GELASIO I, 7APA, saint. — He merits first place in the series of fifth-century popes after Leo I. He governed the Church from 492 to 496. African by origin, he possessed Tertullian’s taste and talent for controversy, as well as the vigorous and lucid reasoning, the vivacity, and even the acerbity of that same apologist (cf. L. Duchesne, L'Eglise au VIe siècle, Paris 1925, p. 12 ff.). When he succeeded Felice III (492), he had already long belonged to the Roman clergy and had had occasion to distinguish himself through polemical and historical writings concerning Monophysitism and Pelagianism (v.).
