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THE LIVES AND TIMES OF THE POPES IN THE FIFTH CENTURY
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".
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