ZOSIMUS, Pope, Saint. - Elected successor of Innocent I on 18 March 417, d. 26 Dec. 418.
Immediately, on 22 March, he granted Patroclus, bishop of Arles, the most distinguished privileges, subjecting to his metropolitan jurisdiction the province of Vienne and the two Narbonnese provinces and constituting him apostolic vicar over all the Gauls. This aroused the protests of the Gallic episcopate, which had no reason to be satisfied with Patroclus. St. Augustine had just pronounced the famous phrase: "Roma locuta est causa finita est," regarding the Pelagians, when the case was reopened. Caelestius (v.), present in Rome, brought his protests before Z., who, without pronouncing judgment, invited the African bishops to revive the previous judgments already confirmed by Innocent I and to respond within two months. Meanwhile there arrived in Rome a letter of Pelagius and a libellus fidei, addressed to Pope Innocent, in which he attempted to demonstrate that his faith was orthodox; the innocence of the two heretics seemed assured, as Z. wrote to the Africans on 21 Sept. 417. The African bishops held a new Council on the matter in May 418 and meanwhile provoked an intervention of the imperial court of Ravenna to prevent riots; then Z., toward the end of May, addressed to all Christendom an epistola tractoria (which has come down to us in fragmentary form) in which, condemning Pelagius and Caelestius and their doctrines, he imposed on all bishops the acceptance of this condemnation, as in fact almost all did. Another controversy arose between Z. and the African episcopate concerning Apiarius, a priest of Sicca Veneria, who had appealed to him against the sentence by which his bishop Urban had excommunicated him. For this affair Z. sent a bishop to Africa as his legate; but before it could be concluded, Z. died and was buried at St. Lawrence's. His name appears in the Roman Martyrology on 26 Dec.
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Pio Paschini