SILVESTRO I, POPE, saint. — Despite his long pontificate (31 January 314–31 December 335), little is known of his life and activity, since it Constantine (v.), the first Christian emperor, who dominated and filled with his presence the life of the Empire and of the Church in the first half of the fourth century.
The same author of the Lib. Pont. goes on at length in enumerating Constantine’s constructions, while he has little to say about the activity of the Pope. S. is said to have promulgated decrees concerning the consecration of chrism by the bishop, trials and judgments involving clerics, the intervals required for admission to Holy Orders, liturgical vestments, and the manner of receiving heretics into the Church. The foundation of the « titulus Equitii » on the Esquiline (S. Martino ai Monti) is attributed to him, but it seems to have been older and that S. merely exercised his ministry there before being elected pope. It is certain, however, that by the end of the fourth century S.’s name and cult were associated with that title, and that in the sixth century it was already called « titulus s. S. ».
During his pontificate the Church was troubled by the Donatist and Arian questions, but S. does not seem to have done much to condemn the heretics, although he was informed of the situation. The former, in fact, was decided at the Council of Arles (314), convened by Constantine, which the Pope did not attend, but whose decisions were communicated to him in a synodal letter; the latter, on the other hand, was decided at the Council of Nicaea (325), likewise convened, presided over, and directed by Constantine, and attended, as papal legates, by Hosius, bishop of Cordova, and two Roman priests. S. also played only a secondary role in the subsequent phases of the Arian question.
He was buried in the cemetery of Priscilla on the Via Salaria nuova. His name is already found in the Depositio Episcoporum and is recorded with the same date and place by the martyrologies, the Itineraries of the seventh century, and the Sacramentaries.
S.’s person did not, however, escape legend, which handed down to posterity a rather heroic figure to set against that of Constantine, by whom he had been so meanly overshadowed. Among the so-called « Apocrifi simmachiani » (v. SIMMACO), three, in fact, concern S.: they are the Actus beati S., the Constitutum, and the so-called Synod of the 275. The first, of which Latin, Greek, and Syriac versions exist and which was falsely attributed to Eusebius of Caesarea, recounts a fictionalized life of S. As a young man he performed the duties of hospitality toward pilgrims, and, having been enrolled among the clergy, was ordained a priest by Miltiades. Elected pontiff, in order to escape Constantine’s persecution he withdrew to Mount Soratte, from which he later descended to baptize Constantine himself after his conversion and to cure him of leprosy. Constantine’s building zeal, however, aroused the anger of his mother Helena, who provoked a dispute between S. and certain Jews concerning the true religion; S. was victorious, and Helena embraced Christianity. She then went to the East, where she found the Cross of Jesus, while Constantine founded Constantinople.
The « Constitutum » and the « Synod » are a collection of 20 decrees and the decisions of an alleged synod held by S. in the Baths of Trajan after Constantine’s Baptism and in his presence, in order to validate the decisions of the Council of Nicaea, with which S. is said to have exchanged letters. In the eighth century, the famous Donatio Constantini was added to these apocrypha; by it, when Constantine transferred his seat to the East, he left S. all his sovereign rights over Rome and conferred many privileges upon him and his clergy.
Valentini-G. Zucchetti, Codice topografico della città di Roma, II, there 1942, pp. 13, 192 ff. Agostino Amore