Pope Celestine I

The earliest mention of the man who became Pope Celestine I was a reference to "Celestine the Deacon" in a 416 document by Pope Innocent I. We don't really know anything else factually except that he became the Bishop of Rome in 422, either on 10 September or 3 November. (Currently the Vatican dates the start of his pontificate as 10 September. The Liber Pontificalis ("Book of Pontiffs"), started in the early Middle Ages and occasionally updated, starts him on 3 November of 422.)

His election involved an "antipope situation." An archdeacon named Eulalius was recognized as pope by the emperor prior to Celestine's election, but once the proper election took place, no arguments ensued. 

In the decade while he sat the Throne of Peter, he had to deal with various questions of proper doctrine and fighting heresy. Fighting Pelagianism was an ongoing concern. He sent Palladius to the Scots of Ireland to deal with heresy, according to Prosper of Aquitaine. He may also have been the reason for St. Patrick's mission. Four letters from Celestine, all dated 15 March 431, went to African bishops urging them to fight against Nestorianism. Closer to home, the Roman Novatians denied the opportunity for any lapsed Christians to be re-welcomed into the faith. Celestine confiscated Novatian churches, arguing that reconciliation should never be refused to one who truly wants it.

The Gallic monk St. Vincent of Lerins in 434 explained Celestine's policy as a strict adherence to the tradition of his predecessors:

Holy Pope Celestine also expresses himself in like manner and to the same effect. For in the Epistle which he wrote to the priests of Gaul, charging them with connivance with error, in that by their silence they failed in their duty to the ancient faith, and allowed profane novelties to spring up, he says: "We are deservedly to blame if we encourage error by silence. Therefore rebuke these people. Restrain their liberty of preaching."

He had a long-distance relationship with Augustine, Bishop of Hippo in North Africa. Augustine was aware of him prior to his election, calling him "My Venerable Lord and Highly Esteemed and Holy Brother" in a letter of 418. Augustine wrote to him again shortly after he became pope with an unusual problem: his own mistake:

I am so racked with anxiety and grief that I think of retiring from the responsibilities of the episcopal office, and abandoning myself to demonstrations of sorrow corresponding to the greatness of my error.

What was the error? Augustine had recommended Antony of Fessula to become the bishop of that town, and now recognized that Antony was corrupt. Augustine wanted the new pope to help him deal with the problem.

Augustine's was one of the strongest voices against Pelagianism, and sent Prosper of Aquitaine (one of his most fervent disciples) to Rome to deliver his arguments to Celestine in a way that they could not easily be done by letters. This changed Prosper's career, since he stayed in Rome working for the papacy as Augustine's "man on the inside" to make sure the anti-Pelagian stance stayed foremost in papal policy. When Augustine died during the Siege of Hippo Regius by the Vandals, Celestine forbade attacks on Augustine's memory that were being made by the Semipelagians, who stated that humans could reach salvation through the choice of Free Will, as opposed to Augustine's teaching that God's Grace was necessary and predestination meant the conclusion was foregone. Semipelagianism was on the rise due to the works of John Cassian.

The early Church generated a lot of different ideas about how salvation was to be achieved and how the relationship between Good and Evil worked. For future reference, let's take a look at the major "heresies" (quotation marks because they simply failed to become official doctrine, but who knows what might have happened?) next time, and we'll talk about Vincent of Lerins who did his best to distinguish between Catholic doctrine and heresy.

Prosper of Aquitaine

Much of the history of the second half of the 5th century is known to us because of a disciple of Augustine of Hippo named Prosper. Born about 390 CE in the Roman province of Aquitaine, the Gothic invasions of Gaul drove him to Marseilles in 417. By 429 he was corresponding with Augustine, and in 431 went to Rome to speak to Pope Celestine I on behalf of Augustine.

From that point Prosper appears in no records until 440, when he is a secretary in the papacy of Leo I. He never took orders, but he was thoroughly involved in religious institutions.  He wrote De vocatione omnium gentium ("The Call of all Nations"), in which he urges all Gentiles to embrace Augustine's idea of God's Grace. He wrote a 1000-line poem in which he attacked Pelagianism.

Prosper left us the Epitoma Chronicon ("Ultimate History"), a continuation of a history by St. Jerome, in which he covers the Belgian controversy and world history. He first composed it in 443, but released several subsequent editions with updates. The final edition was in 455 and covers the death of Valentinian III, which is traditionally given as the year of Prosper's death. (The historian Marcellinus Comes mentions Prosper in the year 463, but Marcellinus was in Constantinople and was not an eyewitness to events in the Western Empire.)

It is Prosper who tells us that, when the Vandals approached Rome to sack it in 455, Pope Leo the Great met with their leader, Genseric, to request that he refrain from burning and killing, but content himself with pillaging.

Prosper's other focus, besides Pelagianism, was the shameful behavior of certain Roman generals, such as Magnus Maximus:

Maximus was made emperor in Britain in an uprising of the soldiery. He soon crossed to Gaul. Gratian was defeated at Paris owing to the treason of Merobaudes the magister militium, and was captured in flight at Lyon and killed. Maximus made his son Victor his colleague in power.

The tyrant Maximus, despoiled of his royal garments by the emperors Valentinian and Theodosius at the third milestone from Aquileia, was called forth to judgement and condemned to death. In the same year his son Victor was killed by Comes Arbogast in Gaul.

Prosper is also our chief source for the details of the Vandal invasion in Europe and North Africa. He blames the general Castinus for losing against the Vandals in Spain, allowing them to conquer the province of North Africa and leading to the death of St. Augustine. (Of course, Augustine was 75 at the time of his death, so it is not quite fair to blame the Vandals.)

Among other writings of his were the Sententia ("Sentences"), 392 maxims supporting the writings of Augustine, and Epigrammata ("Epigrams"), 106 short verses drawn from other sources. The Epigrammata exist in 180 manuscripts from the Middle Ages.

But why did Prosper have to go to Rome to speak to the pope about Augustine? Wasn't Augustine one of the respected fathers of the Church? Let's look at Celestine tomorrow and see why that might have been.

Fighting the Vandals, Part 2

After Genseric of the Vandals took over Carthage and made it the Vandal capital, they started looting up and down the Mediterranean. Their domination of the sea was so thorough that an Old English name for it was Wendelsæ ("Sea of the Vandals").

This was obviously a challenge to Rome's power, but Rome was busy on another front: Attila the Hun and his brother Blaeda had been a problem for years. Worse, a request from Emperor Valentinian III's sister to Attila for help complicated matters: Attila thought Honoria was offering herself in marriage, and Attila wanted half the Roman Empire as dowry. Being informed by Valentinian that he had clearly misunderstood the situation, Attila attacked Gaul in 453. This was drawing Rome's military forces substantially inland and away from the Mediterranean coasts.

Rome had a stroke of luck in that Attila died not long after the invasion of Gaul. His three sons' eagerness each to rule a part of the Hun empire helped reduce its effectiveness. Rome could now turn its attention to Genseric and the Vandals—for all the good that did.

Valentinian decided on a diplomatic route, offering his daughter in marriage to Genseric's son. This might have satisfied both sides, but for something neither side saw coming: Valentinian was murdered on 16 March 455 by the senator Petronius Maximus. Maximus bribed the Senate to support him; he married Valentinian's widow, married Valentinian's daughter to Maximus' own son.

Maximus got to be emperor for two and a half months. Genseric, understandably enraged at this betrayal, headed to Rome. Valentinian's widow supposedly sent a message to Genseric or his son requesting saving from Maximus. Maximus requested help from the Visigoths, but it was not forthcoming. He fled Rome as the Vandals arrived, became separated from his retinue in the chaos of escaping, and was killed. The Vandals went on to sack Rome (illustrated above in a 19th-century painting).

The only contemporary account of the sacking of Rome comes from Prosper of Aquitaine (also one of the rare early sources of info on St. Patrick). Prosper says that Pope Leo I ("the Great") asked Genseric to satisfy himself with pillaging, but refrain from murder and destruction. The Vandals not only left Rome with many treasures, but also with Valentinian's widow and daughter.

It would seem that nothing prevented the Vandals from ruling that part of the world indefinitely. Their fortunes were about to turn, however, and we'll see how that happened next time.