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Home > Catholic Encyclopedia > C > Pope Cornelius


POPE CORNELIUS

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Martyr (251 to 253).

We may accept the statement of the Liberian catalogue that he reigned two years,
three months, and ten days, for Lipsius, Lightfoot, and Harnack have shown that
this list is a first-rate authority for this date. His predecessor, Fabian, was
put to death by Decius, 20 January, 250. About the beginning of March, 251 the
persecution slackened, owing to the absence of the emperor, against whom two
rivals had arisen. It was possible to assemble sixteen bishops at Rome, and
Cornelius was elected though against his will (Cyprian, Ep. lv, 24), "by the
judgment of God and of Christ, by the testimony of almost all the clergy, by the
vote of the people then present, by the consent of aged priests and of good men,
at a time when no one had been made before him, when the place of Fabian, that
is the place of Peter, and the step of the sacerdotal chair were vacant". "What
fortitude in his acceptance of the episcopate, what strength of mind, what
firmness of faith, that he took his seat intrepid in the sacerdotal chair, at a
time when the tyrant in his hatred of bishops was making unspeakable threats,
when he heard with far more patience that a rival prince was arising against
him, than that a bishop of God was appointed at Rome" (ibid., 9). Is he not,
asks St. Cyprian, to be numbered among the glorious confessors and martyrs who
sat so long awaiting the sword or the cross or the stake and every other
torture?



A few weeks later the Roman priest Novatian made himself antipope, and the whole
Christian world was convulsed by the schism at Rome. But the adhesion of St.
Cyprian secured to Cornelius the hundred bishops of Africa, and the influence of
St. Dionysius the Great, Bishop of Alexandria, brought the East within a few
months to a right decision. In Italy itself the pope got together a synod of
sixty bishops. (See NOVATIAN.) Fabius, Bishop of Antioch, seems to have wavered.
Three letters to him from Cornelius were known to Eusebius, who gives extracts
from one of them (Church History VI.43), in which the pope details the faults in
Novatian's election and conduct with considerable bitterness. We incidentally
learn that in the Roman Church there were forty-six priests, seven deacons,
seven subdeacons, forty-two acolytes, fifty-two ostiarii, and over one thousand
five hundred widows and persons in distress. From this Burnet estimated the
number of Christians in Rome at fifty thousand, so also Gibbon; but Benson and
Harnack think this figure possibly too large. Pope Fabian had made seven
regions; it appears that each had one deacon, one subdeacon and six acolytes. Of
the letters of Cornelius to Cyprian two have come down to us, together with nine
from Cyprian to the pope. Mgr. Merrati has shown that in the true text the
letters of Cornelius are in the colloquial "vulgar-Latin" of the day, and not in
the more classical style affected by the ex-orator Cyprian and the learned
philosopher Novatian. Cornelius sanctioned the milder measures proposed by St.
Cyprian and accepted by his Carthaginian council of 251 for the restoration to
communion, after varying forms of penance, of those who had fallen during the
Decian persecution (see CYPRIAN).

At the beginning of 252 a new persecution suddenly broke out. Cornelius was
exiled to Centumcellæ (Civita Vecchia). There were no defections among the Roman
Christians; all were confessors. The pope "led his brethren in confession",
writes Cyprian (Ep. lx, ad Corn.), with a manifest reference to the confession
of St. Peter. "With one heart and one voice the whole Roman Church confessed.
Then was seen, dearest Brother, that faith which the blessed Apostle praised in
you (Romans 1:8); even then he foresaw in spirit your glorious fortitude and
firm strength." In June Cornelius died a martyr, as St. Cyprian repeatedly calls
him. The Liberian catalogue has ibi cum gloriâ dormicionem accepit, and this may
mean that he died of the rigours of his banishment, though later accounts say
that he was beheaded. St. Jerome says that Cornelius and Cyprian suffered on the
same day in different years, and his careless statement has been generally
followed. The feast of St. Cyprian was in fact kept at Rome at the tomb of
Cornelius, for the fourth century "Depositio Martirum" has "XVIII kl octob
Cypriani Africæ Romæ celebratur in Callisti". St. Cornelius was not buried in
the chapel of the popes, but in an adjoining catacomb, perhaps that of a branch
of the noble Cornelii. His inscription is in Latin: CORNELIUS* MARTYR* whereas
those of Fabian and Lucius are in Greek (Northcote and Brownlow, "Roma
sotteranea", I, vi). His feast is kept with that of St. Cyprian on 14 September,
possibly the day of his translation from Centumcellæ to the catacombs.




SOURCES

The two Latin letters will be found in all editions of CYPRIAN. A better text is
in MERCATI, D'alcuni muori sussidi per la critica del texto di S. Cipriano
(Rome, 1899). They will be found with the fragments in COUSTANT, Epp. Rom.
Pontt. and in ROUTH, Reliquæ Sacræ. There is a spurious letter to St. Cyprian in
the appendix to his works, another to Lupicinus of Vienne, and two more were
forged by Pseudo-Isidore. All these will be found in the collections of councils
and in MIGNE. The pseudo-Cyprianic Ad Novatianum is attributed to Cornelius by
NELKE, Die Chronol. der Correspondenz Cyprians (Thorn, 1902); but it is by an
unknown contemporary. On Cornelius see TILLEMONT, III; Acta SS. 14 Sept.;
BENSON, Cyprian (London, 1897). The Acta of St. Cornelius are valueless.


ABOUT THIS PAGE

APA citation. Chapman, J. (1908). Pope Cornelius. In The Catholic Encyclopedia.
New York: Robert Appleton Company. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04375c.htm

MLA citation. Chapman, John. "Pope Cornelius." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol.
4. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1908.
<http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04375c.htm>.

Transcription. This article was transcribed for New Advent by WGKofron. With
thanks to Fr. John Hilkert, Akron, Ohio.

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

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