Celestine I

ON ST. CELESTINE I,

ROMAN PONTIFF.

A.D. 432, APRIL 6.

Celestine I, Roman Pontiff (Saint)

AUTHOR G. H.

CHAPTER I.

The beginning of his Pontificate. Saint Augustine aided and praised. The Pelagians ejected. Saints Palladius and Patrick sent to Ireland. Other decrees.

[1] When Boniface I, Supreme Pontiff of the Roman See, was called from this life to the eternal reward of his labors on October 25, Saint Celestine I was put in his place on November 3, the See having been vacant nine days, in the year of Christ 423, Indiction VI, Asclepiodotus and Marinianus being Consuls: He is created Pope in the year 423. by whose dignity indicated, Marcellinus Comes and Prosper in the Chronicles write that Celestine, created Bishop of the Roman Church, lived nine years. He was by nation a Roman, son of Priscus.

[2] There then flourished with the highest splendor of doctrine and holiness Saint Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, who in what esteem he held Celestine, letter 261 indicates, written to him at the beginning of his Pontificate, of which we give a few things, and he thus begins it: "To the most blessed Lord and venerable with due charity, Saint Pope Celestine, by unanimous election: Augustine sends greetings in the Lord. First I render congratulations for your merits, that the Lord our God has placed you in that See without any, as we have heard, division of his people. Then I bring to the notice of Your Holiness the things which are around us, that you may come to our aid not only by praying for us, but also by counsel and assistance. Placed indeed in great tribulation, His protection is sought by Saint Augustine I have directed these writings to your beatitude: because, desiring to benefit certain members of Christ in our neighborhood, I improvidently and incautiously brought a great disaster upon them." He briefly sets forth the matter. Saint Augustine had brought back the castle of Fussala with the adjoining region from the error of the Donatists to the unity of the Church, and had taken care to establish there as Bishop Antonius, nurtured with him in the monastery from his earliest age, in the case of the Bishop of Fussala to be deposed for crimes whom, on account of the charges brought against him, he did not wish to be deprived of the honor of the episcopate, but by rebuking him diminished his power, so that he should not rule over those with whom he had so acted: which being set forth at length, thus he addresses Saint Celestine: "Labor with us, I beseech, venerable in piety, most blessed Lord, and holy Pope, venerable with due charity; and command all the things that have been sent to you to be read. See how he has conducted his episcopate, how to our judgment he has so consented, being deprived of communion, unless first all things were restored to the people of Fussala… In those manifold acts, however, in which our judgment concerning him is contained, I ought rather to fear, lest we seem to have judged less severely than we ought; unless I knew you to be so inclined to mercy, that you should think not only we, because we spared him, but he himself also should be spared… Let it be an example, the Apostolic See itself judging, or confirming what has been judged by others, that some, for certain offenses, should be neither despoiled of the honor of the episcopate nor left entirely unpunished… Military incursions, as though about to execute the sentence of the Apostolic See, either he himself or most frequent rumors threaten, so that wretched Catholic Christian men dread more grievous things from the Catholic Bishop than, when they were heretics, they feared from the laws of the Catholic Emperors. Do not allow these things to happen, I beseech you through the blood of Christ, through the memory of the Apostle Peter, who admonished those set over Christian peoples not to lord it violently among the brethren. But if you shall have refreshed both the members of Christ which are in that region from deadly fear and sorrow, and shall have consoled my old age with this justice of mercy, he will repay you both in the present and in the future life, who through you comes to our aid in this tribulation, and who placed you in that See."

[3] Thus Saint Augustine, who survived until the year 430, whom, from his death, Saint Celestine greatly praised in his first letter to the Bishops of Gaul, in these words: "Augustine, he praises the doctrine of Saint Augustine, a man of holy memory, for his life and merits, we have always held in our communion, nor has the rumor of any false suspicion ever besmirched him; whom we remember to have been long since of such learning that he was reckoned among the best Masters even before by my predecessors. All, therefore, have thought well of him in common, inasmuch as he was everywhere an object of love and honor to all." Thus Saint Celestine; from which we securely enough conjecture that in the above-mentioned controversy he favored Saint Augustine, against Pelagius and Celestius, just as in this already cited letter he approves the writings of Saint Augustine against Pelagius and Celestius his disciple. To the same letter are joined certain chapters against Pelagian errors, collected from the decrees of Roman Pontiffs and Councils, which, although they are not of Celestine, yet are attributed to him by Peter the Deacon, Florus, Master, Hincmar, Cresconius, Ivo, and others, as Sirmondus relates in tome 1 of the Councils of Gaul, p. 196. By some they are attributed to Prosper, who in his book against the Collator greatly praises the said letter of Saint Celestine;

and near the end relates these things: "The Pontiff of venerable memory, Celestine, to whom the Lord bestowed many gifts of his grace for the protection of the Catholic Church, knowing that to the condemned is to be granted not the examination of judgment but only the remedy of penance, ordered Celestius, as one demanding a hearing on a matter not discussed, to be expelled from all the borders of Italy. He takes care that he be expelled from Italy: By him both the statutes of his predecessors and the Synodal decrees were considered to be inviolably observed: so that what had once deserved to be cut off, should by no means be allowed to be reopened. Nor indeed with less vigilance did he free Britain from this same disease, He frees Britain from the Pelagian heresy: when he shut out certain enemies of grace, occupying the soil of their own origin, even from that secluded Ocean, and, having ordained a Bishop for the Scots, while he strives to keep the Roman island Catholic, he also made the barbarous one Christian." The same Prosper in the Chronicle for the year 429, Florentius and Dionysius being Consuls, writes this: "Agricola the Pelagian, son of Severianus the Pelagian Bishop, corrupted the Churches of Britain by the insinuation of his doctrine. But by the action of Palladius the Deacon, Pope Celestine sent Germanus, Bishop of Auxerre, in his stead, and, the heretics being overthrown, directs the Britons to the Catholic faith." Hence Harpsfield, in the Ecclesiastical History of Britain, chapter 2, for the first six centuries uses this acclamation: "Our Britain owes a certain singular grace to Celestine, to pacify which he sent in a most honorable legation the very lights of the Gallic Priesthood, Germanus of Auxerre and Lupus of Troyes, Bishops." The rest will be discussed in the Lives of Saints Germanus and Lupus, whom others say were sent by a Gallican Synod.

[4] How moreover Saint Celestine is said to have made Ireland, the barbarous island of the Scots, Christian, we have set forth at length in the Life of Saint Patrick on March 17, and from Jocelin, no. 22, we published these things: "Patrick, God making prosperous his journey for our salvation, came to the City, the head of the world, He sends Saints Palladius and Patrick into Ireland visiting with due devotion of veneration the memorials of the Apostles and Martyrs, and having obtained acquaintance and familiarity with the Supreme Pontiff, he found favor in his eyes. There then presided over the Apostolic Chair, in name and conversation, Celestine I, the forty-*third from the Blessed Apostle Peter. This man, retaining Saint Patrick with him, approved and found perfect in faith, doctrine, and holiness, at length consecrated him as Bishop, and decreed to appoint him to convert the Irish nation. The aforesaid Pope had previously sent into Ireland for the sake of preaching another Doctor by the name of Palladius, namely his own Archdeacon: to whom, having joined companions, he gave an abundance of books, both Testaments, with relics of the Apostles Peter and Paul and of very many Martyrs. But the Irish not believing his preaching, and most obstinately opposing it, he departed from their region, and, making his way to Rome, in Britain within the borders of the Picts he died… The Lord Apostolic, being assured of the death of Palladius, precisely commanded Patrick to undertake the journey and work of the salutary legation, which he had before deferred to do, using stricter counsel." Thus Jocelin. Palladius was sent by Saint Celestine into Ireland in the year 430, after whose departure Saint Patrick, arriving at Rome to request license to preach to the Irish, suffered a rebuff from Saint Celestine. In the year 431 Saint Palladius, returning in despair of the conversion of the Irish, died in Britain among the Picts on July 6. Patrick, sent back to Rome by Saint Germanus with letters of commendation and with Segetius the Presbyter, in the year 432 obtained the Irish legation from Saint Celestine, a few days before his death, which Sixtus his successor confirmed: as we have set forth more fully in §§ V and IX before the Life of Saint Patrick.

[5] Under the aforementioned Consuls Florentius and Dionysius, that is, in the year 429, Pope Celestine wrote his third letter to all the Bishops established throughout Apulia and Calabria, and first prescribes that no Priest may be ignorant of the canons; then that it is not fitting, the Clerics of the Churches being despised, to ordain Bishops from the laity: and that when these brought as their excuses the zeal and effort of the people, he forbids Bishops to be ordained from laymen. he thus admonished them: "The people must be taught, not followed: and we, if they do not know, must admonish them what is and what is not lawful, not give our consent to them. Whoever shall attempt to try forbidden things, shall feel the censure of the Apostolic See will in no way be lacking. For what we do not correct by the authority of admonition alone, we must needs punish through severity fitting to the rules. Through all those churches which lack their own Rectors, therefore, we wish this to be made known, so that no one, perchance flattering himself with some hope, may deceive himself. He adds the Introit of the Mass. Moreover, as is read in the Pontifical Book and in Anastasius, he established that the one hundred and fifty Psalms of David should be sung antiphonally before the Sacrifice, in place of which in the Palatine MS. Codex it is read that an Antiphon should be sung before the Sacrifice, namely with some of the said Psalms, which is now called the Introit of the Mass, consisting of one Antiphon and a Psalm: but of which only the beginning is sung, and this, with "Gloria Patri" added and the Antiphon resumed, is concluded, by the usage of subsequent centuries observed even to the present day.

* indeed the fifth

CHAPTER II.

The Nestorian heresy detected and condemned by Saint Celestine, then in the Council of Ephesus, celebrated by his authority.

[6] Sisinnius being dead, Bishop of Constantinople, Nestorius was put in his place, an Antiochene by country, on the 4th day before the Ides of April in the year 428, Felix and Taurus being Consuls, and received with the common applause of all, as though he would be another John Chrysostom. Rejoicing at Nestorius being made Bishop of Constantinople: Saint Celestine the Pope bears witness to this in a letter given to Nestorius, in which he has this: "The narration of the coming messengers gladdened our soul, which was soon confirmed by the report of our colleagues who were present at your ordination: who gave you so much testimony as ought to be given to one who seemed to be elected from elsewhere. With so great a reputation did you live previously, that a foreign city envied yours for you." Thus Saint Celestine. But that Nestorius soon favored the Pelagians, and received those expelled from Rome, but having understood his heresy and moreover spread a new heresy, he subjoined these things: "Now we see that splendid testimony given you to have fallen to nothing, and those honest beginnings of yours to have been followed by an evil report." Prosper in the Chronicle, for the said year 428 and the consulship of Felix and Taurus, has these things: "Nestorius, Bishop of Constantinople, attempts to introduce a new error into the Churches, He opposes him by his authority: preaching that Christ was born of Mary a man only, and not also God, and that divinity was conferred upon him by merit: against whose impiety the chief authority of Cyril Bishop of Alexandria and of Pope Celestine opposes." Saint Cyril is venerated on January 28, on which day we treated at length of this Nestorian heresy in § VII and following, which the Reader will find there. Nestorius had spread his heresies, concerning the tracts scattered by him pestilent tracts having been scattered everywhere, and brought even to Rome to Saint Celestine; who, having examined the blasphemies with which they teemed, wrote to Cyril to inquire diligently whether they were truly written by Nestorius: as Cyril testifies in a letter to Nestorius in these words: "When the faith was being so notably wounded, and so many being everywhere perverted, how at length could it be permitted to be silent here… Since by the command of Celestine, the most religious Bishop of the Roman Church, and the other most pious Bishops he takes care through Saint Cyril that it be inquired. who were present with him, so requesting, I am forced to investigate whether those papers and expositions which somehow have been brought there to him proceeded from your piety or from any other. For they write as men most gravely offended."

[7] When Cyril had tried in vain to correct Nestorius, he sent Possidonius, Deacon of the Church of Alexandria, as legate to Saint Celestine, who informed him of all things. Being informed by him, Celestine wrote back most humane letters on the 3rd day before the Ides of August, Theodosius Augustus XIII and Valentinian Augustus III being Consuls, or in the year of Christ 430, and extols and admires Saint Cyril's orthodox doctrine and kindled zeal in religion, but concerning Nestorius thus decides: "This man we must keep off from the sheepfolds, unless, as we desire, he betake himself to good fruit, if any hope of this matter still remains. For we desire that he be converted and live, unless he has long since destroyed his own life together with those entrusted to him. But if he persist in his obstinacy, an open sentence of condemnation shall presently be borne against him… All those, therefore, he orders the sentence of condemnation to be pronounced, whom he has, as he supposed, removed from communion as opposing him, let them understand themselves to remain in our fellowship. Let them know nevertheless that this same man cannot after this have communion with us, if, further opposing the Apostolic doctrine, he persists in contumaciously urging this perverse way. Wherefore, the authority of our See having been invoked, and using our office and place with power, you will execute a sentence of this kind, not without exquisite severity; namely, that unless within the interval of ten days, to be counted from the day of this admonition of ours, unless within 10 days he anathematize his doctrine: he anathematize in set terms his nefarious doctrine, and promise that he will hereafter profess that faith concerning the generation of Christ our Lord, which the Roman Church and the Church of Your Holiness, and indeed the whole Christian religion, preaches, immediately let your Holiness provide for that Church. Let him indeed understand himself by all means to be separated from our body; as one who has spurned all care of the physicians, and, like a pestilent disease, has raged in an insane manner through the whole body of the Church, and has striven to hurl both himself and the others entrusted to him into extreme ruin."

[8] Thus Saint Celestine, who adds that he wrote the same things to his fellow-Bishops John of Antioch, Rufus of Thessalonica, Juvenal of Jerusalem, and Flavian of Philippi, that the Divine sentence of Christ our Lord concerning him might be made manifest to many. There exists the letter to John of Antioch inserted in tome 1 of the Acts of the Council of Ephesus, chapter 19, where in the preceding chapters are the letters of the same Saint Celestine written on this matter then to Nestorius and the Clergy of Constantinople, from the last of which we excerpt these few things: "This present discourse of ours embraces all in general, so that, made firmer and more courageous in the Lord, you may not be led away to different things, but rather strive to heal each other's mutual infirmities. For we are compelled to commend to you for the present the weaker ones who are there, where we observe the physician himself gravely laboring; for whom nonetheless, if I can do anything, we desire help to be given… Because indeed in so arduous a matter our presence seemed almost necessary, He establishes Saint Cyril as his Vicar in this matter, yet because on account of the intervening sea and the distances of a long journey this cannot conveniently be done, we have imposed upon our brother Cyril the office and our person, lest the disease, on account of longer delay, should spread more widely and diffuse its venom in more. Meanwhile do you, having Apostolic sayings before your eyes, in the same opinion and the same sense be perfect: that as we read, persevering to the end, we may all be able to attain salvation. Matt. 10:22"

In another letter to Nestorius concerning Cyril he has these things: "The formula of our judgment against you we have transmitted to Saint Cyril, Bishop of the Alexandrian Church, that as our Vicar in this part he may bring about that our decree be made known both to you and to all the rest of the brethren. For when any deliberation about a common matter is undertaken, then all must understand what has been done and decided." Thus Saint Celestine.

[9] Cyril, after receiving the letters of Saint Celestine, having summoned the neighboring Bishops to Alexandria, convenes a Synod; and with it, after discussing Nestorius's letters and expositions, he pronounces him a heretic; and, four ministers of the Alexandrian Church having been sent to Constantinople, presented to Nestorius a Synodal letter, which contained a confession of the orthodox faith and anathematisms of twelve errors; with the letter of Saint Celestine added, with the decree of damnation, unless within the prescribed space of ten days he repented. Nestorius, having received this letter and read the anathematisms, rising up against Cyril, accused him of the heresy of Apollinaris. All these things being reported to the Emperor Theodosius, the Council of Ephesus being held by his authority he, judging the matter to have been brought to such a point that a universal Council was needed, sent Saint Petronius, afterwards Bishop of Bologna, to Saint Celestine the Pope, that by his authority a Council might be held at Ephesus; which Theodosius proclaimed on the 13th day before the Kalends of December for Pentecost of the following year 431, for which a form was prescribed by Saint Celestine, Firmus, Bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, bore witness in the Ephesine Synod itself: "In which, in his Legates and Vicars, that is, the most blessed Cyril, Bishop of the city of Alexandria, He presides through his Legates: Arcadius and Projectus, Bishops, and Philip the Presbyter, the most blessed Pope Celestine of elder Rome is known to have presided": as in the fifth Ecumenical Synod, held at Constantinople in the year 553, the Bishops testify. In that Synod, therefore, the sentence of condemnation having been passed by more than two hundred Bishops against Nestorius, it is thus reported in tome 2 of the Council, chapter 10: "The Holy Synod said: Since among other things the most religious Nestorius neither was willing to obey our citation nor to admit the most holy and most religious Bishops sent to him, we were unable not to direct our attention to an examination of what he impiously taught. Instructed therefore partly from his letters and commentaries, here publicly read, and it condemns Nestorius: partly again from the sermons which he held in this metropolis of the Ephesians, and partly lastly from witnesses worthy of credit, that he impiously teaches and thinks; by the sacred Canons and the letters of the most holy Bishop of the Roman Church Celestine our Father, we, in tears and almost unwilling, are compelled to this mournful sentence. Therefore our Lord Jesus Christ, whom by his blasphemous words he has assailed, through this sacred Synod decrees the same Nestorius to be deprived of all Episcopal dignity, and nevertheless alienated from the whole body and assembly of the Priests."

[10] Among the letters of Saint Celestine here mentioned may be reckoned those three which he sent with his Legates to the Synod of Ephesus, and to Saint Cyril his Vicar in this matter, and to the Emperor Theodosius, which are inserted both in the Councils themselves and in the Annals of Baronius. From the first alone we present a few words of exhortation to the Synod, and worthy of so great a Pontiff, and they are these: "Let us be of one mind, being of one mind, since thus it is expedient: he exhorted them to this through a letter to the assembled Bishops. let us not strive to do anything through contention, nothing through vainglory: so that with all there be one soul with one heart; since the faith, which is one, is being assailed. Let the whole common college grieve with us, indeed let it lament, that he is called into judgment who is to judge the world: he is examined who is to examine all: and he suffers calumny who redeems. Let your Fatherhood gird on the arms of God: you know what helmet arms our head, what breastplate encloses the breast: not now for the first time, as Ecclesiastical rulers, have you taken the field. Let no one doubt that, by the favor of the Lord, who makes both one, with arms laid down there will be peace, when the cause itself defends itself… And what is now to be asked of your holy assembly, except that with confidence you may speak the word of God, that filled with the Holy Spirit, though with a different mouth, you may utter the one thing the Spirit has taught? Being well animated by all these things, be present to the Catholic faith and the peace of the Churches, be present to both past and present and future, asking and preserving the things which are for the peace of Jerusalem. We have directed, out of our solicitude, the holy Brothers and Fellow-priests, men unanimous with us and most approved, Arcadius and Projectus our Fellow-Bishops, and Philip our Presbyter, who will be present at what shall be done, and will execute what has been previously decreed by us: to whom we do not doubt assent will be given through Your Holiness, since what is read seems decreed for the security of the universal Church. Given on the 8th day before the Ides of May, Bassus and Antiochus being Consuls."

[11] The Synod was at length happily concluded, and Nestorius condemned: who, thrown out of his See, was banished to his former monastery of Saint Euprepius, which is at Antioch; and in his place was substituted as Bishop of Constantinople Saint Maximian, whose Acts we give on April 21. Then the Bishops who had been gathered at Ephesus, informed of the condemnation of Nestorius and the Emperor Theodosius, as also the said Maximian, sent a legation to Saint Celestine the Pope, congratulating him on the Nestorian heresy overthrown with its author. John the Presbyter and Epictetus, sent for this purpose, arrived at Rome on the very day of the Nativity of the Lord. Saint Celestine wrote back illustrious letters, given on the Ides of March, Flavius Aëtius and Valerius being Consuls, in the year 432, that is, not a full month before his death. Baronius inserted these into his Annals as the most recent letters of the most holy Father and his last elogies. The first letter is inscribed to the Holy Synod constituted at Ephesus, he writes to the Fathers of the Ephesine Synod, and made encyclical was sent to the Bishops who had withdrawn from Ephesus to their dioceses, of which this is the beginning: "At length, with the end of evils, we must rejoice. At length to us all in common must be said: Your right hand, O Lord, is glorified in power, your right hand has broken the enemies:" etc. Where he wonderfully praises the zeal of the Fathers, to the Emperor Theodosius and others. and the piety of the Emperor Theodosius, and rejoices that Saint Maximian has been constituted Bishop of Constantinople in place of the deposed Nestorius: him Nestorius he desires to be further banished, that Antioch may be freed from his heresy. Similar things he wrote to the Emperor Theodosius, to Saint Maximian the Bishop, and to his Clergy of Constantinople. I conclude this exit of Nestorius with the illustrious acclamation of Prosper against the Collator, which he thus proposes near the end: "Through this man, Pontiff Celestine, all the Eastern Churches have been purged of a double plague, when to Cyril, Bishop of the city of Alexandria, defender of the most glorious Catholic faith, he gave aid by the Apostolic sword to the detesting of Nestorian impiety: by which also the Pelagians, while they were confederated with kindred errors, were again prostrated." Similar things are found in Vincent of Lérins (who wrote under Sixtus III, his successor), in the book against heresies, the last chapter, and in Gennadius, On Ecclesiastical Writers, chapter 54, which book he also completed still in the fifth century.

[12] Maximian, as Socrates asserts in book 7, chapter 39, when he had presided two years and five months, he favors Saint Proclus. departed life on the day before the Ides of April, Areobindus and Aspar being Consuls, that is, two years after the death of Saint Celestine, whose letters were still in favor of Proclus, that he should be taken up in place of Maximian, because the Pope had once written that there was no obstacle to his being transferred from being Bishop of Cyzicus to the See of Constantinople. Which decree of his, once made known after the election of Maximian, was of profit to Proclus upon his death.

CHAPTER III.

His Basilicas adorned with gifts: his burial, sacred Cult, Relics.

[13] On the 13th day of this month of April is venerated Saint Julius, likewise Roman Pontiff, whom we have said, among other buildings, to have made the Julian basilica in Region VII next to the forum of Trajan. He dedicates the Julian basilica, There was another Julian basilica, long before built by Augustus under the name of Julius Caesar, and mentioned by Pliny and Quintilian. Again in the Julian basilica is said to have been ordained as Pontiff Saint Boniface, and his successor Celestine dedicated the Julian basilica, in which after the celestial (others, Zeacian, Cetic, Getic) fire he offered these gifts: a silver paten, weighing fifteen pounds; and adorns with various gifts, two silver cups, weighing each eight pounds; two silver ewers, weighing each ten pounds; five smaller silver chalices, weighing each three pounds; two silver ewers, weighing each ten pounds; two silver candelabra, weighing each thirty pounds; twenty-four brazen or bronze chandeliers for candles, weighing each thirty pounds; likewise ten silver crowns, weighing each ten pounds. as also the church of Saint Peter: At the church of Blessed Peter the Apostle, a lamp-chandelier weighing twenty-five pounds of the purest silver; silver candelabra in the nave of the basilica, weighing each twenty pounds: as these are read in the Pontifical Book in the MS. Deeds of the Pontiffs, in Anastasius and others. Finally, as is added in the same, this man made three ordinations in the month of December, he makes three ordinations: thirty-two Presbyters, twelve Deacons, and forty-six Bishops in various places.

[14] Illustrious mention of Celestine is made by Pope Hadrian I in a letter to Charlemagne, King of the Franks: he adorns his cemetery with paintings: in which, while refuting objections against the seventh Ecumenical Synod, he writes this in his Response to the fifth Action: "Again and concerning the third Council, Saint Celestine the Pope adorned his own cemetery with paintings." His cemetery in this passage is called the very place, specially chosen by Saint Celestine for his burial, or certainly called by this title after his death by the common voice of all, because there he had been laid by the faithful, which was previously called that of Priscilla. as Aringhi interprets in book 4 of Roma subterranea, chapter 28, where he treats of the famous cemetery of Priscilla on the Via Salaria, in which all universally relate Saint Celestine to have been buried. His epitaph, once affixed to the tomb, Gruter published in Antiquae inscriptiones p. 1171, and it is of this kind:

Pontiff of the Apostolic See, venerable to every People whom he ruled, his epitaph there. while he was completing the tenth year, Celestine passing, departed to that life Which renders due eternal honors to the Saints. Here is the tomb of his body: the bones and ashes rest: Nor does anything perish from hence: to the Lord all flesh rises again. Now earth covers the earthly, the mind ignorant of death Lives, and rightly conscious enjoys the sight of Christ.

[15] Saint Celestine sat eight full years and parts of two years, which together make only five months and three or four days. He died in Indiction XV, Valerius and Aëtius being Consuls, in the year 432; who died in the year 432, having obtained Saint Sixtus III as successor, whose Life we illustrated on March 28. The day of his death in the older Catalogue of Pontiffs, compiled in the sixth century of Christ, is assigned to the 7th day before the Ides of April; on which day he is inscribed in some codices

of MSS. Ado and Usuard, April 7 likewise in the Martyrology published under the name of Bede, and in another printed at Cologne and Lübeck in the year 1490, in Greven's appendix to Usuard and some others. But the 8th day before the Ides of April have Anastasius, or rather April 6 Liutprand, Abbo of Fleury with the Pontifical Book, MSS. Deeds of the Pontiffs, and generally others: on which day also he is referred to in the Martyrologies of Bellinus, Maurolycus, Felicius, Galesinius, Canisius, and in several MSS., and also in the ancient Calendar of the Ambrosian Missal and Breviary, and he is called a Martyr. In today's Roman Martyrology this elogium is given to him: "At Rome, Saint Celestine Pope, who condemned Nestorius Bishop of Constantinople, and drove out Pelagius: by whose authority also the holy Universal Synod of Ephesus was celebrated against the same Nestorius."

[16] Onuphrius Panvinius in his book on the Seven Churches of the City and other principal ones, almost at the end, treats of the church and title of Saint Praxedes, and asserts that Paschal, from being Presbyter Cardinal of the title of Saint Praxedes, created Pontiff in the year 817, soon restored this church and adorned it with various relics of the Saints: concerning which in the wall, the body was translated in the year 817 to the church of Saint Praxedes, near the oratory of Saint Zeno, there exists a marble tablet of this kind: "In the name of the Lord our God our Savior Jesus Christ, in the times of the most holy and thrice-blessed and Apostolic Lord Pope Paschal, the venerable bodies of the Saints were carried down into this holy and venerable basilica of Blessed Praxedes, Virgin of Christ: which the aforesaid Pontiff, taking up from the cemeteries or crypts that had been destroyed where they lay, laid under this most holy altar with the greatest diligence with his own hands, in the month of July, day 20, Indiction X. The names of the Roman Pontiffs are these: Urban, Stephen, Anterus, Miltiades, Fabian, Julius, Pontian, Siricius, Lucius, Xystus, Felix, Anastasius, and Celestine." He is said to be still there. Octavius Panciroli in Tesoro nascosto dell'Urbe, region 2, church 42, asserts that most of the relics of these Pontiffs were translated to other churches, but that the bodies of three Pontiffs, Pontian, Siricius, and Celestine, are still preserved there: nevertheless some relics of this last are in the church of Saint Paul outside the walls of the City.

[17] But the Mantuans hold that it was carried off thence and preserved with them. Some are also found at Bologna in the church of Saint Stephen and other Piarist schools, as Masinus reports on this day. Meanwhile in the Proper Offices, printed for the Cathedral Church of Mantua and its diocese in the year 1626, it is prescribed for April 6 as the titular Feast of Saint Celestine Pope and Confessor, and the Lessons of the second Nocturn are taken from the Annals of Cardinal Baronius, and in them at the end this is added: "The Relics of so great a Pontiff, after many cycles of times translated to Mantua, are venerated in the Cathedral Church with the utmost religion and piety." Inquiring what documents of this matter are had at Mantua, Father Antonius Favoritus, Priest of our Society, replied that it is taken from a certain constitution of Francesco Gonzaga, from 1593 to 1620 Bishop of Mantua; that there is an ancient and constant tradition, but consigned to no literary monuments, that the Body of Saint Celestine was carried off from Rome by someone: who, while he tarried near Mantua in a village called Pietole, fell sick there and died; with whom the chest keeping the sacred bones, buried with him, after many years was found by chance, and elevated, and translated honorably within the City.

[18] In the collegiate church of the town of Rothenach in Flanders is venerated on May 17 Saint Celestinus, Another Celestinus is venerated at Rothenach. whom Molanus in the Natalia Sanctorum Belgii and others reported to be Celestine I the Pope. But, as is clear from the inscription on the copper reliquary, this man is said to have been a Martyr and to have ended his life by the sword; as we shall set forth on the day of May 17.