitulation
concluded between King Alaric and the senate of the city of Rome, besieged by
Alaric, and sacked by him in the following year.
[The Abbé Francis Giusta,
in his Journeys of the Popes, describes the principal journeys undertaken by
the popes for the benefit of the Church. The first journey is that of Innocent
I, to have an interview in 409 with the Emperor Honorius, then residing at
Ravenna. Then come the journeys of Saint Leo to Attila, in Mantua, in 452; that
of Hormisdas to Ravenna, to Theodoric, King of the Goths; that of Saint John I
to Constantinople, to the Emperor Justinian, in 525; that of Agapetus to
Constantinople, to the Emperor Justinian, in 536. In 652 Martin I was carried
off from Rome, by order of the Emperor Constantius. In the eighth century
Constantine went to Constantinople, to the Emperor Justinian II, in 710. Other
journeys followed. Saint Zachary went to Turin, to Ravenna, to Pavia, and to
Perugia, in 742, 743, and 750. Saint Stephen III went to France, to King Pepin,
in 754. Saint Stephen V went to Rheims, to the Emperor Louis I, in 816. Gregory
IV went to France in 832. John VIII went to Paris, to the Emperor Charles the
Bald, in 877.
In the tenth century no pope left Rome. Saint
Leo IX went to France in 1049, and to Germany in 1053. Victor II went to
Germany, to the Emperor Henry, in 1057. Saint Gregory VII went to the castle of
Canossa in 1077. A century later, in 1177, Alexander III went to Venice to
treat for peace with the Emperor Frederic.
In the twelfth century there was no papal
removal from Rome. In the thirteenth in 1223 Honorius III went to the congress
with the Emperor Frederic II. Gregory X went to Lyons in 1274.
Clement V transferred the residence of the Holy
See to France in 1306. Urban V went to Avignon, in Italy, in 1363. Gregory XI
re-established the residence of the Holy See at Rome in 1376. Pius II went to
Mantua in 1459. Julius II, in 1511, besieged La Mirandola. Leo X went to
Bologna to confer with King Francis I in 1515. Paul III went to Savona in 1538,
to Lucca in 1541, and to Busseto in 1543. Clement
VIII went to Ferrara in 1598.
In the seventeenth century there was no papal
journey. In the eighteenth century, in 1782, Pius VI went to Vienna. Pius VII
went to Paris in 1804; in 1809 he was detained at Savona; in 1815 he went to
Geneva. And, finally, Gregory XVI visited Ancona in 1841, and Pius IX went to
Gaeta in 1848.]
Returning to Rome after a fruitless journey,
Innocent applied himself to consoling and encouraging the Romans, restoring the
churches, and ornamenting them anew with precious jewels of gold and silver. He
at the same time busied himself in publishing constitutions for the discipline
of the Church, in destroying so far as he could in their beginning the heresies
of Pelagius, an English monk, and his disciple Celestius,
whose nativity is unknown, and in condemning the reviving heresies of the
Donatists.
Saint Jerome calls Innocent the successor and
the son of Anastasius, because the former, like the latter, had given proofs of
his love of justice by protecting the cause of Saint John Chrysostom,
unworthily deposed from the see of Constantinople, and driven from his church
by the faction of Theophilus. (It must not be forgotten that Saint John
Chrysostom appealed from the sentence of the Conciliabule du Chêne, that the pontiff reversed the
iniquitous condemnation, and that his sentence was respected by the whole
Church. The Conciliabule du Chêne was so called because held in the church of a
quarter of the town of Chalcedon to which a great oak had given its name.) He
who had condemned the two councils irregularly held against a bishop, whom no
prudent man could deem guilty, could not but be inflexible against the
Novatians, who, for more than a century, had kept up their schism.
Innocent, of his own sense of duty, determined
to anathematize both Pelagius and Celestius, who
continued to torment men’s consciences by their audacious doctrines on original
sin, free will, and divine grace.
Saint Innocent ordered that all important
causes, after the sentence of the bishop, should be remitted to the Holy See,
"according to the religious custom", as he himself said. With the
legacy of the matron Vestina, he built and erected into a cardinalate parish
the Church of Saints Vitalius, Gervasius, and
Protasius.
In four ordinations, in the month of December,
this pope created fifty-four bishops, thirty priests, and fifteen deacons. He
governed the Church fifteen years, two months, and ten days.
He was endowed with very distinguished intellect
and singular prudence. He laid it down that a ruler should never dismiss the
ministers of his predecessor, "for", said he, "new comers injure
business before they learn how to do it".
He died on the 28th of July, in the year 417,
and was buried in the cemetery at the Orso Pileato,
and thence his body was removed to the Church of Saint Sylvester and Saint
Martin a' i Monti.
The Holy See remained vacant twenty-one days.
It was under the reign of Innocent I that
Eutropius suffered martyrdom at Constantinople. The prefect, a pagan, and the
enemy of the Christians, inflicted the most cruel tortures on the friends of
Saint Chrysostom. Eutropius, reader and chanter, was put to the question. Fire
was applied to him; he was beaten with straps of raw hides, and with sticks;
his sides, his cheeks, and his forehead were torn with iron hooks, and,
finally, lighted torches were plunged into the gaping wounds where the flesh
had been torn completely away from the bone, and he expired. In France the barbarians furiously tortured the
bishops; at Rheims, Saint Nicasia, with the virgin Eutropia, her sister; at
Arras, Saint Diogene; at Auxerre, Saint Paterna; at Langres,
Saint Didier. Everywhere the same deplorable horrors followed the triumph of
the barbarians. It seemed as though Constantine had everywhere propagated
Catholicism only that the victims might be the more plainly pointed out for
destruction; and among those barbarians who thus tortured and destroyed
Christians, there were some who pretended to believe in Christ.
SAINT ZOSIMUS
A.D. 417-418
SAINT ZOSIMUS, made a priest by Saint Innocent
I, was, according to some, a Greek, born at Caesarea, in Cappadocia; according
to others, he was born at Bieti, in Calabria. He was
elected pontiff on the 19th of August, A.D. 417. He was the first who to the
title of bishop or pope added the words of Rome. He forbade that impure men or
slaves should be received into the clergy; and he forbade the clergy to frequent
taverns.
Zosimus gave a decision relating to the
difference which existed between the churches of Arles and Vienne, as to which
should be the metropolitan of the Viennoise and Narbonnaise provinces. It came to happen this way: His
consecration as Bishop of Rome was attended by Patroclus, Bishop of Arles, who
had been raised to that see in place of Bishop Hero, who had been forcibly and
unjustly removed by the imperial general Constantine. Patroclus gained the
confidence of the new pope at once; as early as 22, 417, (it was consecrated in
the 17 of) March he received a papal letter which conferred upon him the rights
of a metropolitan over all the bishops of the Gallic provinces of Viennensis and Narbonensis I and
II. In addition he was made a kind of papal vicar for the whole of Gaul, no
Gallic ecclesiastic being permitted to journey to Rome without bringing with
him a certificate of identity from Patroclus.
In the year 400 Arles had been substituted for
Trier as the residence of the chief government official of the civil Diocese of
Gaul, the "Prefectus Praetorio Galliarum". Patroclus, who enjoyed the support
of the commander Constantine, used this opportunity to procure for himself the
position of supremacy above mentioned, by winning over Zosimus to his ideas.
The bishops of Vienne, Narbonne, and Marseilles regarded this elevation of the
See of Arles as an infringement of their rights, and raised objections which
occasioned several letters from Zosimus. The dispute, however, was not settled
until the pontificate of Pope Leo I.
Not long after the election of Zosimus the
Pelagian Coelestius, who had been condemned by the
preceding pope, Innocent I, came to Rome to justify himself before the new
pope, having been expelled from Constantinople. In the summer of 417 Zosimus
held a meeting of the Roman clergy in the Basilica of St. Clement before which Coelestius appeared. The propositions drawn up by the
deacon Paulinus of Milan, on account of which Coelestius had been condemned at Carthage in 411, were laid before him. Coelestius refused to condemn these propositions, at the
same time declaring in general that he accepted the doctrine expounded in the
letters of Pope Innocent and making a confession of faith which was approved.
The pope was won over by the shrewdly calculated conduct of Coelestius,
and said that it was not certain whether the heretic had really maintained the
false doctrine rejected by Innocent, and that therefore he considered the
action of the African bishops against Coelestius too
hasty. He wrote at once in this sense to the bishops of the African province,
and called upon those who had anything to bring against Coelestius to appear at Rome within two months. Soon after this Zosimus received from
Pelagius also an artfully expressed confession of faith, together with a new
treatise by the heretic on free will. The pope held a new synod of the Roman
clergy, before which both these writings were read. The skilfully chosen expressions of Pelagius concealed the heretical contents; the assembly
held the statements to be orthodox, and Zosimus again wrote to the African
bishops defending Pelagius and reproving his accusers, among whom were the
Gallic bishops Hero and Lazarus. Archbishop Aurelius of Carthage quickly called
a synod, which sent a letter to Zosimus in which it was proved that the pope
had been deceived by the heretics. In his answer Zosimus declared that he had
settled nothing definitely, and wished to settle nothing without consulting the
African bishops. After the new synodal letter of the African council of 1 May,
418, to the pope, and after the steps taken by the Emperor Honorius against the Pelagians, Zosimus recognized the true character of
the heretics. He now issued his "Tractoria",
in which Pelagianism and its authors were condemned. Thus, finally, the
occupant of the Apostolic See at the right moment maintained with all authority
the traditional dogma of the Church, and protected the truth of the Church
against error.
Zosimus obtained from the Emperor Honorius, then
residing at Ravenna, that the Celestians and the Pelagians should be banished from Rome and every where
known as heretics; and from that instant he neglected no precaution to hasten
everywhere the destruction of the schism which concealed itself under false pretences of piety and of submission.
To settle some church business, Saint Zosimus
sent Saint Augustine to Caesarea, a city of Mauritania. The holy doctor speaks
of that journey in his letters numbered 190 and 209.
It is stated in the martyrology that this pope
ordered that deacons should wear the stole, hanging from the left shoulder to
the right side. He granted to the parish churches the faculty of blessing the
paschal candles, which previously had been permitted only to the great
basilicas. Some authors attribute to him the invention of the paschal candle,
whence the Agnus Dei originated; but the opinion is not shared by other
historians. The truth is that the custom of blessing and distributing the Agnus
Dei dates from the infant Church, and that that ceremony was performed on Holy
Saturday.
Zosimus had some disputes with the bishops of
Africa on the subject of Apiarius, an African priest,
deposed from the priesthood by Bishop Urbain. There arose a difference of
opinion between the Roman and the African Church, which continued five years
and was terminated by Pope Saint Boniface I. Apiarius,
when he appealed on the subject to Zosimus, availed himself of an established
right. The African Fathers recognized the right of the Roman pontiffs to
receive and decide upon all appeals made to the Holy See from all parts of the
Catholic world. The Africans, in the case of Apiarius,
did not directly contest the right of appeal to the Holy See; but they demanded
the execution of the established rules to prevent the abuses committed by the
clerics and simple priests in making such appeals with too great levity and in
cases already well decided. It was in vain that superficial writers or enemies
of the Holy See quoted those regulations as against the right of appeal in
itself. A power so old in the Church as to its essence, although the exercise
thereof had not always been as active or extensive, and although those in whose
hands it existed had not always made the same use of this power, it could by no
right-minded reasoner be termed a usurped power, when the circumstances, the
wants of the Church and its discipline, required that the exercise of the same
power should become more frequent and more habitual.
Saint Zosimus, in an ordination in December,
created eight bishops, ten priests, and three deacons. He governed the Church
one year, nine months, and nine days. He died on the 26th of December, 418, and
was interred in the Basilica of Saint Laurence, on the Via Tiburtina.
The Holy See remained vacant one day.
It was in 418 that Saint Augustine wrote to a
layman named Mercator, who had consulted him upon the errors of the Pelagians : "For myself, I confess it to you, I love
rather to learn than to teach, for the sweetness of truth invites us to learn,
and charity must constrain us to teach. But we should teach only when charity
constrains us to do so".
SAINT BONIFACE I
A.D. 418-422
SAINT BONIFACE, a Roman, the son of Zucundus, was made cardinal-priest by Saint Damasus. When
about to be proclaimed pontiff, he had not voluntarily accepted that dignity,
but he had at length given his consent, when some deacons and a very few
priests, opposing themselves to the wishes of the great majority of the
electors, named Eulalius, who had been made cardinal-archdeacon by Innocent I.
Symmachus, prefect of Rome, patronized Eulalius, and prejudiced the Emperor
Honorius in favor of that antipope. The emperor, being warned that Symmachus
had written falsely to him upon the subject, thought fit to call upon both
Boniface and Eulalius to attend before him at Ravenna. Eulalius, in contempt of
the emperor's orders, left Rome for a short time and then secretly returned.
That, of course, put an end to all dispute upon the subject of the pontificate,
as Boniface was solemnly recognized.
Unhappily it resulted from that dispute that, as
Honorius in that instance, so the kings of Italy and others subsequently
interfered in the papal elections. Of Eulalius we may sum up all that it is
necessary to say about him by merely adding that this intruder retired to Porto d'Anzo and was subsequently Bishop of Nepi.
Boniface, being firmly seated in the Holy See,
ordered that no cleric should be ordained priest earlier than thirty years of
age, as Saint Fabian had desired, and Boniface also followed Zosimus in
excluding from that honor all impure men and slaves. He introduced the custom
of singing on Holy Thursdays the Gloria in Excelsis.
This pope suppressed the vigils of the saints,
which consisted in meeting at their tombs and passing the nights preceding
their feasts in fervent prayer. Although those nights began, as it was fitting,
in a holy manner, it must be confessed that they did degenerate into mere
meetings for amusement. The pope, therefore, limited such meetings to the
feast-days, but he did not suppress either the name of vigils or the fasting
which was prescribed.
Boniface made a decree which forbade all
canvassing in the pontifical elections; the true pope was to be he who should
be elected by the divine judgment and the consent of all.
By apostolical and royal edicts he pursued the
enemies of grace; he received the four books dedicated to him by Saint
Augustine, which the latter had sent by Alipius. Those books refuted the
letters of the Pelagians.
This same pope firmly maintained the rights of
the Holy See over Illyria, which the Patriarch of Constantinople aimed at
separating from the Roman jurisdiction. It was under this pope that Saint
Jerome died, that brilliant light In one ordination, in the month of December,
Saint Boniface created thirty-six bishops, thirteen priests, and three deacons;
he governed the Church three years, eight months, and seven days. He died A.D.
422, and was buried in the cemetery of Saint Felicitas, on the Appian Way, and
near the cemetery of Calixtus.
The Holy See was vacant eight days.
SAINT CELESTINE I
A.D. 422-432
CELESTINE I, a Roman, cardinal-deacon, created
by Innocent I, was the son of Priscus, and a very near relation of the Emperor
Valentinian. This pontiff was elected in the year 422.
In 431 the Holy Father caused to be celebrated
at Ephesus, formerly a city, and at present a village of Turkey in Asia, the
third general council, with the presence of two hundred bishops and of three of
his legates. This council maintained, in opposition to Nestorius, nephew of
Paul of Samosata, at first a monk, then a priest at Antioch, and, at the time
referred to, Bishop of Constantinople, that there was in Jesus Christ but one
person and two natures, and that the Most Holy Virgin was to be called Mother
of God. Nestorius was of a contrary opinion, and obstinately defended his false
and erroneous opinion: he maintained that there were two persons in Christ, one
divine and the other human. He said that the Most Holy Virgin ought not to be
called Mother of God, but only Mother of Christ, because, according to him, it
was the man and not the God to whom she gave birth. The definitive decree of
the council, having been sent to Rome, was received there on Christmas day with
so much joy and acclamation that to the angelic salutation were added the
words: "Sancta Maria, Mater Die, ora pro
nobis" : "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us".
In the history of the Church from its
establishment to the pontificate of Gregory XVI, by M. the Abbé Receveur, there
is the following passage :
"On the very day of the arrival of the
legates of Pope Celestine, the council held its second session in the episcopal
house. The letter of the pope was read, first in Latin, then in Greek; and
after numerous acclamations of the bishops, in honor of Celestine and Cyril
(Patriarch of Alexandria), the legates, remarking that the papal letter
prescribed the execution of the judgment already pronounced by the Holy See,
called the acts of the preceding session, that it might be certain that the
council had proceeded regularly, and to confirm its decisions by the authority
of the Holy See, if those decisions should be found conformable to what Pope
Celestine had himself already decided. Firmus of Caesarea, and Theodotus of
Ancyra, replied, in the name of the council, that in all things they had
followed and executed the judgment pronounced by the pope, as would be proved
to the leg ates by the reading of the acts".
On the following day a third session was held,
in which were publicly read the acts which had already been privately read by
the legates, after which the priest Philip, one of the legates, said :
"All know that Saint Peter, chief of the apostles, and founder of the
Catholic Church, received from Jesus Christ the keys of the celestial kingdom,
with power to bind and loose, and that he, by his successors, still exerts his
power. Our holy pope, Bishop Celestine, who now holds Saint Peter's place, having
sent us to supply his place in the council, we, by his authority, confirm the
sentence of deposition and excommunication passed against Nestorius".
Celestine expelled from Italy the Pelagians, who continued the propagation of their errors. Celestius, their head, having retired to Great Britain,
Celestine sent thither two missionaries who, in two years, brought him back to
the orthodox faith. The Novatians still kept many churches open in Rome. The
pope, if we are to credit Cassiodorus on that point, confined their last bishop
to a distant quarter, and forbade that heresiarch to reassemble his partisans.
Learning that some bishops of France were
afflicted by new progress of the sect called Semi-Pelagians, who had recently
passed from Africa to Marseilles to oppose the doctrine of Saint Augustine on
predestination and grace, Celestine wrote to those French bishops a letter
replete with wisdom and prudence. Finally he sent into Ireland Palladius, the
Greek, first bishop of that country, and Saint Patrick, now the beloved apostle
of the Irish.
In three ordinations Celestine created
forty-six, or, as others say, sixty-two bishops, thirty-two priests, and twelve
deacons. He governed the Church nearly ten years. He ordered that his synodal
decrees and those of his predecessors should in no wise be revoked or subjected
to any new examination, when once ordered and decided. He was interred in the
cemetery of Priscilla, on the Via Salaria, and subsequently his body was
removed into the Church of Saint Praxedes.
The Holy See was vacant nineteen days. Under
this reign died Saint Augustine. That celebrated father confounded the
dangerous heretics of the time, among others Celestius and Pelagius; and he enlightened the Church by his admirable writings. The same
father, seconded by Saint Romain, his disciple, silenced the Semi-Pelagians,
who attributed the commencement of justification and faith to free will alone.
Saint Augustine has left in his Confessions great details of his own life. Of
all his works this throws the most interest on the Bishop of Hippo. Science,
virtue, and the courage of the saints are objects of eternal veneration. The
piety of Saint Augustine was characterized by that impassioned love of God
which in all ages has invariably delighted and attracted the faithful. The
accounts that he has given of the errors and faults of his turbulent youth, the
progressive effects of religious sentiments in his soul, which still remained
weak long after he had been convinced, render him far less a stranger to us than
most of the other Fathers of the Church. The confessions of Saint Augustine are
a continual prayer; he unceasingly addresses himself to God with a sort of
familiarity of adoration which is at once singular and affecting; he
supplicates God to give him the enlightenment necessary to the discovery of the
faults that he had committed at the various stages of his life, and he forcibly
breathes out his sentiments of shame and repentance. The most complete of his
works is The City of God.
When, in 410, Rome was taken by Alaric, and the
loveliest part of the civilized world was a prey to the barbarians, clamors
arose against Christianity. The rest of the pagans and philosophers remarked
that from the establishment of religion the world had become more and more
subjected to frightful calamities. Saint Augustine then undertook to show that
idolatry, even if enlightened by the purest philosophy, must still be powerless
to secure even temporal happiness to mankind. Then he explained what is the
city of God, that is to say, the Church of God, which subsists in all his
glory, and of which some fragments are scattered about our terrestrial city. It
is the continual opposition of the love of the things of this world with the
love of divine things; their combat commenced with the fall of the angels.
Almost the Saint Augustine has been surnamed the Doctor of
Grace, and the painters have given him a flaming heart for symbol. Among his
numerous works, the single book, On the Christian Doctrine, contains,
in the opinion of Bossuet, more aid to the understanding of the Holy Scriptures
than can be found in all the other doctors. His sermons, too, and his letters
should be read. All travellers who have visited the
temple of Saint Peter will remember and confirm that passage in Fea’s description of Rome which says : "At the tribune
called Della Catedra, in the midst there is a great
altar above which is placed the monument of the chair, that is to say, a seat
of wood adorned with ivory, with openwork in gold. It is the very seat which
Saint Peter and his successors had used in great ceremonies. That chair is inclosed in another great seat in bronze, crowned by two
angels bearing the tiara and the keys. This magnificent seat is supported by
four doctors, namely, Saint Augustine and Saint Ambrose, doctors of the Latin
Church, and Saint Chrysostom and Saint Athanasius, doctors of the Greek
Church".
Rome, where the intellectual, the learned, and
the men of profound meditation succeed each other to infinity, needs no
teachings as to propriety, and it often happens that a duty she is accused of
having forgotten is a duty she has solemnly fulfilled.
SAINT SIXTUS III
A.D. 432-440
IT was to Sixtus that Saint Augustine wrote his
celebrated letter concerning grace. Sixtus was then only a priest of the Roman
Church. His nomination to the pontificate was made by unanimous consent, and
even in the presence of two Oriental bishops. Fourteen years previous to his
exaltation, when he as yet was only a catechist, with great eloquence he
anathematized the Pelagian dogmas. Having become pope, he still more strongly
opposed their criminal attempts. After having confirmed the Council of Ephesus,
which had been approved of by his predecessors, he applied himself to
dispersing the faction of Nestorius, who still had for partisans some bishops
of the East.
He zealously labored to re-establish peace
between Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria, and John, Bishop of Antioch. This letter
at length confessed that Nestorius, whose abettor he had been, had been justly
condemned by the council. From the peace thus made, two metropolitans were
excluded, Elladius of Tarsus, and Eutherus of Thyanis, who, in their obstinacy, appealed to the
pontiff Sixtus. He did not show himself favorable to their appeal, solely
because they persisted in their preference for the errors of Nestorius.
The Pagis, in the
criticism of Baronius and in the Life of Sixtus III, freely and skilfully treat the question of that appeal, and prove that
the Oriental bishops, when dissenting, always appealed to the sovereign
pontiffs, and not to the general councils.
In the year 433 the pope ordained, as Bishop of
Ravenna, Saint Peter Chrysologus. It is said that the
pope was miraculously invited to that ordination by Saint Peter himself. Saint
Sixtus, wishing to erect a trophy in honor of the Most Holy Virgin, for the
victory gained over the heresy of Nestorius, augmented and renovated the Basilica
of Saint Mary Major, which he enriched with precious gifts and consider able
income. He left other proofs of his magnificence to the Basilica of Saint John
of Lateran.
In four ordinations, in December, he created
fifty-two bishops, twenty-two or twenty-eight priests, and twelve deacons. He
governed the Church about eight years, died on the 28th of March, 440, and was
interred in the catacombs of Saint Laurence beyond the walls. Bosio gives a
very exact description of all the ancient catacombs where a host of martyrs
were buried during the persecutions. There many Christians found at once an
asylum, death, and burial. Among others are the catacombs of the Vatican, and the
catacombs on the following viae, or roads :
Aurelia, Cornelia, Portuensis, Ostiensis, Ardeatina, Appia, Latina, Labinica, Praestina, Tiburtina,
Salaria, and Flaminia. (The etymology of the word catacombs fully justifies the
use to which it is applied. Before proving that, we must at the outset admit
that formerly the word was not catacombs, but catatombes.
In the acts of Saint Cornelius and in those of Saint Sebastian the latter word
alone is employed, and in Saint Gregory we first find the use of the word
catacombs.)
The Holy See was vacant one month and eleven
days.
SAINT LEO I
A.D. 440-461
SAINT LEO, son of Quintian,
is called the Great, on account of his rare and eminent knowledge. According to
some authors, he was a Roman, but others make him a native of Tuscany. Leo had
been created cardinal-deacon by Pope Saint Zosimus, and he was absent from Rome
at the time of the death of Saint Sixtus III, having been sent to Gaul by the
senate, to establish a good understanding between the Roman generals Aetius and
Albinus. Theodosius knew him from having previously seen him in Asia, presiding
over the Council of Ephesus, and had conceived a high opinion both of his
talents and his piety. He had no ambitious feeling when he was named pope, in
spite of his absence. He immediately applied himself to condemn and put down
the still existing heresies of the Manichaeans, the Priscillianists,
the Pelagians, and the Eutychians. Father Cacciari,
in his edition of the works of Saint Leo, has collected all the documents which
tend to prove the great services which this pope rendered to the Church during
the dangers which continued to threaten her both in the East and in the West.
Among the letters then published must be mentioned the celebrated Letter 24 to
Flavian, Bishop of Constantinople. Of that letter we shall have more to say
when we reach the pontificate of Saint Hilary, who strongly confirms that
decision in praising the wisdom of his illustrious predecessor.
Saint Leo soon had occasion to show the activity
of his courage. Saint Hilary, Bishop of Aries, had deposed from the see of
Besançon the Bishop Celidonius, accused of having married a widow and having as
a secular judge pronounced sentences of death. For those two causes he could
not be bishop, as it was strictly forbidden to raise to the episcopate a
bigamist or a criminal judge. From the bishop's sentence Celidonius appealed to
Saint Leo, who, finding him falsely accused and completely innocent, re-established
him in his see.
In 451 Saint Leo had the fourth general council
celebrated at Chalcedon. There were present six hundred and thirty-six Fathers,
exclusive of four legates of the pope; the Emperor Marcian, the Empress
Pulcheria, and many senators were present. This council condemned Dioscorus,
Bishop of Alexandria, and Eutyches, archimandrite or abbot-general of a
celebrated monastery of Constantinople, who recognized but one nature in Jesus
Christ.
In this council also was treated the case of Bassian and Stephen, the former of whom had been deposed
from the see of Ephesus, and the latter put in his place. It was decided that a
third bishop should be ordained, and that the two contestants should be
supported at the expense of the church treasury, receiving two hundred gold
crowns per annum "for support and consolation", as the council
expressed it. That was the origin of ecclesiastical pensions, until then
unknown.
Among the innumerable decisions of Saint Leo
must be distinguished that by which he ordered the removal from ecclesiastical
office and sacerdotal title of those who should marry widows.
He strictly forbade usury, whether among clergy
or laity.
In 459 he forbade public confession, as never
having been commanded by the Church. He called that confession a
"presumption against the apostolical rule", secret confession being
sufficient.
In the Canon of the Mass he added the words,
"Sanctum Sacrificium, immaculatam hostiam"; but it is not certain that it was he
who also ordered the saying of the words, "Ite missa est", and "Benedicamus Domino".
It is inferred from Letter 84 that Saint Leo was
the first to accredit apostolic nuncios to princes. In fact, in a letter
addressed to the Emperor Marcian, the pontiff begins by begging the emperor to
treat the Bishop Julian kindly; and he adds: "I beg your affection for
your venerator, my brother, the Bishop Julian; his deferences will represent to you my presence. I trust entirely to the sincerity of his
faith; I have delegated to him my powers against the heretics of our time, and
I have required that, on account of the care he is to have for the churches and
for the peace, he should remain near your person. Deign to listen, as though my
own voice spoke, to his observations for the unity of Catholic concord".
Many similar recommendations still in our own
day are in the letters of credit of an apostolic nuncio. One of the finest
incidents in the life of Saint Leo was the determined courage with which, near
Mantua, he prevailed on Attila, king of the Huns, a Tartar people, who called
himself the scourge of God, to withdraw his army from Italy. (Baronius relates,
on the authority of a writer of the eighth century, that Attila saw besides
Pope Leo, while he was speaking, two real persons, whom he believed to be Saint
Peter and Saint Paul. It is very clear that the sudden retirement of that
barbarian, at the bidding of a priest, is a greater marvel than any
apparition.) It was to escape from that Scourge that the populations of Padua,
of Vicenza, and of Verona founded the city of Venice. God had reserved yet
another triumph to Saint Leo. Genseric, king of the Vandals, advanced with his
army towards Rome. Leo met the conqueror six miles from the city. He could not
obtain a promise that the city should be spared, but the king promised that no
depredation or hostility should be committed against those who should seek
shelter in the basilicas of Saint John, Saint Peter, and Saint Paul. The
remainder of the city was sacked for fourteen days. Among other rich spoils,
the plunderers found there the vessels of gold and silver which Titus had
brought from Jerusalem. Until then those vessels had been most carefully
preserved, but it was forgotten to conceal them in one of the basilicas spared
by Genseric.
Trithemius, in his
Ecclesiastical Writers, calls Leo the Tully of ecclesiastical faculties, the
Homer of sacred theology, the Aristotle of arguments for the faith, the Peter
of apostolical authority, and the Paul of Christian charity. Quesnel, on his
part, in a kind of dedication at the head of his edition of the whole works of
this pope, calls Saint Leo "an apostolic man, luminary of the Church,
pillar of the orthodox faith, interpreter of the voice of Peter, defender of
the apostolical dogmas, a man who has equalled the
apostles, and who is equal to the angels". In truth, this great pontiff
was not only an author profoundly versed in sacred knowledge, but also very skilful in the profane sciences, as his letters and sermons
attest. They display a just and exact doctrine, a more than ordinary gravity
and eloquence, accompanied by a style which sometimes perhaps is incorrect, but
which nevertheless pleases and charms by the imagery which adorns it. M.
Receveur gives the following judgment : "Although the writings of Saint
Leo are not free from some faults partaking of the bad taste of his age, they
are remarkable for elegance and nobleness of style, precision and neatness of
ideas, strength of reasoning, and the pathetic movements of a brilliant
eloquence which seizes the mind and penetrates the heart".
In four ordinations, in December, this pope
created a hundred and eighty or a hundred and eighty-six bishops, eighty-one
priests, twelve, or, as some say, thirty-one, deacons. He governed the Church
twenty-one years, one month, and four days, and died on the 11th of April, 461.
He was the first pontiff buried in Saint Peter's. His predecessors had been
interred in the subterraneans, beside the holy apostle, or in the portico. His
remains have four times been removed into four different parts of that
basilica. The first translation took place in the reign of Sergius I, in the
year 688. That pontiff had been removed from the atrium of the old basilica
into the interior. Gregory XIII, about the year 1580, had them removed to the
chapel which he raised in honor of this saint in the present basilica. The
third removal was ordered by Paul V in 1607. On the 26th of March the body was
found almost perfect, with the pontifical ensigns and the pallium. Paul ordered
that the precious relic should be placed on the following day under the altar
of the Blessed Mary della Colonna, where were already
deposited the bodies of Saints Leo II, Leo III, and Leo IV. Finally, Clement
XI, in 1715, leaving the three bodies just named under the altar, ordered the
body of Saint Leo I to be removed on the 11th of April, the feast-day of the
saint, and with solemn pomp conveyed to the altar named after the saint
previously erected by Innocent II. There is placed the celebrated bas-relief by
Alexander Algardi, which represents the saint meeting
Attila. The sculptor has not forgotten the apparition of Saint Peter and Saint
Paul, which produces an admirable effect in that dramatic composition. Saint
Leo shows to the Scythian king the two apostles, and threatens him with their
anger. That bas-relief, placed between two pillars of Oriental granite, shows
with an imposing majesty. It is one of the finest works of modern sculpture.
Benedict XIV, while only promoter of the faith and canon of Saint Peter, took
part in this last translation, and he describes it in his work on the
canonization of the saints. So many authors speak of Saint Leo that it is
almost impossible to cite them. But we must mention that the edition of Saint
Leo's works given by Quesnel is accused of falsifications, and that full
confidence may be given to the editions by Cacciari, of the order of
Carmelites, and by the brothers Peter and Jerome Ballerini, learned priests of
Verona. The Jesuit library at Rome contains a manuscript entitled "S.
Leonis I vitae compendium". ...
SAINT HILARY
A.D. 461-467
HILARY of Cagliari, in Sardinia, son of Crispin,
a cardinal-deacon, created by Saint Zosimus, and Leo's legate to the Council of
Chalcedon, was elected pontiff on the 12th, and consecrated on the 17th of
November, A.D. 461.
In the year 463 he ordered Victor of Aquitaine,
a celebrated mathematician of that time, to compose a paschal canon, so as, if
possible, positively to settle the difference of opinion between the East and
the West as to the celebration of Easter.
In the Roman council held on the anniversary of
his consecration, the 17th day of November, 465, among other decrees of
ecclesiastical discipline he gave one which specified that no cleric should be
ordained who had not cultivated rhetoric; that no bishop should be consecrated
without the consent of his metropolitan; and, finally, that no bishop elect
should thereupon choose his successor, as had been the practice of some
bishops. The first Council of Nice had already decreed this last prohibition.
This pope confirmed the general councils of
Nice, of Ephesus, and of Chalcedon, and the celebrated letter of Saint Leo to
Saint Flavian, called by Saint Gregory a volume and a definition that letter in
which the whole controversy on the mystery of the Incarnation is examined and
defined. The errors of Nestorius and Eutychius are condemned, and the Catholic
doctrine lucidly displayed.
He ordered that the bishops should hold councils
yearly; the Council of Nice had proposed that it should be so every other year.
He excommunicated anew Nestorius, Eutychius, and their abettors. He also
ordered the establishment of libraries in the Basilica of the Lateran.
Saint Hilary so courageously resisted the
Emperor Athemius, who had brought Macedonian heretics
to Rome, that the emperor, overcome by the Holy Father, promised that he would
no longer protect them.
Bury, in his Notitia, says of Pope Saint Hilary:
"by his contempt of riches and the greatness of his enterprises, shines
among the most sublime pontiffs".
In one December ordination he created twenty-two
bishops, twenty-five priests, and six deacons; or, as others say, eighty-six
bishops, fifty-eight priests, and eleven deacons, in three ordinations. He
governed the Church nearly six years, and died on the 10th of September, A.D.
467.
Saint Hilary displayed great magnificence in the
churches. He was interred near Sixtus III, in the catacombs of Saint Laurence
beyond the walls. The Holy See remained vacant nine days. Under the reign of
Hilary died Saint Simon Stylites. Simon felt annoyed by the innumerable crowds
that pressed around him to touch the skins in which he was clad, and thus
obtain a benediction from them. He disliked both the excessive honors
themselves and the continual pressure of the crowds; and it was thence that he
was induced to isolate himself permanently upon a pillar, which he caused to be
erected, first six feet in height, then twelve, and finally thirty-six. Many
censured so extraordinary a way of living, and some have ridiculed it; but
Theodoret believed that it was the effect of a special providence of God, that
such a spectacle might strike mankind; and the miracles worked by Simon, both
before and after, furnish great reason for this belief.
SAINT SIMPLICIUS
A.D. 467-483
SAINT SIMPLICIUS was a native of Tivoli, a town
in the Papal States, near Rome, and was the son of Castinus.
He was created pontiff on the 2oth of September, 467. With the same hereditary
constancy which had been displayed by his predecessors Leo and Hilary, he
resisted all the importunities of the Emperor Leo. That prince, urged by
Acacius, Bishop of Constantinople, solicited the Holy Father to approve the
twenty-eighth canon of the Council of Chalcedon, in which it was attempted to
grant the first see to Constantinople, after that of Rome; which canon had been
annulled by Leo. He also refused to restore Peter Mongus to the see of Alexandria, and Peter the Tanner to the see of Antioch. He
ordered that the alms of the faithful should be divided into four parts: the
first for the bishops, the second for the clergy, and the two other parts for
the maintenance of the Church, for pilgrims, and for the resident poor; which
subsequently was in more positive manner confirmed by Saint Gelasius I, Saint
Gregory the Great, other pontiffs, and various councils.
It was an established rule, from the time of
Saint Peter, that the pontiffs should always confer orders in the month of
December; Simplicius was the first to confer them in the month of February; and
so, after him, until the ninth century, all the popes conferred orders either
in the month of December, or in the first week of Lent, or after the fourth
Sunday in Lent, with the exception of Leo II, who administered that sacrament
in the months of May and June, and Saint Gregory the Great once in September.
No pope, however, conferred orders on the Saturday before Easter.
In 482 the Holy Father named the Bishop of
Seville as first bishop in Spain. It was a prerogative purely personal, which
consisted in a power granted by the pope confiding to that bishop the care of
seeing to the observance of the canons. That primacy of the Church of Seville
continued till the celebration of the Council of Toledo, which took place in
681. In that space of time, from 482 to 681, the Bishop of Seville was not
alone in the enjoyment of that pre-eminence of vicar or legate of the pope; for
Pope Hormisdas, in 517, gave nearly like power to John, Bishop of Tarragona.
In three ordinations, in the month of December
and in the month of February, Simplicius created thirty-six bishops,
fifty-eight priests, and eleven deacons. He governed the Church more than
fifteen years, and died on the 1st of March, 483, after having seen the
extinction, in 476, of the Roman Empire of the West, in the person of
Augustulus, subjected by Odoacer, king of the Heruli.
About that time Zeno reigned in the East, and followed the errors of Eutychius.
In the West, in Italy, reigned Odoacer, an Arian; in Gaul, the Burgundians,
also Arians; further, the Goths were Arians; the Franks pagans. In Spain the
Goths and the Suevi favored the doctrine of Arius; in Great Britain the Saxons
remained pagan, and in Africa the Vandals showed themselves obstinate Arians.
What was the situation of the Christian republic at that time will readily-be
imagined, and also what courage and what talents were required in its chief to
enable him to defend and propagate the dogmas and his authority.
Saint Simplicius was interred in the Vatican
Basilica. The Holy See remained vacant seven days.
SAINT FELIX III
A.D. 483-492
SAINT FELIX III, Roman, son of Felix,
cardinal-priest of the Church of Saints Nereus and Achilles, belonged to the
Anicia family, the wealthiest, noblest, and most powerful in Rome. Felix was
elected pope on the 8th of March, 483. It was evident in the very beginning of
his reign that he would not degenerate from his predecessors, and would neither
admit nor tolerate, in matters of faith, any equivocation or ambiguity of
phrase. He declared that he would prefer the safety of dogma to all human
respect, to all earthly prudence, and that he would always maintain open war
with the contumacious, rather than an insidious and suspicious peace. He
condemned, the following year (484), and repulsed from the episcopate and the
Catholic communion, Acacius, Patriarch of Constantinople, author of the first
schism between the Greek and the Latin Church, which lasted thirty-five years,
down to Pope Hormisdas, who was elected in 514. Acacius was also an
indefatigable abettor of Peter Mongus, Bishop of
Alexandria, and of Peter the Tanner, or Gnaffeo,
pseudo-Bishop of Antioch, both condemned as Eutychian heretics. The same
penalty was fulminated by the pope against Vital, Bishop of Trento, a city of
Picenum, now reduced to a small number of houses; and against Missenus, Bishop of Cumea,
because, having been sent as legates to Constantinople about the affairs of the
East, they had allowed themselves to be intimidated by the threats of Zeno and
Acacius, and had betrayed the ministry with which they were intrusted.
Felix improved the Henotic, that is to say, the Edict
of Pacification, the apparent object of which was to establish unity, but which
really concealed a snare set by the ministers of the Emperor Zeno. The
Catholics and the Eutychians were to be reconciled. Acacius, by the vilest
flatteries, endeavored to persuade the emperor that he could decide questions
of the faith. To that end the prince issued this edict, called Unitive, or Uniting.
The intention seemed upright, and the decree seemed to contain nothing but what
was openly Catholic. But Felix was endowed with a rare perception; he noticed
that in the Henotic there were omissions which might,
to less attentive minds, appear to be innocent. But the sagacity of the pontiff
at once perceived that they were suspicious, if not actually malicious, tending
only to bring about an apparent political accommodation, while really
confounding together the faithful with the false believers.
It must not be omitted to state how Acacius
learned that he was excommunicated by Felix. It was necessary that the anathema
should be published in Constantinople itself, amidst the glory and power of
Acacius. One Sunday, as he was solemnly proceeding to church, some monks from
Rome fastened to his robe the excommunication sent by Felix. The courageous
monks paid for their boldness with their lives; they were put to death on the
spot.
Felix did not confine himself to bestowing
tender and benevolent care upon the interests of the Church of Constantinople;
he did not lose sight of the African Church. He wrote to the emperor to
interpose with Huneric, king of the Vandals, to engage him to exercise no
cruelties on the African bishops. He was the first pontiff who gave the emperor
the name of Son. One of his letters to Zeno commences thus: "Gloriosissimo et serenissimo Filio Zenoni Augusto, Felix, Episcopus in Domino, salutem". This example was followed by Pope Anastasius
II when writing to the Emperor Anastasius. In two ordinations the Holy Father
created thirty-one bishops, twenty-eight priests, and five deacons. He governed
the Church eight years, eleven months, and seventeen days. The Holy See was
vacant four days.
SAINT GELASIUS I
A.D. 492-496
GELASIUS, Roman, as he himself affirmed, and not
African, was the son of Valerius, and was created pope on the 2d of March, 492.
According to some writers he instituted the regular canons of Lateran. Gelasius
declared, in a council of sixty bishops held at Rome in 494, what were the
sacred books in both the Old Testament and the New; what books were received by
the Church; and, finally, what were the apocryphal books. He commanded, in the
same council, that the four general councils, that of Nice, that of
Constantinople, that of Ephesus, and that of Chalcedon, should be respected. He
suppressed the Lupercal feasts, and caused them to disappear from Rome; those
feasts in which naked men ran about the city, striking with goat-skin scourges
all barren women. The Holy Father refuted, in a treatise, the senator
Andromachus, who complained of the abolition of the Lupercalia. Instead of the
famous Lupercalia, Gelasius instituted the Feast of the Purification of the
Blessed Virgin. Martinus maintains that it was long before celebrated in the
East; however, we know that the pontiff Sergius, in the seventh century, added
to it the procession with lighted tapers.
Saint Gelasius refused to grant the communion
and the pacific letters to Euphemius, Bishop of
Constantinople, until he had erased the name of Acacius from the sacred
diptychs. The same pope also combated the remains of the Pelagian heresy which
endeavored to steal into Dalmatia and Picenum, imitating herein his
predecessors, Saint Innocent I, Saint Zosimus, Saint Boniface I, Saint
Celestine I, Saint Sixtus III, and Saint Leo the Great, who never allowed any
advance to the followers of that heresy. The more certainly to recognize
Manichaeans remaining in Rome, who abhorred wine, which they called "the
gall of the prince of darkness and of the devil", Gelasius ordered that
the faithful should communicate in both kinds; and this continued up to the twelfth
century. It was entirely and formally abolished in 1416, by the Council of
Constance. However, according to the Council of Trent, this prerogative was
granted to the kings of France on the day of their coronation, to the deacons
and subdeacons of Saint Denis, near Paris, for Sundays and solemn days, and,
finally, to the ministers of the altars of the monastery of Cluny in France,
for feast-days. Saint Gelasius published a code or missal for the right
ordering of the Masses.
Gelasius was the first to allow the conferring
of orders in all the ember days of the year. In two ordinations he created
seventy-seven bishops, thirty-two priests, and twelve deacons; he governed the
Church four years, eight months, and nineteen days. He died on the 21st of
November, and was interred at the Vatican, the same year in which Clovis in
France embraced the Catholic religion. This pope took part in that immense
success of Catholicity. The Holy See was vacant six days. Gelasius was a model
of purity, of zeal, and of simplicity in his conduct. His morals corresponded
with his conduct. It will have been noticed in the life of Saint Hilary that
Saint Hilary confirmed the general councils of Nice, Ephesus, and Chalcedon,
and that in that confirmation nothing is said about that of Constantinople. It
is clear that Gelasius was more explicit.
SAINT ANASTASIUS II
A.D. 496-498
ANASTASIUS II was a Roman, and born in the
Nicolo Capotoro, on the Esquiline. He was created
pontiff on the 28th of November, 496. Being consulted as to the baptisms given
during the life of Acacius, the pope replied that the baptism and the orders
conferred by an excommunicated and suspended bishop were valid nevertheless. He
congratulated Clovis, King of France, on being baptized, and on having set that
heroic example in presence of a great number of Frank warriors, at the
solicitation of his wife, Clotilda.
The author of the Liber Pontificalis relates that many priests and clerics withdrew from the communion of Anastasius
II, on account of his close relations with Photinus, deacon of Thessalonica,
who had adhered to the party of Acacius, and because in this reign it had been
thought proper to recall that same Acacius. Here, however, we must note an
important truth upon that subject. The Holy Father could scarcely have
conceived the idea of restoring the see of which that heretic had been
deprived, inasmuch as that heretic died in 488, and under the reign of the
predecessor of Anastasius, Felix III. The falsehood of the report surely
requires no further comment. It has also been said that Acacius could not be
reinstated by Pope Anastasius, be cause, before that pontiff could succeed in
his design, he was killed by lightning. This was a mere calumny circulated by
the partisans of the antipope Laurentius. The Anastasius who was struck dead in
a thunder-storm was the Emperor Anastasius, and not the pope of the same name,
as Baronius affirms in An. 497. In an ordination, in the month of December, the
Holy Father created sixteen bishops and twelve priests. He governed the Church
two years, all but six days. He died on the 16th of November, 498, and was
buried in the porch of Saint Peter s. The Holy See remained vacant six days.
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