ANASTASIUS II, Pope. - Successor of Gelasius I, he was consecrated on 24 November 496 and died on 19 November 498. His first concern was to resume relations with the Churches of the East, which had been broken off since 484 because of the Acacian Schism. He therefore sent two bishops, Cresconius and Germanus, to Constantinople, with the task of communicating his election to the emperor Anastasius I and delivering to him a friendly letter. In it the Pope urged him not to break the unity of the Church on account of a single individual justly condemned, and asked that the name of Acacius be struck from the diptychs; nevertheless he declared that he recognized the baptisms and ordinations conferred by him (Jaffé-Wattenbach, 744). The results of this mission, however, were meager, in spite of the personal intrigues as well of the senator Festus, the envoy of Theodoric.
The conciliatory attitude of A. aroused harsh criticism among the clergy of Rome, especially after the benevolent welcome given by the Pope to the deacon Photinus, delegate of Andrew, bishop of Thessalonica, formerly an ardent supporter of Acacius, to report, it seems, on the strong anti-Acacian reaction that had taken place in the aforementioned diocese (cf. the letter of 497: Jaffé-Wattenbach, 746). Indeed, according to the Liber Pontificalis (ed. Duchesne, I, p. 258), a part of the Roman clergy would even have separated itself from the communion of A. The same source, very hostile to the Pontiff, sees in his premature death a punishment from God and attributes to him the design of rehabilitating the memory of Acacius. This is false and in conflict with the genuine letters of the Pope. Nevertheless the unfavorable judgment of the Liber Pontificalis contributed greatly to defaming his memory in the Middle Ages, so much so that Dante (Inf., XI, vv. 6-9) places him in the sixth circle among the heretics.
Of this Pope we preserve a letter of 497, containing a profession of faith in Christ (Jaffé-Wattenbach, 747), and another sent to the bishops of Gaul in 498 (Jaffé-Wattenbach, 751), in which he condemns traducianism (v.). It is by now almost undisputed that the letter which A. is said to have sent to Clovis (Jaffé-Wattenbach, 745), on the occasion of his baptism, is a forgery of the 17th century, due to Jérôme Vignier.
Bibliography5 works
Pietro Goggi - A.
Pietro Frutaz