PONTIAN, Pope, Saint, Martyr. - According to the Liberian Catalogue and the Liber Pontificalis, P. was a Roman, the son of a certain Calpurnius; he was pope from 231 to 235, when, together with the presbyter Hippolytus, he was condemned to the mines in Sardinia, where, after having abdicated the supreme pontificate, he died as a result of ill-treatment. His body was transported to Rome and buried in the cemetery of Callistus on 13 August.
On this date he is in fact commemorated in the Depositio Martyrum, and in that cemetery, in January 1909, his epitaph was found in Greek, with the title of martyr. On the same day he is remembered in the Leonine Sacramentary and in the Hieronymian Martyrology, while in the Roman Martyrology he is commemorated on 19 November.
Holding as certain the report of his exile in 235, this must have occurred after 18 March, when Alexander Severus was killed and Maximinus Thrax was elected emperor. The latter (Eusebius, Hist. eccl., VI, 28), out of hatred for the house of Alexander, stirred up persecution against the Christians, limited, however, to the heads of the Church. In execution of the orders, the prefect of Rome (Maximinus, elected in the provinces, never came to Rome) relegated P. to Sardinia. There the Pontiff, in order not to leave the Church without a guide, on 28 September of the same year renounced the papacy. On the following 21 November Anterus (v.) was elected. The year of the translation of his body to Rome is also uncertain, but probably between 244 and 249, that is, during the reign of Philip the Arab. To carry out such translations of corpses, in fact, the permission of the Emperor was necessary, and Pope Fabian may have taken advantage of Philip's benevolence.
No relation exists between P. and the cemetery of the same name on the Via Portuense.
Bibliography5 works
Agostino Amore