ON SAINT ANASTASIUS I,
ROMAN PONTIFF,
YEAR 402.
CommentaryAnastasius I, Roman Pontiff (Saint)
By the author G. H.
CHAPTER I.
The beginning of his See. Zeal for the faith against the Origenists.
When Siricius the Roman Pontiff had died on the 8th or 7th day before the Kalends of March, and the See, as is commonly handed down, had been vacant twenty days, about the Ides of March was substituted Saint Anastasius, first of this name, Roman by nation, from his father Maximus. The year of Christ was then 398, when under Indiction 11, Honorius IV and Eutychianus being consuls (as Marcellinus the Count has it in his Chronicle), Anastasius, having been ordained Bishop of the Roman Church, He is made Pope in the year 398, lived four years. Prosper in his Chronicle also agrees, in these words: "Anastasius holds the episcopate of the Roman Church for four years." The rest of the writers generally come to the same opinion.
[2] Saint Jerome, in the Life of Saint Marcella the Roman widow, which we illustrated on January 31, indicates that when Saint Anastasius was made Supreme Pontiff, the peace of the Church was being disturbed by the Origenist heretics, and was renewed by Saint Anastasius himself. Moreover, in the said Life among other things in chapter 3 he thus writes: "A heretical tempest having arisen, disturbed all things,… and brought into the Roman port a ship full of blasphemies: the heresy of the Origenists brought into the City, and the lid straightway found its pot, and the muddy footsteps mingled with the mud the purest fountain of the Roman faith… Then the infamous interpretation of the books Περὶ ἀρχῶν, then the disciple Olbius, and truly of his own name, if he had not dashed against such a Master. Then came the contradiction of our teachers, and the school of the Pharisees was troubled… The heretics, perceiving that from a small spark the greatest fires were being kindled, and that the flame long hidden had now reached the roof, and that what had deceived many could not remain hidden, ask and obtain ecclesiastical letters, so that they might appear to have departed from the communicating Church. Not much time in the interval: he persecutes it, in the Pontificate succeeds Anastasius, a distinguished man, whom Rome did not deserve to have for long, lest the head of the world should be cut off under such a Bishop: indeed therefore he was snatched away and translated, that he might not by his prayers try to bend the sentence once passed… The condemnation of the heretics had as its beginning Marcella, assisted by Saint Marcella: while she brought witnesses, who were first instructed by them, and afterward were seized by the heretical error: while she showed the multitude of the deceived, while she brought forth the impious volumes Περὶ ἀρχῶν, which were exhibited with a scorpion's hand corrected: while the heretics, summoned by frequent letters to defend themselves, dared not to come: and so great was the force of conscience, that they preferred to be condemned in their absence rather than to be refuted in their presence." So Saint Jerome there, who to Rufinus, the chief supporter of the Origenists, in the Apology written against him objects that the letter of Siricius, now sleeping in the Lord, was objected, and the sayings of the living Anastasius were despised.
[3] The same, in his epistle 78 written to Pammachius and Marcella, when he had indicated that by the works of Theophilus of Alexandria the Origenists had been condemned, thus praises Saint Anastasius's zeal: "Pray the Lord, that what pleases in Greek may not displease in Latin: and what the whole East admires and proclaims, he condemns the same, let Rome receive with a joyful bosom: and the preaching of the Chair of Mark the Evangelist let the Chair of the Apostle Peter confirm by its own preaching. Although it has been published by famous report, that blessed Pope Anastasius also with the same fervor, because it is with the same spirit, has persecuted the heretics hiding in their dens; and his letters teach that what was condemned in the East has been condemned in the West: to whom we wish many years, that the revived plantings of heresy, through his zeal dried up for a long time, may die." Finally in epistle 8, to Demetrias written after the death of Saint Anastasius, he thus praises his zeal in chapter 9: "I almost passed over what is even the chief thing. While you were yet a little one, and Anastasius, Bishop of blessed and holy memory, ruled the Roman Church, from the parts of the East a savage tempest of heretics tried to pollute and shake the simplicity of the faith, which by the Apostle's voice is praised. and stops the mouths of the heretics: But the man of most rich poverty and of Apostolic solicitude, at once struck down the noxious head, and checked the hissing mouths of the hydra. And because I fear, indeed by rumor I have learned, that in certain places the poisoned plantings are still alive and sprouting, I think you should be forewarned with pious affection of charity, that you may hold the faith of holy Innocent, who is the successor and son of the Apostolic Chair and of the aforesaid man; nor may you accept foreign doctrine, however prudent and clever you may seem to yourself." So far Saint Jerome, who in book 2 of his first Apology against Rufinus greatly praises the most prudent epistle of Pope Anastasius, which he wrote against him to John, Bishop of Jerusalem, from which we give some parts here.
[4] A letter written, "Rufinus, concerning whom you have deigned to consult me, has the Divine Majesty as the judge of his conscience: before whom, with full office of devotion, he himself shall see how he is to be approved. But Origen, whose compositions derived into our language, he detests the translation of Origen made by Rufinus, or whoever he was, or into what words he proceeded, our purpose did not know. But what the zeal of my mind is, I shall briefly compare with your sanctity. This, therefore, I have conceived in mind, that he who disclosed to the peoples of our City the translated reading of Origen, raising as it were a cloud cast upon pure minds, seems to have wished to dissolve the faith of the Apostles, confirmed by the tradition of our elders, as though through devious turnings. It is fitting to learn in this place what this translation does in the Roman language. I approve it, if it accuses the author, and reveals to the peoples the execrable deed: so that he may at last be held by just hatreds, whom fame had long ago bound. But if the interpreter gives assent to the errors of such great evils, and brings forth impious dogmas to be read by the peoples, he has built up nothing else by his work of labor, except that, as it were by the arbitration of his own mind, he should overthrow, under the title of an unexpected assertion, that which among Catholic Christians is the sole and first true faith, held from the Apostles from then to the present time. Far be it from the Roman Church—not Catholic at all—that such a discipline should be admitted. It shall never certainly come to pass that we should admit on any ground what we rightly and deservedly condemn. Wherefore the providence of Christ our God diffused over the whole world shall deign to prove that we can in no way accept those things which stain the Church, overthrow proved morals, wound the ears of bystanders, and produce quarrels, angers, and dissensions. Wherefore know what sort of letter our littleness has transmitted to our brother and Co-Bishop Venerius, written with more diligent care; and I have made this clear to you, that I am not concerned with superfluous fear of labors nor with vain fear. Certainly care will not fail me to preserve the faith of the Gospel around my peoples, and to visit the parts of my people scattered through the various spaces of the earth as far as I can by letters, lest any origin of profane interpretation may creep in, which, once admitted, may try to shake devout minds by its darkness. This too, which I rejoice has happened, I could not keep silent: that the replies of the most blessed Princes have issued forth, by which each one serving God is called back from reading Origen: and condemned by the Emperors: and that he is to be condemned by the sentence of the Princes whom the reading of profane things has revealed. Let the form of my sentence thus far have gone before. But since the complaint of the common people about Rufinus troubles you, that you may pursue some with evil suspicions, I shall constrain this opinion also by an example of divine reading, as it is written: 'Not as man sees so also God. For God sees the heart, but man the face.' 1 Kings 16:7 Therefore, dearest brother, all suspicion being put aside, know Rufinus, that with his own mind he translated the sayings of Origen into Latin and approved them: nor is he unlike him who gives assent to others' vices. This, however, I desire you to know, that he is so held as alien by our parts, that we desire not to know what he is doing or where he is. He himself finally shall see where he can be absolved."
[5] So far the words of Saint Anastasius the Pope to John, Bishop of Jerusalem; whom Severinus Binius in his Notes to the said epistle asserts his faith is praised by Saint Augustine. once followed the errors of Origen, was brought back to a better mind by Saint Jerome, and afterward shone in the Catholic faith in these times, at least outwardly. Certainly Saint Augustine, writing against the letters of Petilianus in book 2, chapter 51, praises the faith both of Saint Anastasius the Pope and of the said John in these words: "What did the chair of the Roman Church do to you, in which Peter sat, and in which Anastasius now sits; or of the Church of Jerusalem, in which James sat, and in which today John sits: with whom we are joined in Catholic unity: and from whom you separate yourselves by nefarious madness." So there the holy Doctor, as if suspecting nothing sinister of John's faith.
CHAPTER II.
The Africans helped, and stirred up against the Donatists. Saint Paulinus refreshed. Other deeds. Death, burial, Relics.
[6] We do not know that the epistle of Saint Anastasius, written with more diligent care to the aforementioned Venerius, is extant. He is asked by the Africans to send them Clerics and ministers of the Church: Saint Venerius, Bishop of Milan (to whom the day of May 4 is sacred), succeeded Saint Simplicianus, who died in the year 400 on August 16, and was a man of such great authority that a legation was directed from the African Church, in the year 401 on June 18: "Which to the venerable holy brother Anastasius, of the Apostolic See, and to the holy brother Venerius, Priest of the Milanese Church, may convey the necessity itself and grief and poverty… Since there was such a lack of Clerics, and many Churches were so deserted, that they were not found to have even one Deacon or illiterate person, much more it was most certain that persons of higher honors could not be found, and the daily laments of diverse almost dead populations were no longer sustainable: to whom unless aid were at some time given, a grave and inexcusable cause of innumerable souls perishing would remain before God." Which things, proposed by Aurelius, Bishop of Carthage, are more broadly described in the said Council: to whose petition we have no doubt that Saints Anastasius and Venerius assented. For in the same year 401 on the Ides of September, in the Council then held, the same Bishop Aurelius said: "After the epistles of our most blessed Brother and Consacerdos Anastasius, he stirs them up against the Donatists: Bishop of the Roman Church, have been read, by which he has exhorted us with the solicitude and sincerity of paternal and fraternal charity, that we should in no way fail concerning the snares and wickedness of the heretics and schismatics, the Donatists, by which they gravely vex the African Catholic Church."
"should we dissimulate. We give thanks to our Lord, that He has deigned to inspire that best and holy Bishop of His with such pious care for the members of Christ, although situated in the diversity of lands, yet in the framework of His body."
[7] At the same time there flourished, illustrious in doctrine and sanctity, Saint Paulinus, Bishop of Nola; who in epistle 16 to Delphinus, Bishop of Bordeaux, praises the extraordinary humanity of Saint Anastasius, in these words: "Let your veneration know, He cherishes Saint Paulinus of Nola with every humanity: that your holy Brother, Pope of the City, Anastasius, is most loving toward our humility: for as soon as he began to have the power of offering us his charity, he hastened not only to receive it from us, but to press it upon us with most pure affection. For shortly after his ordination, he sent letters concerning our name, full both of religion and piety and peace, to the Bishops of Campania: by which he both declared his affection, and offered to others an example of his kindness. Then he himself received us at Rome, when by solemn custom we had come to the birthday of the blessed Apostles, as kindly as honorably. Afterward also, with some time intervening, he even deigned to invite us to his own birthday, which he was wont to extend only to his Fellow-Priests; nor was he offended by our excuse, but accepting the office of our discourse, which we had rendered in place of our presence, he received us even in our absence with a paternal spirit. Finally, if the Lord should grant leave that we should return to him at the time usually set for us, I hope I shall exact letters from him to your holiness, by which he may begin to commend us even to you." So Saint Paulinus, who subjoins the new charity of Saint Venerius, Bishop of Milan, toward him: so that the letter seems written in the year 400 or the beginning of the following year.
[8] Saint Anastasius built the basilica called Crescentiana in the second region, He builds the Crescentiana basilica: on the Mamurtine way in the City of Rome. So Anastasius the Librarian on the Lives of the Pontiffs, but in other manuscripts the way is called Mamartinia and Mannutina, by Baronius Mamurrina, from the houses of Mamurra located in the second region. Alexander Donatus in book 4 of On the City of Rome, chapter 3, says that in the second region of Mount Caelius this church was built by Saint Anastasius. The first Roman Synod, held under Pope Symmachus in the year 499, was subscribed by Vincomalus, Presbyter of the title of Saint Crescentiana: and that this title was one of the twenty-eight ancient titles of the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, Onuphrius Panvinius hands down in On the Seven Churches of the City, chapter 2; He sanctions decrees: but that it had ceased with some others before the times of Saint Gregory the Great: certainly in the place of these others are substituted in the Roman Synod held in the year 600 under him. Other decrees of this Pontiff are read in Anastasius: "That whenever the holy Gospels were read, Priests should not sit, but stand bowed." He also established that by no reason should a man from across the sea be received into the honor of the Clericate, unless he produced the handwriting of five Bishops, on account of the Manichees, or (as in the Pontifical Book is read) because at that same time Manichees were found in the City of Rome. Finally, he is said to have held two ordinations through the month of December, He makes ordinations: and to have ordained eight or nine Presbyters, five Deacons, eleven Bishops in diverse places—in others, ten. Buried in his own cemetery at "Ursus Pileatus" He dies in the year 402, on the 5th day before the Kalends of May, he died in the year of Christ 402, Indiction 15, with Arcadius V and Honorius V as Consuls. And they say that under these same consuls Saint Innocent was put into his place, Marcellinus the Count and Prosper in their Chronicles: he presided for 4 years, and so the manuscript Deeds of the Pontiffs, brought down to Martin V, rightly say that Saint Anastasius presided for four years.
[9] His memory is celebrated in most Martyrologies on this April 27. Rabanus has this: inscribed in Martyrologies, "The Nativity of Pope Anastasius, who sat as the 41st after Blessed Peter. He, finding the Manichees in the City of Rome, condemned them, and made a decree that no one from across the sea should be received into the Clericate, unless he produced the handwriting of five bishops." Usuard embellishes this with an elogium: "At Rome, of Blessed Pope Anastasius, concerning whom Saint Jerome testifies with venerable eloquence, that the world is unworthy to enjoy his life for long." Ado writes these few things: "At Rome, of Saint Anastasius the Pope, who sat three years, ten days." Notker formed his elogium from Ado and Rabanus. In the present Roman Martyrology it is thus: "At Rome, the deposition of Blessed Pope Anastasius, a man of most rich poverty and Apostolic solicitude, whom, as Saint Jerome says, Rome did not deserve to have for long, lest the head of the world should be cut off under such a Pontiff: for not long after his death Rome was taken and plundered by the Goths." Namely under his successor Saint Innocent, in the year of Christ 410. The memory of the same Saint Anastasius, Pope and Confessor, is also celebrated in ancient Missals and Breviaries of the Milanese Church.
[10] Buried at Ursus Pileatus He was buried in his own cemetery at Ursus Pileatus, concerning which Aringhus in book 2 of Roma Subterranea, chapter 19, observes that that cemetery was formerly on the Portuensian way, yet far different from another of the same name, on the Portuensian way. which was on the Esquiline at the church of Saint Bibiana. For in a very old Vatican manuscript codex is had a little Index of the places where the Supreme Pontiffs were once laid, and this is read: "At Ursus Pileatus on the Portuensian way, Anastasius, Innocentius." This is Anastasius's successor, also a Saint, also buried at Ursus Pileatus. William of Malmesbury in book 4 of On the Deeds of the English, chapter 2, on William II, describes the number of gates of the City of Rome, and the multitude of the sacred ashes, as he had found it in ancient catalogues: and what pertains to this he inserts: "The thirteenth gate is called Porta Portuensis and the Way, there near in a church are the Martyrs Felix, Alexander, Abdon and Sennen, Simeon, Anastasius, Pollion, Vincentius, Millex, Candida and Innocentia" — or, as Aringhus reads, Innocentius, understanding the Malmesbury writer to mean Saints Anastasius and Innocentius, Pontiffs and Confessors.
[11] His Relics are in the church of Saint Praxedes, Pope Paschal, made Pope in the year 817 on January 17, from being Presbyter Cardinal of the title of Saint Praxedes, soon restored the aforesaid church, and gathering many bodies of Saints lying in cemeteries, he deposited them there on July 20, and among others it is read in a marble tablet hung up near the oratory of Saint Zeno that there was the body of Saint Anastasius, Roman Pontiff, whose words Onuphrius Panvinius exhibits in his book On the Seven Churches of the City, where near the end he treats of the church of Saint Praxedes. Octavius Pancirolus in The Hidden Treasure of the City, in the Index of Relics, and in the church of Saints Silvester and Martin. asserts that part of the body of Saint Anastasius is in the said church of Saint Praxedes, and part in the church of Saints Silvester and Martin in the Hills: and that the relics of Saint Anastasius were brought to this church by Sergius II (who sat from the year 844 to the year 847) seems to be gathered from Anastasius, who says the said church was restored and dedicated by Sergius II: and then under the sacred altar were placed the bodies of Saints, among whom are counted Saints Anastasius and Innocent, Pontiffs: which words are still read there in the marble inscription: which inscription Joannes Antonius Filippinus published in its entirety in his little book on the antiquity and veneration of this church. We said on April 18, while treating of Saint Eleutherius of Eca, that the relics which were once venerated at Tivoli, Perhaps also at Troia in Apulia: with the title of Anastasius the Confessor on September 12, and which in the year 1105 together with the relics of Saints Pontianus and Eleutherius were translated to Troia, a city of Apulia, seem to us probable to be of this Pontiff Anastasius; the History itself, written by Roffredus the Precentor as eyewitness, we shall give on November 19 in the Acts of Saint Pontianus, Roman Pontiff, concerning whom it is believed by firm persuasion that he is honored in his relics at Troia; whereas concerning the others, that they are Roman Pontiffs, it has not yet been thought of at Troia. Moreover Ludolph, Duke of Saxony, brought back relics of the holy Pontiffs Anastasius and Innocent obtained from Pope Sergius: and some translated into Saxony. in whose honor he built a monastery and convent first at Brunshausen, then at Gandersheim. So the Author of the Life of Saint Godehard, Bishop of Hildesheim, to be given on May 4: and Tangmar agrees in the Life of Saint Bernward, his predecessor, on November 20. But because Witichindus and others mention only the relics of Saint Innocent, we judge that no very great part of the relics of Saint Anastasius was joined.
[12] Elevation on April 18. In the manuscript Florarium Sanctorum on the 18th day of April this is read: "The Elevation of Saint Anastasius the Pope, the first of this name." On which day also Hermann Greven in the Auctarium of Usuard mentions Saint Anastasius the Pope: but by error calls him a Martyr.