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Pope Cornelius

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Pope Saint
Cornelius
Bishop of Rome
13th century mosaic of St. Cornelius from Santa Maria in Trastevere
13th century mosaic of St. Cornelius from Santa Maria in Trastevere
Church Catholic Church
Papacy began 6 or 13 March 251
Papacy ended June 253
Predecessor Fabian
Successor Lucius I
Personal details
Born Rome, Italy, Roman Empire[1]
Died June 253
Centum Cellae, Italy, Roman Empire
Sainthood
Feast day 16 September

Pope Cornelius (Greek: Κορνήλιος; died June 253) was the bishop of Rome from the 6th, or the 13th of March, 251 A.D., until his martyrdom in June, 253 A.D.

He was pope during and following a period of persecution of the church, while a schism occurred over how repentant church members who had practiced pagan sacrifices to protect themselves could be readmitted to the church. He agreed with Cyprian of Carthage that those who had lapsed could be restored to communion after varying forms of Reinitiation and Penance. This position was in contrast to the Novatianists, who held that those who failed to maintain their confession of faith under persecution would not be received again into communion with the church. This resulted in a short-lived schism in the Church of Rome that spread as each side sought to gather support. Cornelius held a synod that confirmed his election and excommunicated Novatian, but the controversy regarding lapsed members continued for years.

The persecutions resumed in 251 under Emperor Trebonianus Gallus. Cornelius was sent into exile and may have died from the rigours of his banishment; possibly he was beheaded.

Christian persecution

Emperor Decius, who ruled from 249 to 251, persecuted Christians in the Roman Empire rather sporadically and locally, but starting in January of the year 250, he ordered all citizens to perform a religious sacrifice in the presence of commissioners, or else face death.[2] Many Christians refused and were martyred, (including Pope Fabian on 20 January 250), while others partook in the sacrifices in order to save their own lives.[3]

Two schools of thought arose after the persecution. One side, led by Novatian, a priest in the diocese of Rome, said those who had stopped practising Christianity during the persecution could not be accepted back into the church, even if they repented. He held that idolatry was an unpardonable sin, and that the Church had no authority to forgive apostates, but that their forgiveness must be left to God; it could not be pronounced in this world.[4] The opposing side, including Cornelius and Cyprian of Carthage, said the lapsi could be restored to communion through repentance, demonstrated by a period of penance.[5]

During the persecution it proved impossible to elect a successor, and the papal seat remained vacant for a year. During this period the church was governed by several priests, including Novatian. When Decius left Rome to fight the invading Goths, the Roman clergy chose a new bishop.[3] In the fourteen months without a pope, the leading candidate, Moses, had died under the persecution. The more moderate Cornelius was unwillingly elected over Novatian and others as the twenty-first pope in March 251.[5]

Papacy

Those who supported a more rigorist position had Novatian consecrated bishop and refused to recognize Cornelius as Bishop of Rome.[6] Both sides sent out letters to other bishops seeking recognition and support. Cornelius had the support of Cyprian, Dionysius, and most African and Eastern bishops while Novatian had the support of a minority of clergy and laymen in Rome.[5] Cornelius's next action was to convene a synod of 60 bishops to acknowledge him as the rightful pope and the council excommunicated Novatian as well as all Novatianists. Also addressed in the synod was that Christians who stopped practising during Emperor Decius's persecution could be re-admitted into the Christian community only after doing penance.[5]

The verdict of the synod was sent to the Christian bishops, most notably the bishop of Antioch, a fierce Novatian supporter, in order to convince him to accept Cornelius as bishop of Rome. The letters that Cornelius sent to surrounding bishops provide information of the size of the church in Rome at that time. Cornelius mentions that the Roman Church had, "forty six priests, seven deacons, seven sub-deacons, forty two acolytes, fifty two ostiarii, and over one thousand five hundred widows and persons in distress."[7] His letters also inform that Cornelius had a staff of over 150 clergy members and the church fed over 1,500 people daily.[8][9] From these numbers, it has been estimated that there were at least 50,000 Christians in Rome during the papacy of Pope Cornelius.[5]

Death and letters

In June 251, Decius was killed in battle with the Goths; and persecutions resumed under his successor, Trebonianus Gallus. Cornelius was exiled to Centumcellae, Italy, where he died in June 253. The Liberian catalogue ascribes his death to the hardships of banishment; later sources say he was beheaded. He was entombed in a catacomb near the chapel of the popes, behind a Latin inscription, not Greek like his predecessor Pope Fabian and successor Lucius I. It translates to "Cornelius Martyr". The letters he sent while in exile are all written in the colloquial Latin of the period instead of the classical style used by the educated such as Cyprian, a theologian as well as a bishop, and Novatian, who was also a philosopher.[10] This suggests that Cornelius came from a financially average family and thus was given an ordinary education as a child. One letter mentions an office of "exorcist" in the church for the first time.[11]

Veneration

Some of his relics were taken to Germany during the Middle Ages; his head was claimed by Kornelimünster Abbey near Aachen. In the Rhineland, he was also a patron saint of lovers. A legend associated with Cornelius tells of a young artist who was commissioned to decorate the Corneliuskapelle in the Selikum quarter of Neuss. The daughter of a local townsman fell in love with the artist, but her father forbade the marriage, remarking that he would only consent if the pope did as well. Miraculously, the statue of Cornelius leaned forward from the altar and blessed the pair, and the two lovers were thus married.

Cornelius, along with Quirinus of Neuss, Hubertus and Anthony the Great, was venerated as one of the Four Holy Marshals in the Rhineland during the late Middle Ages.[12]

A legend told at Carnac states that its stones were once pagan soldiers who had been turned into stone by Cornelius, who was fleeing from them.[13][14]

The Catholic Church commemorated Cornelius by venerating him, with his Saint's Day on 16 September, which he shares with his friend Cyprian.[15] His Saint's Day was originally on 14 September, the date on which both Cyprian and Cornelius were martyred, according to Jerome.[10] Cornelius's saintly name means "battle horn", and he is represented in icons by a pope either holding some form of cow's horn or with a cow nearby. He is the patron against earache, epilepsy, fever, twitching, and also of cattle, domestic animals, earache sufferers, epileptics, and the town of Kornelimünster, Germany, where his head is enshrined.[16]

See also

From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia

Pope Cornelius — Martyr (251 to 253).

We may accept the statement of the Liberian catalogue that he reigned two years, three months, and ten days, for Lipsius, Lightfoot, and Harnack have shown that this list is a first-rate authority for this date. His predecessor, Fabian, was put to death by Decius, 20 January, 250. About the beginning of March, 251 the persecution slackened, owing to the absence of the emperor, against whom two rivals had arisen. It was possible to assemble sixteen bishops at Rome, and Cornelius was elected though against his will (Cyprian, Ep. lv, 24), "by the judgment of God and of Christ, by the testimony of almost all the clergy, by the vote of the people then present, by the consent of aged priests and of good men, at a time when no one had been made before him, when the place of Fabian, that is the place of Peter, and the step of the sacerdotal chair were vacant". "What fortitude in his acceptance of the episcopate, what strength of mind, what firmness of faith, that he took his seat intrepid in the sacerdotal chair, at a time when the tyrant in his hatred of bishops was making unspeakable threats, when he heard with far more patience that a rival prince was arising against him, than that a bishop of God was appointed at Rome" (ibid., 9). Is he not, asks St. Cyprian, to be numbered among the glorious confessors and martyrs who sat so long awaiting the sword or the cross or the stake and every other torture?

A few weeks later the Roman priest Novatian made himself antipope, and the whole Christian world was convulsed by the schism at Rome. But the adhesion of St. Cyprian secured to Cornelius the hundred bishops of Africa, and the influence of St. Dionysius the Great, Bishop of Alexandria, brought the East within a few months to a right decision. In Italy itself the pope got together a synod of sixty bishops. (See.) Fabius, Bishop of Antioch, seems to have wavered. Three letters to him from Cornelius were known to Eusebius, who gives extracts from one of them (Hist. Eccl., VI, xliii), in which the pope details the faults in Novatian's election and conduct with considerable bitterness. We incidentally learn that in the Roman Church there were forty-six priests, seven deacons, seven subdeacons, forty-two acolytes, fifty-two ostiarii, and over one thousand five hundred widows and persons in distress. From this Burnet estimated the number of Christians in Rome at fifty thousand, so also Gibbon; but Benson and Harnack think this figure possibly too large. Pope Fabian had made seven regions; it appears that each had one deacon, one subdeacon and six acolytes. Of the letters of Cornelius to Cyprian two have come down to us, together with nine from Cyprian to the pope. Mgr. Merrati has shown that in the true text the letters of Cornelius are in the colloquial "vulgar-Latin" of the day, and not in the more classical style affected by the ex-orator Cyprian and the learned philosopher Novatian. Cornelius sanctioned the milder measures proposed by St. Cyprian and accepted by his Carthaginian council of 251 for the restoration to communion, after varying forms of penance, of those who had fallen during the Decian persecution (see ).

At the beginning of 252 a new persecution suddenly broke out. Cornelius was exiled to Centumcellæ (Civita Vecchia). There were no defections among the Roman Christians; all were confessors. The pope "led his brethren in confession", writes Cyprian (Ep. lx, ad Corn.), with a manifest reference to the confession of St. Peter. "With one heart and one voice the whole Roman Church confessed. Then was seen, dearest Brother, that faith which the blessed Apostle praised in you (Rom., i, 8); even then he foresaw in spirit your glorious fortitude and firm strength." In June Cornelius died a martyr, as St. Cyprian repeatedly calls him. The Liberian catalogue has ibi cum gloriâ dormicionem accepit, and this may mean that he died of the rigours of his banishment, though later accounts say that he was beheaded. St. Jerome says that Cornelius and Cyprian suffered on the same day in different years, and his careless statement has been generally followed. The feast of St. Cyprian was in fact kept at Rome at the tomb of Cornelius, for the fourth century "Depositio Martirum" has "XVIII kl octob Cypriani Africæ Romæ celebratur in Callisti". St. Cornelius was not buried in the chapel of the popes, but in an adjoining catacomb, perhaps that of a branch of the noble Cornelii. His inscription is in Latin: CORNELIUS* MARTYR* whereas those of Fabian and Lucius are in Greek (Northcote and Brownlow, "Roma sotteranea", I, vi). His feast is kept with that of St. Cyprian on 14 September, possibly the day of his translation from Centumcellæ to the catacombs.

The two Latin letters will be found in all editions of Cyprian. A better text is in Mercati, D'alcuni muori sussidi per la critica del texto di S. Cipriano (Rome, 1899). They will be found with the fragments in Coustant, Epp. Rom. Pontt. and in Routh, Reliquæ Sacræ. There is a spurious letter to St. Cyprian in the appendix to his works, another to Lupicinus of Vienne, and two more were forged by Pseudo-Isidore. All these will be found in the collections of councils and in Migne. The pseudo-Cyprianic Ad Novatianum is attributed to Cornelius by Nelke, Die Chronol. der Correspondenz Cyprians (Thorn, 1902); but it is by an unknown contemporary. On Cornelius see Tillemont, III; Acta SS. 14 Sept.; Benson, Cyprian (London, 1897). The Acta of St. Cornelius are valueless.

John Chapman.

References

  1. Back to citation The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. "Saint Cornelius". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 14 August 2016.
  2. Back to citation "Decius", Encyclopædia Britannica (Online School ed.), 7 December 2008.
  3. Back to citation occurrence 3.0 Back to citation occurrence 3.1 Saints and Feast Days. New York: Loyola P, 1991.
  4. Back to citation Chapman, John. "Novatian and Novatianism." The Catholic Encyclopedia Vol. 11. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911. 6 August 2018
  5. Back to citation occurrence 5.0 Back to citation occurrence 5.1 Back to citation occurrence 5.2 Back to citation occurrence 5.3 Back to citation occurrence 5.4 McBrien, Richard P (September 24, 2004), National Catholic Reporter, vol. 40, General OneFile. Gale. Sacred Heart Preparatory (BAISL), p. 19(1), retrieved 5 December 2008, “Pope Cornelius, a reconciler, had a hard road”.
  6. Back to citation Papandrea, James L., Novatian of Rome and the Culmination of Pre-Nicene Orthodoxy, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2011 ISBN 9781606087800
  7. Back to citation Chapman, John (1908). "Pope Cornelius" in The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 4. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
  8. Back to citation Moody Smith, D. "Review: The Rise of Christianity: A Review." Journal of the American Academy of Religion 54 (1986): 337–42.
  9. Back to citation Schrembs, Joseph. "The Catholic Philosophy of History." The Catholic Historical Review 20 (1934): 1–22.
  10. Back to citation occurrence 10.0 Back to citation occurrence 10.1 Chapman, John (1913). "Pope Cornelius". In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
  11. Back to citation Allen, John L Jr (September 1, 2000), "A bit of exorcist history", National Catholic Reporter
  12. Back to citation marschaelle; "Die Kapelle". Archived from the original on 2012-02-11. Retrieved 2008-03-29; "Heimatbund St. Tönis 1952 e. V". Archived from the original on 2014-10-30. Retrieved 2008-03-29.
  13. Back to citation "TheRecord.com – Travel – Marvelling at Carnac's stones". Archived from the original on 2012-04-15. Retrieved 2008-03-29.
  14. Back to citation "France Holidays, Brittany". Archived from the original on 2011-10-03. Retrieved 2008-03-29.
  15. Back to citation "Saint Cornelius." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2008. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 24 November 2008
  16. Back to citation "Pope Saint Cornelius." Archived 2008-10-23 at the Wayback Machine Patron Saints Index. 7 December 2008.

Bibliography

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