Pope Saint John I (523-526)

The first reigning pope received at Constantinople

John I is generally presented as the first reigning pope to go to Constantinople.^{[7][8][9][10]} The fact is weighty. Before him, Rome and Constantinople had exchanged letters, legates, formulas of faith and embassies; with him, the Bishop of Rome himself entered the imperial capital of the East, celebrated Easter and manifested the communion restored after thirty-five years of Acacian schism.

This journey was not a free diplomatic pilgrimage. It began under constraint. But God sometimes uses a political constraint to make an ecclesial truth visible. At Constantinople, John was welcomed as the successor of Peter: Justin I prostrated himself before him according to the reported tradition, crowds came out to meet him, the Eastern patriarchs — with the exception of Timothy of Alexandria, who stayed aside — manifested their communion, and the pope officiated at Hagia Sophia according to the Latin rite on Easter Day.^[11]

The pontificate in which the victory of Hormisdas became dangerous

Hormisdas had closed the Acacian schism in 519. The Formula of Hormisdas had brought Constantinople back into Roman and Chalcedonian communion.^[12] This victory was spiritually immense, but politically unstable. Theodoric, Ostrogothic king of Italy, was an Arian; his power rested on a delicate coexistence between Arian Goths and Catholic Romans.

As long as Constantinople was divided from Rome, Theodoric could present himself as a tolerant arbiter. When Emperor Justin I became more clearly Catholic and took measures against the Arians of the East, this tolerance cracked. John I then became the man placed at the point of contact between three fidelities: fidelity to the Apostolic See, prudence towards the king who dominated Italy, and the charity owed even to heretics suffering repression.^[13][14]

A martyr of the freedom of the Church

The death of John I is inseparable from that of Boethius and Symmachus, two great figures of the Roman aristocracy. The Anonymus Valesianus recounts the last years of Theodoric as a reversal: the king once praised for his justice became suspicious, violent and hostile to Roman Catholics.^[15]

John did not die because he had organized a revolt. He died because a sovereign could no longer bear that a pope should not be an instrument. His martyrdom recalls a simple Catholic line: the Church may beg for clemency, but it cannot betray the faith to obtain political peace.

Table of witnesses

The dossier is therefore both poor and dense. Poor, because the youth of John I remains almost silent. Dense, because his pontificate fits into an exceptional cluster: Boethius, Theodoric, Justin I, the end of the Acacian schism, Ostrogothic Arianism, Constantinople, the Easter of 526 and Ravenna.

Holy See, Treccani and New Advent

The official list of the Holy See gives John I as the 53rd pope, beginning his pontificate on 13 August 523 and dying on 18 May 526.^[18] Treccani confirms these markers, specifies that the Liber Pontificalis calls him a native of Tuscia and son of Constantius, and stresses the almost total silence of the sources concerning his birth and early years.^[19]

The Catholic Encyclopedia concentrates its account on the embassy imposed by Theodoric and on the Catholic reading of the episode: John could not ask Justin I to favour Arianism, but he could ask for a gentler use of power towards the Arians.^[20] This distinction is capital. Catholic charity never implies doctrinal indifference.

Liber Pontificalis and Anonymus Valesianus

The Liber Pontificalis transmits the Roman memory: John left with bishops and senators, returned after having obtained his requests, was received by Theodoric with hatred, then died in prison at Ravenna on 18 May.^[21] The text adds that he restored the cemeteries of Nereus and Achilleus, of Felix and Adauctus, and of Priscilla, then that his body was brought back to Saint Peter's on 27 May 526.^[22]

The Anonymus Valesianus gives a livelier version of the face-to-face encounter with Theodoric. It reports that John refused to promise what would amount to making Catholic converts return to Arianism. It also specifies that Justin accepted everything except this demand.^[23] This source is precious because it does not turn John into a passive diplomat: the pope accepted the mission, but set a limit.

Tuscia and the silence of the sources

The Liber Pontificalis presents John as a native of Tuscia, son of Constantius.^[24] The notices do not give his date of birth. Treccani reasonably proposes placing his birth in the second half of the 5th century.^[25] This makes him a mature, probably elderly man at the time of his election.

This biographical poverty must be accepted. Ancient popes are not always known through edifying childhoods. For John I, the essential is read in his probable ecclesiastical career: he belonged to the Roman clergy formed by the Christological crises, by the Laurentian schism and by the long dossier of Chalcedon.

The deacon John and the theological opuscula of Boethius

Treccani notes a major point: several theological opuscula of Boethius are addressed to a John the deacon, whom research generally identifies, with prudence, as the future Pope John I.^[26] Boethius notably dedicated to him the Contra Eutychen et Nestorium around 512, then other treatises on the Trinity and on substance between 519 and 520.^[27]

This detail changes the portrait of the pope. John is not only an old bishop sent on a mission. He is probably a man sufficiently assured in theology for Boethius to submit to him difficult reflections on Nestorius, Eutyches and the union of the two natures of Christ.

Boethius there defends the Catholic confession of the two natures of Christ, which both remain perfect without one being transformed into the other (original English text in note).^[28]

This passage illuminates John's background. His generation did not discuss Chalcedon as an abstraction. It knew that the peace of the Church depended on the precise confession of Christ: two natures, one person, without confusion or separation.

The Roman assembly of 512

Treccani reports that John, certainly a deacon under Symmachus in 506, was present in 512 at a Roman assembly of ecclesiastical and lay figures gathered to examine a letter from the Eastern bishops to Symmachus.^[29] This assembly preceded the end of the Acacian schism and shows the role of the Roman clergy in the Christological discussions.

John therefore belonged to the same world as Symmachus, Hormisdas, Boethius and Dionysius Exiguus: a Latin world in which popes were not isolated, but surrounded by deacons, notaries, monks, senators and intellectuals capable of translating the great doctrinal definitions into ecclesial decisions.

Succeeding Hormisdas

Hormisdas died on 6 August 523. John was consecrated on 13 August.^[30][31] His election does not seem to have produced a crisis comparable to those of Symmachus or Boniface I. But the absence of Roman disorder did not mean an easy pontificate.

John received an immense inheritance: unity with Constantinople had been restored in 519; the diptychs — those lists of names proclaimed at the altar during the liturgy, where each inscribed name signified a recognized communion — had been corrected, the names linked to the schism having been removed; Chalcedon had been solemnly confessed; the Formula of Hormisdas had shown the strength of Roman communion.^[32] But this inheritance was received in an Italy governed by an Arian king, ageing, surrounded by anxious Goths and by Roman senators suspected of looking towards Constantinople.

Theodoric before the rupture

The Anonymus Valesianus first gives a favourable portrait of Theodoric. He governed two peoples, Romans and Goths, without direct assault on the Catholic religion, and the Romans compared him to Trajan or Valentinian.^[33] He had even arbitrated in favour of Symmachus against Laurentius, then honoured Saint Peter during his visit to Rome.^[34]

This first phase matters for understanding the tragedy. John I did not meet a permanent persecutor. He met a king who had long practised an effective political tolerance, but whose balance broke under the effect of the Eastern crisis, the fear of Byzantium and senatorial affairs.

Justin I and the anti-Arian hardening

Justin I ascended the Eastern throne in 518. His reign marked a clear return to Chalcedonian orthodoxy and to Roman communion. Treccani indicates that Justin adopted measures against the Arians, which could go as far as closing their churches and excluding them from public office.^[35]

Britannica sums up the issue: Theodoric, himself an Arian, ordered John to obtain from Justin the withdrawal or softening of these measures.^[36] The king was not only defending distant co-religionists; he feared that the Empire would give a dangerous political signal to Gothic Italy.

Boethius, the Senate and the fear of Byzantium

In 523-524, Theodoric was informed of an alleged senatorial conspiracy. Boethius, accused of having defended Albinus, was arrested then executed; Symmachus, his father-in-law, was likewise put to death.^[37][38] These events form the immediate background of the mission imposed on the pope.

The crisis was therefore not only religious. Theodoric suspected an alliance between Roman aristocrats, the Eastern emperor and the Catholic clergy. In this climate, the pope was seen as a useful mediator, but also as a possible suspect.

The impossible demand

According to the Anonymus Valesianus, Theodoric summoned John to Ravenna and ordered him to go to Justin at Constantinople to ask that those who had been reconciled with the Catholic Church be given back to Arianism.^[39] John refused to promise this.

He did not refuse every mission. He accepted to seek what could be obtained "with God's help". But he refused the doctrinally impossible point. The pope could ask for moderation towards heretics; he could not ask that souls be torn from Catholic communion.

An embassy composed of bishops and senators

John left with bishops and senators. The Anonymus Valesianus notably names Ecclesius of Ravenna, Eusebius of Fano, Sabinus of Campania, as well as the senators Theodorus, Importunus and two Agapiti.^[40] Treccani confirms this general composition and notes that the journey probably began in autumn 525, via Corinth, to reach the Eastern court before the Christmas season.^[41]

This mixture of bishops and senators shows the ambiguity of the embassy. It was ecclesiastical through its head, but political through its objectives. Theodoric sent Rome itself, Church and Senate, to negotiate with Constantinople.

A welcome as for Peter

The reception of John at Constantinople is one of the most striking points of the dossier. New Advent states that the inhabitants came out in crowds to meet him, that Justin prostrated himself before him, and that the Eastern patriarchs hastened to manifest their communion in faith with the Roman pontiff.^[42] The Anonymus Valesianus sums up: Justin received the Bishop of Rome as he would have received Saint Peter (original English text in note).^[43]

On the imperial coronation, the formulations of the sources diverge: the Catholic Encyclopedia writes that Justin had himself crowned by the pope, while Treccani describes the solemn imperial ceremony repeated before him.^[44][45] This article keeps to what the two versions attest in common: the public honour paid to the successor of Peter.

The scope of this scene must be measured. Six years earlier, Constantinople had come out of the Acacian schism. Now, the Bishop of Rome was publicly received in the imperial capital. Even though the mission began under constraint, the event manifested a restored communion.

Hagia Sophia, Easter and the Latin rite

New Advent reports that John exercised his right of precedence over Patriarch Epiphanius and solemnly celebrated at Hagia Sophia, according to the Latin rite, on Easter 526.^[46] The Liber Pontificalis specifies that Easter then fell on 19 April.^[47]

The scene had a liturgical force. The pope did not come only to discuss with the emperor. He prayed publicly at the centre of the Christian East, in the city that had just returned to communion. After decades of fracture, the liturgy gave the people what the letters had prepared: visible unity.

The diplomatic outcome

The sources diverge on the exact extent of the success. The Anonymus Valesianus says that Justin promised everything that was asked, except the return to Arianism of those who had joined the Catholic faith.^[48] New Advent judges that John obtained a success different from the one Theodoric wanted: he did not betray the faith, but he sought moderation.^[49]

Treccani stresses that the outcome of the embassy remains debated, because the sources are partial and sometimes partisan.^[50] The fairest synthesis is this: John probably obtained measures of appeasement, but refused or could not obtain the point that would have constituted a doctrinal defeat.

The return became an accusation

After Easter 526, John set off back towards Italy. Theodoric did not see in his triumphal reception an honour paid to the communion of the Church. He saw in it a further sign of connivance between Rome and Constantinople. New Advent says that he was exasperated against the pope, whose mission had obtained a result different from what he wanted and whom he suspected of favouring the defenders of ancient Roman liberty.^[51]

On his return, John was arrested with the members of his embassy and shut up at Ravenna.^[52][53] He died shortly afterwards, on 18 May 526, worn out by the journey, illness and detention.

Death in prison

The Liber Pontificalis reports that blessed John, ill in prison, gave up the ghost and died gloriously at Ravenna.^[54] The text explicitly calls John a martyr in one of its traditions and attributes the death of Theodoric, which occurred shortly afterwards, to the judgement of God.^[55]

Modern criticism must not erase the ancient spiritual reading. The assured historical fact must be distinguished from the providential interpretation. The fact: John died detained by Theodoric after an imposed mission. The interpretation: the Church sees in this death a victim of Christ, not a mere political accident.

Gregory of Tours, who acknowledges having no written account of this suffering and reports what he heard, recounts that John, an enemy of heresy, went to beg Theodoric — who planned to put to death all the Catholics of Italy —, was arrested and tortured, then died shortly afterwards in prison at Ravenna.^[56]

The return of the body to Rome

The body of John was brought back to Rome and laid in Saint Peter's on 27 May 526, under the consulship of Olybrius according to the Liber Pontificalis.^[57] New Advent notes that his epitaph makes no direct allusion to his historical role, but that the Latin Church placed him among the martyrs.^[58][59]

The Anonymus Valesianus adds an episode that the Liber does not repeat: while the procession accompanied John's bier, a possessed man was suddenly healed as the body passed, and the crowd, with the senators, began taking fragments of the dead man's garments to keep as relics.^[60]

Loomis notes, following Duchesne, a line of epitaph presenting him as fallen a victim for Christ: "Priest of the Lord, thou art fallen a victim for Christ" (English text of the Loomis edition, in note).^[61] This epigraphic memory joins the liturgical memory: John is honoured not because he won an arm-wrestle, but because he kept his charge unto prison.

The paschal computation of Dionysius Exiguus

Britannica mentions that John I ratified the Alexandrian computation of the date of Easter, a computation that would eventually be received in the West.^[62] Treccani specifies that, probably towards the end of 525, John asked Boniface, primicerius of the notaries of the Curia — the primicerius being the head of the notaries, those clerics charged with drawing up and keeping the official acts of the Church of Rome —, to press Dionysius Exiguus to compute and fix the date of Easter.^[63]

This dossier may seem secondary beside Ravenna. It is not. In Christian antiquity, the date of Easter was not a calendar detail. It expressed the liturgical unity of the Church around the Resurrection. John, pope of the Paschal journey to Constantinople, was also a pope linked to Paschal stabilization in the West.

The restoration of the Roman cemeteries

The Liber Pontificalis attributes to John the restoration of three places: the cemetery of the martyrs Nereus and Achilleus on the Via Ardeatina, the cemetery of Felix and Adauctus, and the cemetery of Priscilla.^[64] These notices are brief, but they show a pope attentive to the material memory of the martyrs.

The figure of John is thereby strengthened. The pope who would die a prisoner at Ravenna restored at Rome the places of the ancient witnesses. His own martyrdom fits into a chain: catacombs, memory of the martyrs, basilica of Saint Peter.

Liturgy and chant

Treccani also mentions directives on the use of chant in religious functions, preserved in a Carolingian compilation of the last quarter of the 8th century (Andrieu, III, p. 223).^[65] The detail remains thin, but it indicates that the pontificate of John was not reduced to the Eastern embassy.

Even a short pontificate keeps a share of ordinary administration: liturgy, monuments, calendar, notariate, relations with the Churches. The tragedy of Ravenna must not absorb the whole man.

One Catholic generation

John and Boethius belonged to the same generation of Roman Catholics formed by the Christological controversies. Boethius wrote against Nestorius and Eutyches; John, probably the addressee of these treatises, then became the pope who had to cross the conflict between an Arian king and a Catholic emperor.^[66][67]

The link is not only biographical. It gives a spiritual tone to the pontificate. John did not defend a vague Roman identity; he belonged to a world where dogmatic precision protected the truth of Christ.

The Catholic way between two errors

Boethius formulated the Catholic faith as a way holding together what heresies separate or confuse: two natures, one person (original English text in note).^[68][69] This faith was that of Chalcedon, that which Hormisdas had just had recognized at Constantinople, that which Arianism contradicted still more radically by wounding the confession of the Son.

In this context, the limit set to Theodoric became clearer. John could defend Arians against unjust violence; he could not treat Arianism as an alternative Catholic faith. Charity asked for clemency, but truth asked for the boundary.

Secure core and traditions

This distinction protects the article from two errors. The first would be repeating the whole Liber Pontificalis as a modern report. The second would be emptying the tradition of its substance on the pretext that it is ancient. The historical core is strong: John was arrested by an Arian king after a religious and political mission; he died in prison; the Church venerates him as a martyr.

A death that exposed Theodoric

The Anonymus Valesianus constructed the end of Theodoric as a fall: the king who had governed Italy well became the man of fear, of false accusations, of the death of Boethius, of Symmachus, then of John.^[70][71] The source was rhetorical, but the historical movement was real. The end of the reign was darker than its beginning.

John I stood at the centre of this reversal. He did not fight Theodoric with arms. He simply revealed, by his fidelity, that political power became tyrannical when it demanded of the Church a word contrary to the faith.

A pope of visible communion

John I bore a double memory: Constantinople and Ravenna. At Constantinople, he made visible the restored communion between East and West. At Ravenna, he showed that this communion could not be subordinated to the fear of a sovereign.

His heritage is therefore very current for the history of the papacy. The pope is not first a diplomat. He may practise diplomacy; he may seek peace; he may ask for clemency even for those in error. But he remains the successor of Peter before being the negotiator of a king.

A martyr without spectacular words

John left no known great pontifical treatise. His strongest sentence comes to us through the Anonymus Valesianus: "what you will do, do quickly". It evokes less a strategy than a readiness for sacrifice.^[72]

The sanctity of John I was that of a sober fidelity: he left, he asked for what he could ask, he refused what he could not promise, he returned, he was imprisoned, he died. The account is short. But it gave the Church a clear witness of the interior freedom of the shepherd.

• Pope Saint Hormisdas — predecessor of John I, artisan of the end of the Acacian schism in 519.
• Pope Saint Symmachus — pope of the Laurentian crisis, under the reign of Theodoric.
• Pope Saint Felix III — opened the rupture with Acacius of Constantinople in 484.
• Council of Chalcedon — Christological definition at the heart of the Eastern crises.
• Pope Saint Felix IV — successor of John I after the death of Theodoric.