No Halo For Thee -- The First Pope Not to Become a Saint Was Not a Bad Sort, Actually

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Not THIS bad, but not quite goodly enough

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Leafing through the 1800 pages of the one-volume Spanish language Nuevo Espasa Ilustrado encyclopedia, I found a list of all 261 popes.  From the years 33 – 496 A.D., each of the first 49 popes from “San Pedro” to “San Gelasio” were “santos” (saints). The saintly sequence was broken from 496 – 498, however, by a certain “Anastasio II” (Anastasius II). Saints reigned again from 498 - 537.

When I checked the Espasa encyclopedia’s list against Patrick Granfield’s in the Encyclopedia of Religion (second edition), it was not Anastasius II who first interrupted the roster of saints. Rather, it was the pope identified as “San Libero” in Espasa, but named sans “St.” as Liberius by Granfield.

Why the discrepancy?  I found an explanation in Vicars of Christ: A History of the Popes by Charles A. Coulombe (offered in selections on Google Books): “Liberius was the first pope not to be canonized in the Western Church, although … the Easterners have a very different view of him.” The website of the Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Church  refers to Liberius as “Sainted Liberius the Confessor, Pope of Rome,” who is “commemorated on August 27.” So, we are dealing with a pope who is an Orthodox, but not a Catholic, saint.

This brings us back to the less ambiguous Pope Anastasius II, of whom Merriam-Webster's Biographical Dictionary said simply “Pope (496–498). Attempted to heal Acacian schism; received emissary from Byzantine supporter of Acacius, thus causing schism in Roman church; died before controversy was resolved.”

Acacianism was a sect of Arianism, which doctrine the Columbia Encyclopedia defined as a “Christian heresy founded by Arius in the 4th century.  It was one of the most widespread and divisive heresies in the history of Christianity. As a priest in Alexandria, Arius taught (around 318) that God created, before all things, a Son who was the first creature, but who was neither equal to nor coeternal with the Father. According to Arius, Jesus was a supernatural creature not quite human and not quite divine.”

The online Catholic Encyclopedia said that Anastasius II was “a native of Rome (who) insisted in the removal from the diptychs (lists of persons for whom prayers and masses are said) of the name of Acacius, Patriarch of Constantinople, but recognized the validity of his sacramental acts, an attitude that displeased the Romans. He also condemned Traducianism.”

Now as for Traducianism, the Catholic Encyclopedia explained that the word came from Latin “tradux” (a shoot or sprout) “and more specifically a vine branch made to take root so as to propagate the vine), in general the doctrine that, in the process of generation, the human spiritual soul is transmitted to the offspring by the parents.”

It was Anastasius II who baptized the Frankish king, Clovis (465-511), founder of the Merovingian kingdom of Gaul. According to the Encyclopedia of World Biography, Clovis “is widely regarded as the originator of the French nation.”

Anastasius’ perceived ambivalence on the Acacian heresy marred his legacy. A. Hauck, in the New Schaff-Herzog Religious Encyclopedia wrote that “ecclesiastical writers as late as the sixteenth century usually regard(ed) him as a heretic.” Hauck added that this pope had sent a pair of bishops to Constantinople right after his consecration, “offering to recognize the orders conferred by Acacius (who was now dead), at the same time asserting the justice of his condemnation” of Acacianism.

So, Anastasius II was no saint. But we should also hasten to note that Anastasius II appears nowhere in E. R. Chamberlain’s book, The Bad Popes.