Callistus I, Pope, Saint

CALLISTO I, POPE, saint. - The Lib. Pont.
and the Liberian Catalogue call him a Roman from the region
across the Tiber (« de regione Urbe Ravennantium ») and
assert that he held the pontificate from the consulship
of Antoninus and Adventus (218) until that of Antoninus
(III) and Alexander (222). From the Lib. Pont. (I, p. 141) we also learn
that he established the Sabbath fast three times a year (the fast
of wheat, wine, and oil: cf. Zach. 8:19).
This is a precedent for the fast of the Ember
Days. It is also said that, as a martyr, he was buried
in his cemetery on the Via Aurelia, later called
that of Calepodius. But another source (the *Philosophu-
mena*, attributed—although we do not know whether definitively—
to Hippolytus, who is said to have been C.’s most bitter
adversary) tells us much more about the Pope.

He is said to have been of servile condition and to have
caused his master considerable trouble with his intem-

perance and ill-considered speculations. An incident with the Jews
is said to have caused his arrest by the Roman authorities,
who sent him to penal servitude in the mines of Sardinia.
Having succeeded in obtaining his release together with the group of confessors
who were suffering there, and who were recalled through the intervention
of Marcia, Commodus’s concubine, he was banished by the stern Pope
Victor to Anzio. Under the pontificate of his successor, the mild
Zephyrinus, C. returned to Rome and, in the office of deacon,
was placed in charge of the Church’s official cemetery, situated on the
Appian Way, which later took its name from him.

This is the first time that we learn of the existence of this cemetery,
directly dependent upon the administration of the Roman community.

Having become pope after the death of Zephyrinus (217), the adventurous C.
is said not to have conducted himself properly, according to the assertions
of the tendentious and embittered biographer. The latter reproaches him
with remitting sins, readmitting those who had been too weak in the face
of the intimidations of the pagan authorities, an alleged complicity
with heretics, and much else besides. But C. had excellent arguments
with which to defend himself. He compared the Church to the

(photograph: Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archaeology)