Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 8.djvu/33

 INNOCENCE

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INNOCENT

Slater, Manual of Moral Thmlvgy (New York, 190S): Rick- ABT, Ethics and Natural Law (London, 1908); Cenicot, Theolo- aim moralis Instilutiones (Louvain, 1898); Ballerini, Opus Ihcologkum morule (Prato, 1899).

Joseph F. Delanet. Innocence, Proofs of. See Orde.vls.

Innocent I, Pope; date of birth unknow-n; d. 12 March, 417. Before his elevation to the Chair of Peter, very little is known concerning the life of this energetic pope, so zealous for the welfare of the whole Church. According to the "Liber Pontificalis" he was a native of Albano; his father was called Inno- centius. He grew up among the Roman clergy and in the service of the Roman Church. After the death of Anastasius (Dec, 401) he was unanimously chosen Bishop of Rome by the clergy and people. Not much has come down to us concerning his ecclesiastical ac- tivities in Rome. Nevertheless one or two instances of his zeal for the purity of the Catholic Faith and for church discipline are well attested. He took .several churches in Rome from the Novatians (Socrates, Hist. Eccl., \ll, ii) and caused the Photinian Marcus to be banished from the city. A drastic decree, which the Emperor Honorius issued from Rome (22 Feb., 407) against the Manicheans, the Montanists, and the Pris- cillianists (Codex Theodosianus, X\'I, 5, 40), was very probably not issued without his concurrence. Tlu-ough the munificence of \'estina, a rich Roman matron, Innocent was enabled to build and richly endow a church dedicated to Sts. Gervasius and Protasius; this was the old Titulus Vcstintr which still stands under the name of .San Vitale. The siege and capture of Rome by the Goths under .\laric (40S-10) occurred in his pontificate. When, at the time of the first siege, the barbarian leader had declared that he would withdraw only on coinlition that the Romans should arrange a peace favourable to him, an embassy of the Romans went to Honorius, at Ravenna, to try, if pos- sible, to make peace between him and the Goths. Pope Innocent also joined this embassy. But all his endeavours to bring about peace failed. The Cioths then recommenced the siege of Rome, so that the pope and the envoys were not able to return to the city, which was taken antl sacked in 410. From the begin- ning of his pontificate. Innocent often acted as head of the whole Church, both East and West.

In his letter to .\rchbishop Anysius of Thessalonica, in which he informed the latter of his own election to the See of Rome, he also confirmed the privileges which had been bestowed upon the archbishop by previous popes. When Eastern lUyria fell to the Eastern Empire (,379) Pope Damasus had asserteil and preserved the ancient rights of the papacy in those parts, and his successor Siricius had bestowed on the .\rchbishop of Thessalonica the privilege of confirming and consecrating the bishops of Eastern lUyria. These prerogatives were renewed by InncH cent (Ep. i), and by a later letter (Ep. xiii, 17 June, 412) the pope entrusted the supreme administration of the dioceses of Eastern Illyria to Archbishop Rufus of Thessalonica, as representative of the Holy See. By this means the papal vicariate of Illyria was put on a sound basis, and the archbishops of Thessalonica became vicars of the popes. On 15 Feb., 404, In- nocent sent an important decretal to Bishop Victri- cius of Rouen (Ep. ii), who had laid before the pope a list of disciplinary matters fordecision. The points at issue concerned the consecration of bishops, ad- missions into the ranks of the clergy, the disputes of clerics, whereby important matters {caus(e majores) were to be brought from the episcopal tribunal to the Apostolic See, also the ordinations of the clergy, celi- bacy, the reception of converted Novatians or Dona- tists into the Church, monks, and nuns. In general, the pope indicated the discipline of the Roman Church as being the norm for the other bishops to follow. Innocent directed a similar decretal to the Spanish

bishops (Ep, iii) among whom difficulties had arisen, especially regarding the Priscillianist bishops. The pope regulated this matter and at the same time settled other questions of ecclesiastical discipline.

Similar letters, disciplinary in content, or decisions of important cases, were sent to Bishop Exuperius of Toulouse (Ep. vi), to the bishops of Macedonia (Ep. xvii), to Decentius, Bishop of Gubbio (Ep. xxv), to Felix, Bi.shop of Xocera (Ep. xxxviii). Innocent also addressed shorter letters to several other bishops, among them a letter to two British bishops, Maximus and Severus, in which he decided that those priests who, while priests, had begotten children should be dismissed from their sacred office (Ep. xxxix). En- voys were sent by the Synod of Carthage (404) to the Bishop of Rome, or the bishop of the city where the emperor was staying, in ortler to provide for severer treatment of the Montanists. The envoys came to Rome, and Pope Innocent obtained from the Emperor Honorius a strong decree against tho.se African secta- ries, by which many adherents of Montanism were in- duced to be reconciled with the Church. The Chris- tian East also claimed a share of the pope's energy. St. John Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople, who was persecuted by the Empress Eudoxia and the Alexandrian patriarch Theophilus, threw himself on the protection of Innocent. Theophilus had already informed the latter of thedepositionof John, following on the illegal Synod of the Oak (ad quereum). But the pope did not recognize the sentence of the sjTiod, summoned Theophilus to a new synod at Rome, con- soled the exiled Patriarch of Byzantium, and WTote a letter to the clergy and people of Constantinople in which he animadverted severely on their conduct towards their bishop (John), and announced his intention of calling a general sjTiod, at which the matter would be sifted and decided, Thessalonica was suggested as the place of assembly. The pope informed Honorius, Emperor of the West, of these proceedings, whereupon the latter wrote three letters to his brother, the Eastern Emperor Arcadius, and besought Arcadius to summon the Eastern bishops to a synod at Thessalonica, before which the Patriarch Theophilus was to appear. The messengers who brought these three letters were ill received, Arcadius being quite favourable to Theophilus. In spite of the efforts of the pope and the Western emperor, the synod never took place. Innocent remained in correspondence with the exiled Jolui; when, from his place of banishment the latter thanked him for his kind solicitude, the pope answered with another com- forting letter, which the exiled bishop received only a short time before his death (407) (Epp. xi, xii). The pope did not recognize Arsacius and Atticus, who had been raised to the See of Constantinople instead of the unlawfully deposed John.

After John's death, Innocent desired that the name of the deceased patriarch should be restored to the diptychs, but it was not until after Theophilus was dead (412) that Atticus yielded. The pope obtained from many other Eastern bishops a similar recogni- tion of the wrong done to St. Jolin Chrysostom. The schism at Antioch, dating from the Arian conflicts, was finally settled in Innocent's time. Alexander, Patriarch of Antioch, succeeded, about 413-15, in gaining over to his cause the adherents of the former Bishop Eustathius; he also received into the ranks of his clergy the followers of Paulinus, who had fled to Italy and had been ordained there. Innocent in- formed Alexander of the.se proceedings, and as Alexan- der restored the name of John Chrj'sostom to the diptychs, the pope entered into communion with the Antiochene patriarch, and wrote him two letters, one in the name of a Roman synod of twenty Italian bishops, and one in his own name (Epp. xLx and xx). Acacius, Bishop of Bercea. one of the most zealous opponents of Chrysostom, had sought to obtain re-