“puto, ut sancti Innocentii, qui apostolicae cathedrae et supra dicti viri successor et filius est, teneas fidem”
“I think that you should keep the faith of St. Innocent, who is the successor and son of the apostolic chair and of the above-mentioned man”
Jerome, Ep. 130 (Ad Demetrias)
It is with this pronouncement that St. Jerome provides the basis for the ‘fact’, one that has been widely repeated on the Internet and in some general books,[1] that this ‘St. Innocent’ [Pope Innocent I (401-417)] was the son of the “above-mentioned man”, his immediate papal predecessor, Pope Anastasius I (399-401).
The idea of a pope being succeeded by his son might seem much more out of place in modern times due to the institution of a celibate priesthood, but this is not a modern development. Indeed, such thinking was already pervading the Western Church by the turn of the fifth century, although it would take several centuries before it was to come to its fullest fruition.
The idea of a son succeeding his father on the papal throne also raises questions about the elective nature of the papacy, although the exact procedures used to appoint the pope appear inconsistent or mutable in the source record basically for the first millennium of the papacy’s existence: appointment by predecessors and or rulers, public acclamation or election or a combination of some or all of the above. The more recognisable curial electorate of cardinals did not really appear until the 11th century.
But rather than go too far down the rabbit hole of the development of papal policy towards clerical celibacy and the formalising of papal elections, we will instead focus on the suggestion that the early fifth century saw an ‘hereditary’ papal succession.
The Internet and general reading sources that record the father/son relationship between Anastasius and Innocent frequently provide no supporting information, rarely even mentioning Jerome’s letter.
That Anastasius and Innocent were initially buried in the same place, the Catacombs of Pontian on the Via Portuensis (before being later moved to San Martino ai Monti in the ninth century to protect them from Lombard raids) could suggest some personal connection; however, it may just instead reflect the trend of burials in the Roman catacombs, while any personal connection it might hint at does not prove a father/son relationship.
Essentially then, these Internet, general reading and other sources have taken the translation of the above sentence in Jerome, Ep. 130 at face value. This is despite another source, the Liber Pontificalis – ‘Book of the Pontiffs’ – offering a different parentage for Innocent. It records Innocent being born in Albano, a town 16 miles south-east of Rome (one source misidentifies this location as ‘Albania’), and as being the son of another man called Innocent (LP 42.1). There is no suggestion that Anastasius I had changed his name, and he himself was from Rome.
While the Liber Pontificalis is usually thought to have begun being compiled in the late 5th/early 6th century, it does appear to have made use of previous papal chronologies – Catalogus Liberianus, and through it, the work of Hippolytus of Rome, as well as the vestiarium, the official records of the papal treasury. It is not completely clear what might have been used for the vitae of Anastasius and Innocent I, but in general this could see Jerome’s contemporaneousness decline somewhat in importance over the Liber Pontificalis.
But if we are going to look at the historiographical foundations of the Liber Pontificalis, we must also look at those of the letter from which this Innocent ‘paternal’ relationship emerges. Jerome, Epistle 130 is part of extended epistolary discussions on Pelgianism, asceticism and female patronage. Its recipient, Demetrias (the letter is frequently known as the Ad Demetrias) was the daughter of Anicius Hermogenianus Olybrius, a powerful Roman nobleman of the Anicii family and consul in 395.
While not yet a teenager, Demetrias had been caught up in the Gothic sack of Rome in 410 and had fled with her family to Carthage, only to be imprisoned by the comes Africae, Heraclian, and released on the payment of a large ransom (Jerome, Ep. 130). During her stay in Africa, Demetrias came into contact with Augustine of Hippo, who encouraged her to embrace an ascetic way of life. This led her to take the veil of chastity rather than marry.
Demetrias’ family asked several notable churchmen to send her advice in how to live a spiritual life – she received replies from a catalogue of men that reads like a ‘Who’s Who?’ of early fifth century Christianity. Not only did Jerome and Augustine write to her, but so did the prominent theologian Pelagius and seemingly Pope Leo I (although there is a thought that this ‘papal’ letter was instead written by Prosper of Aquitaine, which is not a massive drop off in stature).
Many of these letters seem to have focused on discussion over the contrary doctrines of Augustine and Pelagius; Jerome, Ep. 130 is no different. Indeed, it is through Jerome’s highlighting of Pope Anastasius I’s opposition to Origenism (that pope had called a synod that declared Origen’s teachings not in line with those of the church), which he associated with the doctrines of Pelagius, that Jerome makes the seeming statement of the current pope’s, Innocent I, filial relationship to his predecessor, Anastasius.
But what did Jerome mean by this statement that Innocent was the filius of his papal predecessor? Did he truly mean to intonate that Anastasius I was the father of Innocent I? It is likely that he did not. At least not in a biological sense.
The entirety of the Ad Demetrias has been described as “highly rhetorical” (Dunn (2007) 30) and should therefore be treated as being metaphorical, rather than literal. The use of filius by Jerome should be seen in a similar manner to how frater was used, a metaphor which would have been obvious to contemporaries (Dunn (2007) 31 – although the latter was the kind of the kind of metaphor that had possibly caused Christians reputational problems before their practices became more common knowledge; e.g. Theophilus of Antioch, Ad Autol. 3.4; cf. Wagemakers (2010) 338).
In Early Christianity, these familial metaphors referred to hierarchical rather than biological relationships, and it seems likely that this is what Jerome meant – “not a description of family relationship but as a description of position” (Dunn (2007) 35). Innocent had been a deacon during the papacy of Anastasius, so in calling him filius in connection with Anastasius, Jerome is highlighting Innocent’s juniority compared to the pope.
In choosing the metaphorical ‘son’ over the actual ‘deacon’ (Dunn (2007) 35), Jerome may be using a strategy to appeal to the prominent senatorial family of Demetrias to back his anti-Pelagian campaign, and for them to use their influence to get Innocent to do the same. The ‘son’ might be expected to follow in the doctrinal footsteps of his ‘father’.
A significant number of letters from the early 5th century, beyond those of Jerome, demonstrate that the use of such a familial metaphor within the church hierarchy was still in vogue. We see bishops regarding their relationship with other bishops and presbyters as fraternal because they were considered of equal stature, while that between bishops and deacons/lay people was filial because the latter were below the former in the hierarchy.
The letters of Innocent I himself demonstrate this tendency repeatedly. He calls a future pope, Celestine I, who was a deacon at the time, filius meus (Innocent, Ep. 25.124); he uses the same phrase for a deacon called Paul (Innocent, Ep. 23), while in a letter to Alexander of Antioch, he refers to Nicolaus the deacon (‘son’) and Peter (‘father’).
While it appears then that the story of a ‘hereditary’ papal succession between Anastasius and Innocent is based on a misinterpretation of metaphorically expressed hierarchy, there are examples of sons of a pope entering the Church. Indeed, one such papal son did eventually succeed to the papal throne his father had sat on – Pope Silverius (536-537) was the legitimate son of Pope Hormisdas (514-523), although as you can see from the dates, he was not a direct successor. Given that priestly celibacy had been largely established as common practice in the early fifth century with two councils at Carthage requiring a vow of chastity upon ordination, even if pre-existing wives were not to be divorced, but treated “like a sister” (Brennan (1985) 312, 314), which would not have helped assuage any of the aforementioned nasty rumours had it be an earlier practice…
Being a previous pope’s son must have helped, but Silverius was a lowly subdeacon at the time of his elevation. It has been suggested that his rapid rise to the papacy was linked to his willingness to be a pro-Gothic pope for king Theodahad in the face of the incipient Roman invasion of Gothic Italy. This supposed pro-Gothic stance contributed to Silverius’ deposition and exile by his papal successor Vigilius (537-555) and the Roman general Belisarius. Perhaps to further blacken Silverius’ reputation as a pro-Goth/anti-Roman pope, the Liber Pontificalis claimed that he bought his elevation from Theodahad.
Bibliography
Liber Pontificalis (Davis R. translation 2000)
Jerome, Epistles (Freemantle W.H., Lewis G. and Martley W.G. translation, NPNF 1893); http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3001130.htm
Brennan, B. ‘‘Episcopae’: Bishops’ Wives Viewed in Sixth-Century Gaul,’ Church History 54 (1985) 311-23.
de Ste Croix, G.E.M. ‘Why Were The Early Christians Persecuted?’, A Journal of Historical Studies (1963) 6-38.
Dunn G. ‘Anastasius I and Innocent I: Reconsidering the Evidence of Jerome’, Vigiliae Christianae 61 (2007) 30-41.
Dunphy W. ‘Saint Jerome and Gens Anicia (Ep. 130 to Demetrias)’, in Livingstone, E.A. Papers of Oxford Patristic Conference 1983 (Studia Patristica 18/4) Kalamzoo (1990) 139-145.
Elliott, D. Spiritual Marriage: Sexual Abstinence in Medieval Wedlock. Princeton (1993).
Jacobs A. S. ‘Writing Demetrias: Ascetic Logic in Ancient Christianity’, Church History 69 (2000) 719-748.
Maxwell-Stuart, P.G. Chronicle of the Popes: The Reign-by-Reign Record of the Papacy from St. Peter to the Present. London (1997).
McNamara, J-A. ‘Chaste Marriage and Clerical Celibacy,’ in Bullough, V.L. and Brundage, J. Sexual Practices and the Medieval Church. Buffalo (1982), 22-33
Richards J. The Popes and the Papacy in the Early Middle Ages, 476–752. London and Boston (1979).
Sherwin-White, A.N. ‘Why Were the Early Christians Persecuted? – An Amendment’, Past & Present 47 (1954) 23.
Wagemakers, B. ‘Incest, Infanticide and Cannibalism: Anti-Christian imputations in the Roman Empire’, Greece & Rome 57 (2010) 337-354.
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