www.newadvent.org Open in urlscan Pro
2400:52e0:1e00::1079:1  Public Scan

Form analysis
1 forms found in the DOM

../utility/search.htm

<form id="searchbox_000299817191393086628:ifmbhlr-8x0" action="../utility/search.htm">
  <!-- Hidden Inputs -->
  <input type="hidden" name="safe" value="active">
  <input type="hidden" name="cx" value="000299817191393086628:ifmbhlr-8x0">
  <input type="hidden" name="cof" value="FORID:9">
  <!-- Search Box -->
  <label for="searchQuery" id="searchQueryLabel">Search:</label>
  <input id="searchQuery" name="q" type="text" size="25" aria-labelledby="searchQueryLabel">
  <!-- Submit Button -->
  <label for="submitButton" id="submitButtonLabel" class="visually-hidden">Submit Search</label>
  <input id="submitButton" type="submit" name="sa" value="Search" aria-labelledby="submitButtonLabel">
</form>

Text Content

 

Search: Submit Search



 Home   Encyclopedia   Summa   Fathers   Bible   Library 

 A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z 


Home > Catholic Encyclopedia > B > Pope St. Boniface IV


POPE ST. BONIFACE IV

Please help support the mission of New Advent and get the full contents of this
website as an instant download. Includes the Catholic Encyclopedia, Church
Fathers, Summa, Bible and more — all for only $19.99...

Son of John, a physician, a Marsian from the province and town of Valeria; he
succeeded Boniface III after a vacancy of over nine months; consecrated 25
August, 608; d. 8 May, 615 (Duchesne); or, 15 September, 608-25 May, 615
(Jaffé). In the time of Pope St. Gregory the Great he was a deacon of the Roman
Church and held the position of dispensator, i.e., the first official in
connexion with the administration of the patrimonies. Boniface obtained leave
from the Emperor Phocas to convert the Pantheon into a Christian Church, and on
13 May, 609 (?) the temple erected by Agrippa to Jupiter the Avenger, to Venus,
and to Mars was consecrated by the pope to the Virgin Mary and all the Martyrs.
(Hence the title S. Maria Rotunda.) It was the first instance at Rome of the
transformation of a pagan temple into a place of Christian worship. Twenty-eight
cartloads of sacred bones were said to have been removed from the Catacombs and
placed in a porphyry basin beneath the high altar. During the pontificate of
Boniface, Mellitus, the first Bishop of London, went to Rome "to consult the
pope on important matters relative to the newly established English Church"
(Bede, H. E., II, iv). Whilst in Rome he assisted at a council then being held
concerning certain questions on "the life and monastic peace of monks", and, on
his departure, took with him to England the decree of the council together with
letters from the pope to Lawrence, Archbishop of Canterbury, and to all the
clergy, to King Ethelbert, and to all the English people "concerning what was to
be observed by the Church of England". The decrees of the council now extant are
spurious. The letter to Ethelbert (in William of Malmesbury, De Gest. Pont., I,
1464, ed Migne) is considered spurious by Hefele (Conciliengeschichte, III, 66),
questionable by Haddan and Stubbs (Councils, III, 65), and genuine by Jaffé
[Regest. RR. PP., 1988 (1548)].



Between 612-615, St. Columban, then living at Bobbio in Italy, was persuaded by
Agilulf, King of the Lombards, to address a letter on the condemnation of the
"Three Chapters" to Boniface IV, which is remarkable at once for its expressions
of exaggerated deference and its tone of excessive sharpness. In it he tells the
pope that he is charged with heresy (for accepting the Fifth Council, i.e.
Constantinople, 553), and exhorts him to summon a council and prove his
orthodoxy. But the letter of the impetuous Celt, who failed to grasp the import
of the theological problem involved in the "Three Chapters", seems not to have
disturbed in the least his relation with the Holy See, and it would be wrong to
suppose that Columban regarded himself as independent of the pope's authority.
During the pontificate of Boniface there was much distress in Rome owing to
famine, pestilence, and inundations. The pontiff died in monastic retirement (he
had converted his own house into a monastery) and was buried in the portico of
St. Peter's. His remains were three times removed—in the tenth or eleventh
century, at the close of the thirteenth under Boniface VIII, and to the new St.
Peter's on 21 October, 1603. For the earlier inscription on his tomb see
Duchesne; for the later, Groisar, "Analecta Romana", I, 193. Boniface IV is
commemorated as a saint in the Roman Martyrology on 25 May.




SOURCES

     Liber Pontificalis (ed. DUCHESNE), I, 317; JAFFÉ, Regesta RR. PP. (2nd
ed.), I, 220; Acta et Epistolæ in MANSI, X, 501; PAUL THE DEACON, Hist.
Longobard., IV, 36 (37); GASQUET, A Short History of the Catholic Church in
England (London, 1903), 19; HUNT, A History of the English Church from its
Formation to the Norman Conquest (London, 1901), 42; MANN, Lives of the Popes,
I, 268-279; VON REUMONT, Gesch. der Stadt Rom (Berlin, 1867), II, 156, 165;
GREGOROVIUS, II, 104; LANGEN, 501.


ABOUT THIS PAGE

APA citation. Oestereich, T. (1907). Pope St. Boniface IV. In The Catholic
Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02660c.htm

MLA citation. Oestereich, Thomas. "Pope St. Boniface IV." The Catholic
Encyclopedia. Vol. 2. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1907.
<http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02660c.htm>.

Transcription. This article was transcribed for New Advent by WGKofron. In
memory of Fr. John Hilkert, Akron, Ohio — Fidelis servus et prudens, quem
constituit Dominus super familiam suam.

Ecclesiastical approbation. Nihil Obstat. 1907. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor.
Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York.

Contact information. The editor of New Advent is Kevin Knight. My email address
is webmaster at newadvent.org. Regrettably, I can't reply to every letter, but I
greatly appreciate your feedback — especially notifications about typographical
errors and inappropriate ads.

Copyright © 2023 by New Advent LLC. Dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

CONTACT US | ADVERTISE WITH NEW ADVENT