Pope Callixtus I

Callixtus I
Birth name	Callixtus or Callistus
Papacy began	217
Papacy ended	222
Predecessor	Zephyrinus
Successor	Urban I
Born	??? ???
Died	222 ???
Other popes named Callixtus

Pope Saint Callixtus I, also written Callistus I, was pope from about 217 to about 222, during the reigns of the Roman Emperors Heliogabalus and Alexander Severus. He was martyred for his Christian faith and is a canonized saint of the Roman Catholic Church.

Callixtus had been a confessor who suffered hard labor in the mines of Sardinia before being freed through the efforts of Pope Victor I during the reign of Emperor Commodus. He remained outside of Rome after his liberation until being summoned by his predecessor, Pope Zephryinus I (199-217), to serve has his deacon.

Callixtus was placed in charge of the Christian burial chambers along the Appian Way which bear his name and were rediscovered in 1849 the archaeologist Giovanni Battista de Rossi.

When Callixtus followed Zephyrinus as Bishop of Rome, he established the practice of granting absolution of all repented sins, for which Tertullian took him to task (De Pudicitia xxi). Hippolytus and Tertullian were especially upset by the pope's admitting to communion those who had repented for murder, adultery, and fornication, as well as by his alleged belief in Sabellianism, which he attempted to distance himself from.

It is possible that Callixtus was martyred around 222, perhaps during a popular uprising, but the legend that he was thrown down a well has no historical foundation, though the church does contain an ancient well (Nyborg).

Callixtus was honored as a martyr in Todi, Italy, on August 14. He was buried in the cemetery of Calepodius on the Aurelian Way and his anniversary is given by the 4th-century Depositio Martirum (Callisti in viâ Aureliâ miliario III) and by the subsequent martyrologies on 14 October. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, his relics were translated in the 9th century to the predecessor of Santa Maria in Trastevere.

The Roman Catholic Church keeps the feast day of Pope Saint Callixtus I on October 14.

The Acta of Callixtus are imaginary (CE "Pope St Callistus I").

Biography

Our chief knowledge of this pope is from his bitter enemies, Tertullian, who had become by this time a Montanist, and Hippolytus of Rome, who had become his antipope . However, their criticism, though opinionated, are not necessarily based on fabrications. According to Hippolytus' "Philosophumena" (c. ix) Callixtus was originally the slave of Carpophorus, a Christian in the household of the emperor. His master entrusted large sums of money to Callixtus, with which he started a bank in which Christian men and widows invested money. Hippolytus alleges that all of this money Callixtus lost, and he consequently took flight. Carpophorus followed him to Portus, where Callixtus had embarked on a ship. Seeing his master approach in a boat, the slave jumped into the sea, but was prevented from drowning himself, dragged ashore, and consigned to the punishment reserved for slaves, the pistrinum, or hand-mill. The brethren, believing that he still had money in his name, begged that he might be released. However, he had nothing, so he again courted death by insulting the Jews at their synagogue. The Jews haled him before the prefect Fuscianus and Callixtus was sent to the mines in Sardinia. Some time after this, Marcia, the mistress of Commodus, sent for Pope Victor and volunteer to help free any martyrs in the mines of Sardinia. He gave her a list, supposedly without including Callixtus. After securing a pardon from the emperor, Marcia sent a eunuch who was also a priest to release the prisoners. Callixtus fell at his feet, and persuaded him to take him also. Victor was annoyed annoyed at this but, being a compassionate man, he kept silence. Callixtus, rather than returning to Rome, remained in Antium with a monthly allowance from Victor. When Zephyrinus became pope, he recalled Callixtus to Rome and placed him in charge of the cemetery on the Appian Way belonging to the Church; it has ever since borne Callixtus's name. He obtained great influence over the ignorant, illiterate, and grasping Zephyrinus by bribes. We are not told how it came about that the runaway slave (now free by Roman law from his master, who had lost his rights when Callixtus was condemned to penal servitude to the State) became archdeacon and then pope.

Later scholarship has demolished this contemporary scandal. To begin with, not even Hippolytus claims that Callixtus by his own fault lost the money deposited with him. That Carpophorus, a Christian, should commit a Christian slave to the horrible punishment of the pistrinum does not speak well for the master's character. The intercession of the Christians for Callixtus is in his favor. It is absurd to suppose that he courted death by attacking a synagogue. Rather, he may have asked the Jewish money-lenders to repay what they owed him, and at some risk to himself. The declaration of Carpophorus that Callixtus was no Christian was scandalous and untrue. Hippolytus himself shows that it was as a Christian that Callixtus was sent to the mines, and therefore as a confessor, and that it was as a Christian that he was released. If Pope Victor granted Callistus a monthly pension, we need not suppose that he regretted his release. It is unlikely that Zephyrinus, who reigned as pope for nearly 20 years, was ignorant and base. Callixtus could hardly have raised himself so high without considerable talents, and the vindictive spirit exhibited by Hippolytus explains why Zephyrinus placed his confidence in Callixtus and rejected Hippolytus' advice.

The orthodoxy of Callistus is challenged by both Hippolytus and Tertullian on the ground that in a famous edict he granted Communion after due penance to those who had committed adultery and fornication. It is clear that Callistus based his decree on the power of binding and loosing granted to Peter, to his successors, and to all in communion with them: "As to thy decision", cries the Montanist Tertullian, "I ask, whence dost thou usurp this right of the Church? If it is because the Lord said to Peter: Upon this rock I will build My Church, I will give thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven', or whatsoever though bindest or loosest on earth shall be bound or loosed in heaven', that thou presumest that this power of binding and loosing has been handed down to thee also, that is to every Church in communion with Peter's (ad omnem ecclesiam Petri propinquam, i.e. Petri ecclesiae propinquam), who art thou that destroyest and alterest the manifest intention of the Lord, who conferred this on Peter personally and alone?" (De Pudicitia, xxi.) The edict was an order to the whole Church (ib., i): "I hear that an edict has been published, and a peremptory one; the bishop of bishops, which means the Pontifex Maximus, proclaims: I remit the crimes of adultery and fornication to those who have done penance." Doubtless Hippolytus and Tertullian were upholding a supposed custom of earlier times, and the pope in decreeing a relaxation was regarded as enacting a new law. On this point it is unnecessary to justify Callistus. Other complaints of Hippolytus are that Callistus did not put converts from heresy to public penance for sins committed outside the Church (this mildness was customary in St. Augustine's time); that he had received into his "school" (i.e. The Catholic Church) those whom Hippolytus had excommunicated from "The Church" (i.e., his own sect); that he declared that a mortal sin was not ("always", we may supply) a sufficient reason for deposing a bishop. Tertullian (De Exhort. Castitatis, vii) speaks with reprobation of bishops who had been married more than once, and Hippolytus charges Callistus with being the first to allow this, against St. Paul's rule. But in the East marriages before baptism were not counted, and in any case the law is one from which the pope can dispense if necessity arise. Again Callistus allowed the lower clergy to marry, and permitted noble ladies to marry low persons and slaves, which by the Roman law was forbidden; he had thus given occasion for infanticide. Here again Callistus was rightly insisting on the distinction between the ecclesiastical law of marriage and the civil law, which later ages have always taught.. Hippolytus also declared that rebaptizing (of heretics) was performed first in Callistus's day, but he does not state that Callistus was answerable for this. On the whole, then, it is clear that the Catholic church sides with Callistus against the schismatic Hippolytus and the heretic Tertullian. Not a word is said against the character of Callistus since his promotion, nor against the validity of his election.

Hippolytus, however, regards Callistus as a heretic. Now Hippolytus's own Christology is most imperfect, and he tells us that Callistus accused him of Ditheism. It is not to be wondered at, then, if he calls Callistus the inventor of a kind of modified Sabellianism. In reality it is certain that Zephyrinus and Callistus condemned various Monarchians and Sabellius himself, as well as the opposite error of Hippolytus. This is enough to suggest that Callistus held the Catholic Faith. And in fact it cannot be denied that the Church of Rome must have held a Trinitarian doctrine not far from that taught by Callistus's elder contemporary Tertullian and by his much younger contemporary Novatian—a doctrine which was not so explicitly taught in the greater part of the East for a long period afterwards. The accusations of Hippolytus speak for the sure tradition of the Roman Church and for its perfect orthodoxy and moderation. If we knew more of St. Callistus from Catholic sources, he would probably appear as one of the greatest of the popes.

Martyr, died c. 223. His contemporary, Julius Africanus, gives the date of his accession as the first (or second?) year of Elagabalus, i.e., 218 or 219. Eusebius and the Liberian catalogue agree in giving him five years of episcopate. His Acts are spurious, but he is the earliest pope found the fourth-century "Depositio Martirum", and this is good evidence that he was really a martyr, although he lived in a time of peace under Alexander Severus, whose mother was a Christian. We learn from the "Historiae Augustae" that a spot on which he had built an oratory was claimed by the tavern-keepers, popinarii, but the emperor decided that the worship of any god was better than a tavern. This is said to have been the origin of Sta. Maria in Trastevere, which was built, according to the Liberian catalogue, by Pope Julius, juxta Callistum. In fact the Church of St. Callistus is close by, containing a well into which legend says his body was thrown, and this is probably the church he built, rather than the more famous basilica. He was buried in the cemetery of Calepodius on the Aurelian Way, and his anniversary is given by the "Depositio Martirum" (Callisti in viâ Aureliâ miliario III) and by the subsequent martyrologies on 14 October, on which day his feast is still kept. His relics were translated in the ninth century to Sta. Maria in Trastevere.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops introduction to saints notes that St. Callistus is "most renowned for the reconciliation of sinners, who following a period of penance, were re-admitted to communion with the Church." [1]

In an apocryphal anecdote in the collection of imperial biographies called the Historia Augustae, the spot on which he had built an oratory was claimed by tavern keepers, but the emperor decided that the worship of any god was better than a tavern. The story is the basis for dating the original structure of the present Basilica di Santa Maria in Trastevere.

The Basilica di Santa Maria in Trastevere was a titulus of which Callixtus was the patron. The 4th-century basilica of Ss Callixti et Iuliani (Callixtus and Pope Julius I) was rebuilt in the 12th century by Pope Innocent II and rededicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary. The 8th-century Chiesa di San Callisto is close by, with its beginnings apparently as a shrine on the site of his martyrdom, which is attested in the 4th-century Deposition Martyri and so is likely to be historical.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Catholic Encyclopedia 1908: "Pope St. Callistus"
• Encyclopaedia Britannica: Saint Calixtus I
• Chris Nyborg, "San Callisto": the church
• Chris Nyborg, "Churches of Rome: Catacombe di San Callisto"

Roman Catholic Popes
Preceded by: Zephyrinus	Bishop of Rome Pope 217–222	Succeeded by: Urban I

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