Pod Insights The Ancients The First Popes About this episode What do we know about the earliest Popes, and how did they shape the early Christian Church amidst persecution?
Tristan Hughes is joined by Professor Rosamond McKitterick to journey back to Imperial Rome to uncover the fascinating tales of the earliest Popes, focusing on St. Peter and his possible connection to Mark's gospel, Sylvester I during Constantine's reign, and Pope Leo I who confronted Atilla the Hun.
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Presented by Tristan Hughes. Audio editor is Aidan Lonergan and the producer is Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.
All music courtesy of Epidemic Sounds
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1:37 Speaker 04 I'm Connor Tomlinson from Love on the Spectrum. History is my thing, and I've been waiting my whole life for a show like this one. And I'm Carter Roy, and this is What the Fact? Three facts a week, each with a whole story behind it. The history class you actually wished you had in school. New episodes every Wednesday. Follow What the Fact wherever you listen or subscribe on YouTube at WhatTheFactPod.
2:05 Tristan Hughes? Hello, I hope you're doing well and welcome to this latest episode of The Ancients, where we are going back to Imperial Rome almost 2000 years ago to explore the fascinating story of the earliest popes, the first bishops of Rome and what we know about them. This was a fascinating chat. I think you'll really enjoy when we talk about St Peter, first of all, including the connection he may well have had to the writing of Mark's Gospel. That and so much more is to come with our guest, the brilliant Professor Rosamund McKittrick, Emeritus Fellow at Sydney Sussex College, the University of Cambridge. I really do hope you enjoy. Let's go.
2:57 Tristan Hughes? And so I tell you, Peter, you are a rock, and on this rock foundation I will build my church, and not even death will ever be able to overcome it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. What you prohibit on earth will be prohibited in heaven, and what you permit on earth will be permitted in heaven.
3:25 Tristan Hughes? That was an excerpt from the Book of Matthew, chapter 17, where Jesus converses with his disciple Peter, the man who would go on to become the first bishop of Rome, the first pope. Despite facing persecutions, the Christian community in Rome endured over the following centuries as a minority, under the rule of pagan emperors. That was until the early 4th century, when Christianity began to rise to the fore and the power of these early popes began to increase.
3:59 Tristan Hughes? The story of the first popes is preserved in a fascinating source known as the Liber Pontificales, a book of papal biographies from Peter to the 15th century. In this episode, we're going to explore this work and the information it reveals about the earliest popes. We'll focus on a few key bishops of Rome, Saint Peter first of all, naturally, then Sylvester the First, who lived during the era of Constantine, a massive moment for the Christian church in Rome, and finally Pope Leo the First, who had an encounter with the infamous Attila the Hun. This is the story of the first popes, with our guest, Professor Rosamund McIttrick.
4:43 Tristan Hughes? Rosamund, it is such a pleasure to have you on the podcast today.
4:47 Speaker 05 It's very nice to be here as well, Tristan. Thank you for inviting me.
4:50 Tristan Hughes? You're more than welcome. And to talk about the first popes, and in particular, this key work which talks a lot about them, this Liber Pontificales. I'm going to get straight into it, Rosamund. What is the Liber Pontificales?
5:05 Speaker 05 Right, well, the Liber Pontificales is a biographical history. It's written as serial biography, so it starts with Pope Number One, and it goes all the way up to Pope Number 112, with a couple of gaps right at the end, end of the 9th century. But the interesting thing is, the first section of it was first put together in the early 6th century, and they came back to it in the 7th century. And then after that, it's continued more or less on a contemporary basis. When I say "they", I mean the people actually working for the Pope in his administration. So it's written by officials within the administration who knew the popes.
5:51 Speaker 05 And that gives them special access to particular records, particularly the estate records and also the records of donations and grants, diplomatic things and the letters in the papal registers and the records of synods. So they had access to the Papal Archive essentially, and they're based in Rome.
6:13 Tristan Hughes? And how important is this text for learning about the earliest popes? When you're going really far back in the story and also, I guess, for early Christianity in Rome?
6:25 Speaker 05 Well, what one has to remember first of all is the context in which they were writing and therefore why they might present the earliest history in a very particular way. So that's one thing is the attitude in the early 6th century to the earliest popes, and I'll come back to that. The second thing is the kind of material they had to draw on. What do you do when you sit down in the Papal Archive in the early 6th century to try and reconstruct 600 years of your institution's history? Well, they did have some records. They had the records I've told you about already, the letters, synodal archives and other documents.
7:06 Speaker 05 But they also had various lists, one of which was the so-called calendar of 354, which, as its name suggests, was probably compiled in 354. And that gave a list of popes and it also, interestingly, gave burial places as well. And the burial place is listed is a signal to us that actually we can observe the archaeological material and places where there are records and inscription and epigraphic evidence of particular popes being buried. So essentially, the people in the 6th century set out to reconstruct the history from the very beginning up to then. But that's not really enough to know.
7:48 Speaker 05 That's sort of very bland and it's got no motive or interest. But for the earliest popes, one absolutely crucial factor is that the first pope, the first bishop of Rome, as far as they were concerned in the early 6th century, and indeed how the rest of the world was concerned, was Saint Peter, one of Christ's disciples. And Christ had said to Peter, according to Matthew, chapter sixteen, "You are the rock", and it was a play on the word petrus, meaning rock in Greek, "you are the rock, and on this rock I will build my church." So Peter and his church was actually founded by Christ. That's the key thing for them.
8:33 Speaker 05 And that means that to establish the history of the Christian church is, to the people writing in the early sixth century, the same as establishing the history of the papacy and the bishops of Rome. Now, when they set out to write this, they were calling on all kinds of early material. And one of the interesting things is that we can put beside the Liba Pontificalis other material that was written from the second and third centuries, and of course, the gospel stories and the Acts of the Apostles, so that we can get a certain amount of material relating to Saint Paul,
9:15 Speaker 05 to James, to Christ and Peter, and some of the other early apostles from Acts, and then some later Christian letters. And one thing that becomes clear is that the author of the Liba Pontificalis, even within this very strange structure of bishop by bishop by bishop, is trying to create an idea that the only people that mattered were this succession of bishops. In other words, they're not telling us much about any local controversy, about differences, about different religious groups.
9:54 Speaker 05 What we do hear about is the way in which individual popes, as you succeed from Peter to Linus, Clitus, Clemens the fourth pope, who all very firmly are recorded as being given their authority by Peter.
10:10 Speaker 05 Is that these people were the only ones that mattered. Their authority is the key. Whereas just occasionally, you also hear about dissident groups or dissident individuals. And one thing that's also very important, the very earliest popes in the first four centuries, is that they are of course bishops in Rome under pagan emperors. So nearly all the earliest popes are martyrs. Their deaths are recorded. Perhaps it might help if I gave an idea of what the structure of a biography in the Libra Quintificalis is. It's all very similar. Yes, please do. There's a sort of, there's a formula.
10:53 Speaker 05 So first of all, you have the name of the bishop, and it says, he was bishop for such and such. If I give you just one example of, just a simple one, Pope number 12, Annacatus. Okay. Born in Syria, son of John, from the village of Umissa, held the sea 11 years, four months and three days. So that bit of the formula is absolutely standard. Where he was born, or in fact, the Latin is nacionae. So you might want to say his origin was such and such, or his family came from such and such, or once upon a time, he had actually come from a Syrian family.
11:35 Speaker 05 But they always say, it's translated by Davis as born in nacione Syria. Son of John, they always give who his father was, from, and then a particular place if they know it from the village of Umissa, that's actually in Syria. So he really was from Syria. And they always tell you how long he was pope for. Then, he was bishop in the time of Severus. So he was bishop in the time of the Emperor Severus and Marcus, from the consulship of Gallicanus and Vetius. And because of our ancient records, we can then collate what this text tells us with the dating according to the consular years, which we get from other Roman sources.
12:15 Speaker 05 So there's lots of chronological indicators where you can verify the names and the period and the passage of time. Then it says, "He decreed that, as the apostle had instructed, a cleric should not groom his hair. He performed five December ordinances, nineteen priests, four deacons." And that bit, we can conclude they got from the register. Every pope, how many ordinances he did, which they only did once or twice a year, special occasions. And then for various places, nine bishops. Died a martyr and was buried in the cemetery of Calistus on the twentieth of April. The bishop was vacant seventeen days. Now, that actually is one of the shortest lives.
13:00 Speaker 05 Because that bit in the middle, where he decreed that, as the apostle had instructed, there's often if the bishop did give some kind of legislative guidance, or contributed to the formation of a liturgy, or held a synod, but that bit is, as it were, the historical acts. So often that can be really, really long.
13:24 Speaker 05 Now, then the bit at the end of his ordinances and where he was buried, that's also standard. So you've got these formulate bits, but latitude to add things, if he knew anything. And there are one or two instances where he says, "Well, I can't tell you who his father was. I've got no idea. The records won't tell you me."
13:46 Speaker 05 Or else, another section that gets added, "And he gave the following gifts." So you have, and that's particularly the case for some of the later lives, from Sylvester onwards, from the fourth century, where he gave the following gifts. And it lists not just churches, church buildings, but incredibly long lists of ornaments, silks, gold vessels, silver vessels, wooden doors, statues, frescoes, mosaics. So from the fourth century account onwards, the Liba Pontificalis is a godsend to art historians. Because it gives them some kind of framework and understanding of the way in which the buildings of Rome were built and then embellished.
14:31 Speaker 05 So essentially, the text has got, in its formation, has got a lot of potential to put a great lot of information in.
14:40 Tristan Hughes? So you've got that information, but what are also the frustrations with this text for wanting to learn more about these early popes?
14:46 Speaker 05 Yeah, the frustration is that they could have told us much more and they don't.
14:51 Speaker 05 There's other information you can, I mean, he was crowned with martyrdom. Well, by whom? In what circumstances? The lack of particular detail. There are some instances, if I look up, for instance, the life of Cornelius, who is Pope number twenty-two. Cornelius was particularly famous because he is the one who dug up and moved the body of Saint Peter from where he had been originally buried, as far as we can tell, on the Via Appia, over to the place where he had been martyred, on the Vatican Hill, which is where we now think of him being buried.
15:32 Speaker 05 And there's a great, long passage about this whole translation. They do tell us about that. But there was also some kind of problem with his position in Rome, that there were some, there was a rival bishop, and we don't really know anything about that. We can piece some of it together. So that throughout the text, you get hints here and there that in the first four centuries, the popes are up against the problem of pagan emperors, that they are presented as if they are quite well established, but when you read it very carefully, there are hardly anybody in their, in their little entourage. It's a very small group of people.
16:17 Speaker 05 There are quite possibly other groups of Christians in Rome who weren't quite sympathetic with this particular group. We hear very occasionally about the Jews, who are also settled in Rome. You have to remember that Paul wrote his Epistle to the Romans, one of the big letters of Saint Paul, and Saint Paul also was martyred in Rome. So there is a Jewish community, and newly converted Christians, and newly converted Christians among the aristocracy. But what the text manages to do is build up this sense of a growing church in the early Christian years, that very gradually, they're becoming more and more established. There are people who are looking after them.
16:59 Speaker 05 Some of the popes, for instance, are offered the cemeteries of leading Roman families. So that you've heard perhaps of the catacuma of Priscilla on the Via Salaria in Rome.
17:13 Tristan Hughes? Well. And that's a beautiful example, isn't it, Rosamund, of early Christian art in
17:18 Speaker 05 Absolutely.
17:18 Tristan Hughes? in a tomb of a prominent noblewoman.
17:20 Speaker 05 Absolutely, and and she apparently gave space for some of the early popes. So she was clearly, if not a Christian herself, certainly sympathetic towards them. And there are one or two other instances, and in fact, the life of Cornelius that I've just mentioned was also something that portrays the the matron, I think she's called, the matrona, certain Lady Lucina. So at the request of a certain Lady Lucina, Cornelius took up the bodies of the apostles Peter and Paul. So presumably she was paying for it. That's what I mean by the frustration.
17:59 Speaker 05 We've got all these kind of presumptions or assumptions or speculations that we have to build into our interpretation of text of what's going on. And very, very occasionally, we get clues that they are actually trying to keep their own records. There are one or two references to the act of the martyrs. And we hear that the Pope Julius, who actually is not until the fourth century, had notaries and a system of administration within the papacy. So you get a sense of the very, very early Christian community has a leader,
18:37 Speaker 05 gathers people around himself, is able to pass on the leadership to a designated heir, which is what Peter does to Linus Clitus and then Clements. And thereafter, the the election or the choice of the pope falls to somebody within that little group of clergy. And very, very gradually, you find that they get themselves better organised. There are so many of them, they have to divide Rome into the seven regions under the seven deacons. They have little churches that are built and we do have documentary and archaeological evidence of some of these very, very early churches.
19:19 Speaker 05 Buildings, not just the ones that were made out of people's houses, such as Giovanni and Paolo, if you've ever been to Rome, there's a wonderful little Christian dormouse, again with beautiful wall paintings. But gradually, they started to build purpose-built churches. And then these grow, they have to have staff. So there's a very steady growth. And a sense in which if there is any opposition, it's gradually seeing that it's not going actually to have much success. But I think that we need to remember, when we're thinking about the development of Rome in the very early years with the different religions, of what it might be like, let's
20:04 Speaker 05 say, in 19th century England, when you've got all the different church to dominations. Catholics beginning to cling on, non-conformist chapels, the Wesleyans, the Anglicans, the High Anglicans, the Low Anglicans. There's just hints here and there of the libopontificalis, of these, this range of religious opinion. But the libopontificalis wants us to think that this is all absolutely clear, with no breaks, no dissension, everything is beautifully organized and, as it were, inexorable from the very beginning.
20:49 Speaker 02 Hey, we're Nick and Jack, hosts of The Best One Yet. Behind every episode, there's research, emails, spreadsheets, and our shared Google Doc, the headline hammer. With Google Workspace with Gemini, Google's AI is built right into the premium versions of tools we already use, like Gmail, Docs, and Sheets. No new tools or extra logins, just personalized AI for the way we work. That means less time on the work, around the work, and more time finding the stories worth talking about. Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at goo.gle/workspacewithGemini. That's goo.gle/workspacewithGemini.
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22:12 Speaker 04 I'm Connor Tomlinson from Love on the Spectrum. History is my thing, and I've been waiting my whole life for a show like this one. And I'm Carter Roy, and this is What the Fact? Three facts a week, each with a whole story behind it, the history class you actually wished you had in school. New episodes every Wednesday.
22:29 Tristan Hughes? Follow What the Fact wherever you listen or subscribe on YouTube at What the Fact Pod.
22:52 Tristan Hughes? It's like this line of succession all the way from Peter at the beginning. Rosamund, that leads me into what I was going to ask next. With these various achievements that are given in the Libra Pontificales to these various popes early on, particularly, as you said, when it's the time that, you know, non-Christian emperors are ruling Rome, and these Christians are in a minority and may well be split up as well. When you look at the Libra Pontificales and how it lays this all out, how difficult is it to sort fact from fiction? Can we believe all the achievements that they label to certain popes from this far back in time?
23:29 Speaker 05 Well, one of the great problems for historians is distinguishing fact from fiction all the way through. And the idea that something is absolutely certain is, I think, mostly an illusion. Even when you have an archive, your archive's been carefully constructed with selection of material to provide the impression to posterity that you want. You just think about the discussion there was when a lot of the National Archive went digitised. So when we can ascertain it from an independent source, we are more confident in the information we're getting from the Liboponte Bicalis.
24:09 Speaker 05 On the other hand, one also has to think of history writing and the professional attitude towards history writing, which the sixth-century writers had inherited and which they had known as they were being educated themselves. Their model is the tradition of Roman history writing in the form of serial biography, which we have got from authors such as Eutropius and earlier than that, Suetonius. Where Suetonius is twelve Caesars, we know perfectly well that Suetonius is telling us factual material about those twelve emperors, from Caesar through
24:52 Speaker 05 to the end of the Flavians. But what we also know is that he's embroidering and adding, or perhaps repeating lurid gossip or lurid stories to make it into a good story. But there is a core. And I think that is something that we can then imply, that historians are capable of embroidering and adding stories. They're sometimes guilty of adding in lovely anecdotes, simply because they make the story much more entertaining, even if we can't be certain that that really is how things were. But on the other hand, they are committed to a chronological core
25:37 Speaker 05 and aware that there are certain things, such as concerted dates, decrees, certain statements, that are something that one can rely on a bit more. Now, having said that...
25:53 Speaker 05 There is one element, at least, which one can use as an example of the way in which a history can be created, which may not be completely reliable, at least not in that order. So I'm referring to the history of the liturgy. At what stage you get the Gloria introduced into the Mass? At what stage is it customary to stand for the Gospel? At what stage do you have the certain Mass? At what stage is the Agnus Dei introduced? Now, some of that chronology is clearer because it comes later, but in the very early years, we have Pope after Pope being credited with particular stages of the development of the Mass.
26:37 Tristan Hughes? Right.
26:38 Speaker 05 Now, we know the Mass was like that by the time we see it, because texts survived, but not until the, mostly the 8th century, in fact. But the actual chronological order and whether that particular Pope really did that is not so clear. So they create a history of the liturgy, which works, but on the other hand, some of it is probably extrapolated, fictions, fictionalized in a way. So we've got a representation of it, which may not be completely true, even though the outcome is not in doubt. And I think it's possible that some of the other elements, the decrees of the Church,
27:19 Speaker 05 some things which actually we can correlate with canon law, where we know that certain things were established certainly by the 4th century, but before that, it is more difficult to know whether we've got things in the right order, or whether that was just when it was introduced, or maybe 50 years later.
27:38 Tristan Hughes? Well, let's go into the stories of a few early Popes that I have on my list, to kind of go a bit, we'll go chronologically as well, and I've got Peter, then we'll do Sylvester, and hopefully we'll get to Leo as well. But let's start with St Peter. So Rosman, he is the first Pope, as he mentioned, an apostle, a disciple of Jesus, his rock. But how does Peter end up in Rome? Do we have a number of sources which actually tell us about the story of Peter when he reaches Rome and becomes the first bishop?
28:11 Speaker 05 Yes and no, I think is probably the answer to that. We have the Stoine Acts and Peter escapes, that's the famous escape. And then he is recorded in the Libopontic Picarius as having been in Antioch before he came to Rome. That's it. But in the third or fourth century, there was something called the Acta of Peter put together, which filled in the blanks. And the blanks may well not be fiction, or they may be fiction. And we get little hints of the Acta of Peter actually preserved in the life that's recorded in the Libopontic Picarius. They're using the Acta of Peter in some way.
28:55 Speaker 05 And we are told that Peter, the apostle and prince of apostles, that's a word that's often used, princeps apostolorum, an Antiochian, the son of John from the village of Bethesda in the province of Galilee, the brother of Andrew, well, that's straight out of the Gospels, first occupied the Episcopal cathedra at Antioch for seven years. And the indication of that, there's a certain tradition in Antioch too as well. But of course, in Acts, we are told that everybody disperses after the Holy Ghost and they learned how to speak in tongues and they all are sent to teach everywhere.
29:37 Speaker 05 So the tradition of the scattering of the Christian community is very, very strong in the early Christian church. And you have letters that survive from the first and second centuries, Paul's letters being a prime example, where he is writing to different communities all over the Mediterranean, advising them on their conduct and teaching them the faith. Well, Peter can be presumed to have been part of that. And of course, it's not very nice in Palestine anymore, and especially not after Tysoe's century. He has already had to escape, he's, he's basically a refugee. So then he went to Rome when Nero was Caesar, and that's all we're told.
30:18 Speaker 05 And there he occupied the Episcopal Cathedral for twenty-five years, two months, three days, and the length of time is wonky, it doesn't work. He was bishop in the time of Tiberius Caesar, Gaius, Tiberius Claudius, and Nero, so that's a contradiction. And then he wrote two epistles called Catholic and Mark's Gospel. So what this fills us in on is some of the stories that are coming out about Simon Magus and the construction of Mark's Gospel. And it's one of the traditions that Mark actually sat at Peter's feet and took dictation, and that the Gospel of Mark is actually Peter.
31:02 Speaker 05 Later, this is what is in Alibapontipicala, Peter was the complete source of the four Gospels. When he was questioned, Peter confirmed them by his testimony. Now, whether or not he did that, it is actually fascinating when you try and think of how are the Christians going to record the very earliest years? They need somehow to make records. They're passing it on word of mouth of how Christ taught them. They're preaching to everybody. But there's obviously an impulse that they should write this down, that they should have a written record. How are they going to do it? Can they get it verified by eyewitnesses?
31:43 Speaker 05 And Peter therefore is cast in the role of an eyewitness, dictating to Mark. And not only that, it's actually impossible for him to have confirmed the text of the other three Gospels, because the chronology won't work.
31:57 Tristan Hughes? They hadn't been written yet.
31:59 Speaker 05 They're not written yet, exactly. But Mark, Mark is thought to be really, really early. And there are some very early manuscripts from the ninth century which record earlier readings where actually this Mark in the position of some kind of, I don't know, not quite a godson, that's anachronistic, but a very close relationship with Peter is mentioned. But it is fascinating that they want the person who becomes the bishop of Rome and the pope to be the one that confirms. The content of the Gospels. So it's linking the development of Christianity with the popes from the very beginning in lots of different ways, not just Christ, but also this written testimony and how it's recorded.
32:41 Speaker 05 And then it goes on to say it's it's another interesting interjection by the authors. Whether in Greek, Hebrew or Latin, these Gospels are in agreement. And it was by Peter's testimony that they were confirmed. So again, we've got this interesting verification and acknowledgement that the three languages, Latin, Greek and Hebrew, are also being verified. Now, after that.
33:07 Tristan Hughes? Do you think it is, sorry, Rosamund, so do you think it is possible then that Mark did create his Gospel in the presence of Peter in Rome?
33:16 Speaker 05 It's possible.
33:18 Tristan Hughes? It's possible, yes.
33:19 Speaker 05 Yeah.
33:19 Tristan Hughes? Which is fascinating.
33:20 Speaker 05 The account then continues and it's he ordained two bishops, Linus and Cletus, and they are actually there as his supporters. And it sort of says that. But then they are recorded in subsequent papal lists as the next two popes. But then when we get to Clement number four, and I'll come back to the rest of Peter's life in a moment. When we get to Clement number four. Clement is recorded as Roman. And bishop in the time of Galba and Vespasian. But on Peter's instruction, Clement undertook the pontificat for governing the church. As the cathedra had been handed down and entrusted to him, Peter, by the Lord Jesus Christ.
34:06 Speaker 05 You will find in the letter written to James by Clement, and James is in Jerusalem and is the brother of Christ. How the church was entrusted to him by Peter. And we do have that letter. So it's another piece of very, very early construction of the purity of the succession. Right, well, then we go back to the life of Peter and we get this great long story about Simon Magus.
34:32 Tristan Hughes? Yes, who is this figure of Simon Magus, who also has a big part in the story of Peter when he's in Rome?
34:39 Speaker 05 Simon Magus is presented as a kind of magician. He's obviously a baddie, but Simon and Peter are portrayed in the Libra Pontificalis as having debates, both between themselves, presumably if somebody's listening, but also before the Emperor Nero and other people. And what it tells us is that Simon was using magical tricks and deceptions
35:06 Speaker 05 to scatter those whom Peter had gathered into Christ's faith. So it's a sort of anti-Christian figure. We don't know much more about him, except that he is portrayed as somebody who is malevolent, who is heretical. And when we get later, by that I mean, fourth, fifth century catalogues of heretics, Simon is always the first one. So the people who follow Simon Magus are heretics, but if they're exactly Christian heretics, it's really not clear. Anyway, their disputes lasted a long time, because what happens is that there is some
35:48 Speaker 05 kind of major debate, and it's not included in the Libra Pontificalis, but in the Act of Petri, we have the debate where Peter actually challenges Simon to a contest, and there's, I'm just trying to remember the details of it. Somebody tries to fly and falls to the ground and breaks his leg. Perhaps it's Simon who breaks his leg. I really can't remember now. I'd have to look it up, or everybody else can run off and read up the story of Simon Magus. But whatever the case, it is proved that Simon simply cannot have the power of God behind him. He's just not a good thing.
36:30 Speaker 05 He's been proved to be a malevolent influence, to be telling lies and deceiving. So Peter is basically coming out as the champion.
36:40 Speaker 05 There are also one or two hints in the Act of Peter, and actually you can pick it up from some exegesis about Peter in the Gospels, that Peter had been married and had a daughter. Whatever the case, by the time we get to the eighth century, there are some excavations at one of the cemeteries in Rome of Nereus and Achilleos, and they find a tomb with an inscription on it, which is very mutilated, and it looks as if it is the daughter of Peter that's in that tomb. So they immediately assume that this must be the daughter of Saint Peter,
37:25 Speaker 05 as recorded in all these ancient texts, and this is Saint Petronilla. So Petronilla is then exhumed and taken to the little mausoleum beside, which is now a little chapel, beside the then Saint Peter's Basilica, and ceremonially reburied, and she becomes actually the patron saint of the French and the Franks at that stage. But it's an instance of way little hints in an older text can then get revived and extrapolated in much later ones.
37:58 Tristan Hughes? It's so interesting, Rosamund, I could ask so many more questions about Peter. But I think we'll move on to the next pope on the list, but before we get there, we should cover the story of what ultimately happens to him, who is the first leader of the Christians in Rome at the time of the Emperor Nero. But how does Peter's story end? What is this?
38:20 Speaker 05 Peter is martyred. We aren't actually told very, very much in detail about it, but we are told exactly where. He was actually killed in the Nero arena on the Vatican Hill.
38:36 Speaker 05 There used to be an obelisk in that arena, where Caesar was supposed, ashes were supposed to be in Julius Caesar's ashes. And that obelisk in the 16th century was moved to the front of the new St Peter's Basilica. Now, it may be confusing to mention old Basilica and new. What happened in the 4th century is that when Constantine became Christian, which is what we're about to get to when we talk about Sylvester. He had a huge new Basilica built. And how they built it was to fill in an entire cemetery with rubble to make a platform and put the church of St Peter on top, just beside the arena of Nero,
39:20 Speaker 05 where they had had games and where Peter had been crucified. So that is the site of Peter's crucifixion. But as we've got this confusing story from the 3rd century about the movement of the burial of Peter, what I think we have to imagine is that it's very, very unlikely when Peter was crucified that anybody could do anything other than simply retrieve his body and bury it somewhere. This is not a rich community. And there's no indication that he was buried anywhere grand at all. He was taken out to the place where a lot of people were buried out on the Via Appia, because according to Roman law, you had to be buried outside the city.
40:04 Speaker 05 You should not be buried in the city, because that created all kinds of difficult relationships between the living and the dead. And it was also forbidden to be buried at night. So a lot of this probably had to be done in secret. He was taken away and his remains revered, but a memory that that's where he was survived. And also Paul as well. Because Paul was executed out on the Via Ostia, and he too was buried out on the Via Appia, very close to Peter. And those two were then moved back to burial places, on the places of their deaths, as a sink from their original burials. So the old St Peter's then marks this place.
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42:28 Tristan Hughes? And is it also the story that Peter was crucified upside down? I don't, is that mentioned in the Livipontificales?
42:33 Speaker 05 It's a story, and it's repeated from the fourth century onwards. How accurate it is at the time, I don't know.
42:41 Tristan Hughes? Well, let's go on to that next name you mentioned, Pope Sylvester. And we are going ahead quite a few. I think we're going ahead 33 popes or so from the time of Peter. But we're almost, this feels another important one to talk about because it's a time of a great change. So Rosamund, fill us in. I mean, what's been the situation for these early bishops of Rome up to the time of Pope Sylvester?
43:04 Speaker 05 Well, up to the time Pope Sylvester, the popes have been living, as I said before, in Rome, which has been ruled, not always in person or in actual presence, physical presence, by pagan Roman emperors. And some of the time, these emperors were very, very aggressive towards Christians, and other times, they were fairly tolerant. The two emperors that were most vicious in persecuting Christians were Decius and then Diocletian, and Diocletian is just before Constantine.
43:47 Speaker 05 So that they, a lot of them are martyred. There are various nasty stories about punishments and difficulties that different bishops have. Some of the time, there doesn't seem to be major problems, but an awful lot of the popes before Sylvester, number thirty-four, are in fact martyred. The Christian community is often quite beleaguered, but other times, they do have some support. So it relates back to what we were talking about before of different communities and different religious sympathies. And sometimes, people are more tolerant of religious difference than that others. But when we get to Sylvester,
44:32 Speaker 05 we have various conflicting stories about the actual role Sylvester played in Constantine's conversion. According to the Libra Pontificalis, of course, Sylvester converted Constantine.
44:46 Tristan Hughes? Of course.
44:47 Speaker 05 No doubt at all. But it's not actually very clear, because Sylvester had been exiled, troubled by the initial persecutions under the predecessors. And it simply says he baptized Constantine, doesn't say he preached to them and converted him. We get that from other versions, the life of Constantine itself, written by Eusebius and other Christian writers. But what we are told is that, once he had...
45:18 Speaker 05 Baptised Constantine and also the Lord cured Constantine from leprosy, which is also in the Libra Pontificalis, so it's a slightly later edition. And it is also alleged that it was Constantine who had been persecuting Sylvester, until he suddenly saw the light and converted to Christianity. And the story of that is linked up with his battles against Maximian and fighting for the control of the Roman Empire and control of Rome.
45:49 Tristan Hughes? Oh, Maxentius, yes, the Battle of the Milvian Bridge and so on, yes. They're all similar names, I know, yeah.
45:54 Speaker 05 Yes, sorry, that was my slip. Anyway, so then we have Sylvester, who is a Roman. He became bishop in the time of Constantine. We have him building up his own church in Rome. Then there's a great long list of the gifts that he gave. So an account of the decree, it actually credits Sylvester with convening the Synod of Nicaea. Other texts want it to be Constantine who was convening the Nicaea Synod. That, of course, is tremendously important in the development of Christian doctrine.
46:33 Speaker 05 But all it says is that they expounded the faith at Nicaea. This is the Libra Pontificalis version. And condemned all the heretics, Arius, Fatinus, Sabellius and their followers. So it doesn't mention a creed or anything. Then we have Sylvester convening a synod in Rome itself. And there's a great long list of all the kinds of things that he decided the church should do. So this is the first extended description of decrees on the part of the bishop of Rome. We've had references to, he issued a little decree, often about something to do with liturgy, as we've already discussed, this is very, very much longer.
47:17 Speaker 05 And then, chapter nine onwards, and it's one of the longest lives in the early part of the Libra Pontificalis, then has the list of Constantine's gifts. Church after church that Constantine established, all the gifts that he gave. So if we have the Constantinian Basilica, which is what we now know as St John Lateran. He adorned them and there's silver, there's five foot statues, there's lamps, crowns, patterns, candlesticks, chalices, chandeliers and goodness knows what else. And then great long list of estates also.
47:56 Speaker 05 So what we have in this life is the first big long statement of the way the wealth of the church gets built up with estates, not just in Rome, not just in Italy, but actually really further aboard. There are some listed as in the Middle East and in Africa as well. And this becomes something that the later lives built on because you then have more churches being founded, more estates being granted. And you can see that the church is now for the first time, and the bishop of Rome is now for the first time, becoming somebody with some property and some substance. And he then gets a staff.
48:37 Tristan Hughes? And I guess secular power.
48:39 Speaker 05 Not quite at this stage. I mean, Constantine is still the emperor. But when Constantinople gets founded by the emperor, the emperor then moves. And you actually don't have a resident emperor in Rome. And you begin to find that actually quite a lot of the local
48:58 Speaker 05 certainly associations of power are between the bishop and the secular authorities. It's not really until, well, actually with Leo two, about to talk about you, beginning to get a sense that power is actually devolving on to the bishops.
49:16 Tristan Hughes? And do we very much get a sense that this is with Constantine's patronage and what follows him? This is the beginning of Rome's transformation into a Christian city? Or as you said, at least, you know, that that increase in the prominence and power of the bishops of Rome going forwards, of the popes going forward?
49:35 Speaker 05 It really begins the transformation of the topography of the city because the centre of gravity is being shifted. And you're also getting a whole lot of new buildings establishing themselves. But the big change before that, of course, was the Aurelian walls in the third century. Because when the Emperor Aurelian actually built those walls, he was demolishing great tracts and buildings, just, he just built the wall. It's a bit like the, is it the HS2? HS2, okay. Just demolishing everything in its wake. And I don't think some people did get compensation. But that was one big change, these massive walls being built.
50:20 Speaker 05 But what you get with these huge basillicas, I mean, if you just think about it, in the early fourth century with Constantine and Sylvester, what then gets built is the Church of Saint Peter, Saint John Lateran, the Lateran baptistry, the, after the built, I'm just whistling through the list, the Basilica of Saint Paul outside the walls, the Sassorian Palace, which is the Church of Santa Croce, the Church to the martyr Saint Lawrence on the Via Tibutina, that's Saint Lawrence, San Lorenzo for Ilamora, then the Basilica
51:02 Speaker 05 of the martyr Saint Marcelina, Saint Peter. The, and then there's a big church put up in Ostia, there's a big church in the city of Albano, there's another big church built in Capua. So essentially, you're beginning to get massive changes in the directions and the rhythm of a city. And when you add validity into that, just imagine it if on Christmas Day, you're getting a procession that sets out from the Lateran Basilica, goes down to Santa Maria Maggiore, and then goes all the way across the city to Saint Peter's with horses and clergy and incense and singing.
51:46 Speaker 05 This is, this is a very, very different kind of thing. But what you have is the Christian church and the Christian buildings are settling into the already existing Roman city, but very gradually, some of the buildings are taken over, actually not that many. It's mostly new buildings, but some of the old ones, perhaps they're crumbling and their material is used, but very, very gradually you're getting this transformation. And the other thing that's happening is that more and more saints are being honoured. So you get basilicas in their honour and gradually the city is becoming a city which
52:28 Speaker 05 is oriented towards where the churches are and where the saints are. Having said that, if you look at an eighth, late eighth century itinerary of a pilgrim who comes to Rome, we have it in a ninth century manuscript. It's organised like a guidebook so that you have 11 routes, walking routes. So you set out from, let's say, the gate of St Peter, and on the left you will see this, on the right you will see that. This person is just as interested in imperial monuments as he is in Christian churches. So there's still an awful lot of the old imperial city left, the Forum and major, major
53:10 Speaker 05 landmarks, Colosseum, Arch of Titus, Arch of Constantine and so forth, Trajan's Column. But the, definitely, I think, the, from Sylvester onwards, you can see this topographical transformation.
53:26 Tristan Hughes? Okay, well, let's go on to the last of the popes that we're going to talk about in detail, Pope Leo I now, Rosamund. So how much further are we going on in time with the, I guess, yeah, reign of Pope Leo I? And what happens in the meantime? So how do we get from Sylvester to Leo I?
53:43 Speaker 05 Well, first question, Leo is the middle of the fifth century, so we're a good century and a bit later. In the meantime, in terms of history, we have Constantine well established in.
54:01 Speaker 05 Constantinople. And there is developing a split really between the east and western empires. So there's an emperor in the east, based on Constantinople, an emperor in the west, sometimes based in Rome, but often, sometimes also in Trier, sometimes in Milan, and sometimes in Ravenna. So it's not always in Rome, but actually during Leo's time, there is for some of that. You've also got the very beginnings of the settlement within the empire of new federati, federate troops, who are demanding troops.
54:40 Speaker 05 So people in Vandal Africa, you've got Huns beginning to cause problems over in the east. Leo has to deal with them. And you have also very, very strong developments of the Christian Church in Spain and in Gaul and not probably in Britain, just a bit, but Britain is a region we know very, very much less about in the fifth century.
55:11 Speaker 05 So within Rome itself, the Christian Church, according to the League of Pontificalis, is flourishing. And you've got bishop after bishop building more, organising more liturgy, building saint shrines, opening up the catacombs, all kinds of things like this.
55:30 Tristan Hughes? And so with Leo, interestingly, you mentioned the Huns, because I feel this is a part of his story, isn't it? So when he becomes the new bishop of Rome, the new pope, I mean, how powerful is he? I mean, what are, what are some of his big life achievements, as it were?
55:46 Speaker 05 Leo is mostly famous in terms of the Christian Church because he made a very, very clear declaration of Orthodox Christianity, Christology on the relationship of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost within the Trinity. He also wrote great many sermons and letters, so he's particularly famous for that. But he was also quite clearly prominent as an advisor. And he was asked to go on an embassy to the Huns on, on behalf of the Romans to try and persuade Attila to leave them in peace.
56:30 Speaker 05 It doesn't say he wasn't successful, he says he delivered the whole of Italy from the peril of the enemy.
56:36 Tristan Hughes? I just love the story because it's the story of a pope, of a bishop of Rome, who, you know, at this time is actually sent to the court of Attila the Hun because of his importance and seems to be successful.
56:50 Speaker 05 Well, some people say he actually could speak a bit of Hunnic, or whatever that language was, but this is, I think, embroidery, it's not in this particular text. But on the other hand, we've got a lot of archives. And the interesting thing is that the author writing it was very, very clear, that he had lots of evidence. Again, the Blessed Archbishop Leo dispatched many letters on the faith, which are kept today in the archive. So he frequently confirmed the Synod of Chalcedon in his letters. Twelve letters to the Emperor Marcian, thirteen to the Emperor Leo, nine to Bishop Flavian of Constantinople. To the bishops throughout the East, in these letters he confirmed the Synod's faith. So this chap has seen them all.
57:34 Speaker 05 He's absolutely confirming it. And he also gives a great long description of the Synod of Chalcedon. So this is, this is somebody who is very clear-headed about what he believes and is very, very good at communicating it. And obviously has a considerable amount of authority in persona. So persuades people that he can be trusted and is very persuasive. So obviously a good person to send off to Attila.
58:05 Tristan Hughes? And is it very much the case in the Liba Pontificale that as you get to the time of popes like Leo, do the biographies almost get longer and longer because they have more importance in this Roman world?
58:18 Speaker 05 Well, quite possibly. It's possible also that you've got more information, so they've got more to put in.
58:24 Tristan Hughes? There you go, of course.
58:25 Speaker 05 The ledgers are in more detail, because you get longer lists of donations and gifts as well. It's also, I think, what the author is trying to persuade you, you need to remember about each particular pope. So sometimes you might get a very, very short life of somebody who you think, well, he's living, surely it must be really important by then, but either they don't have much to say about him, or they simply think it's actually not fitting in with their main purpose, which is to indicate that the pope is the one who's maintaining Orthodox Christianity, who is organising the church, who is the ruler of the church, and is the person actually
59:09 Speaker 05 now who is dominant within Rome itself.
59:12 Tristan Hughes? Rosamund, it's an absolutely astonishing work, and I love how we've used it to explore the story of the first popes today. Is there anything else you'd like to mention about the earliest popes before we completely wrap up?
59:26 Speaker 05 I think one thing one could say is that there are traces of them around Rome in inscriptions and in the buildings they built. Perhaps not much earlier than the fourth century, but just occasionally you'll be lucky and can find some trace of them, especially in the underneath of St Peter's Basilica, which was replaced, the old one was pulled down in the 16th century, and they put the other one on top. Not as beautiful, I fear. But I think if anyone's going to Rome, they should go to all these very, very early basilicas and think about the contexts in which they were built and decorated.
1:00:06 Tristan Hughes? And the catacombs beneath as well, I'm guessing, to get more of a sense of that early Christian Roman community?
1:00:10 Speaker 05 Yes, I mean, a good early catacomb would be out at Saint Agnese, which is quite a small one, or go out to the Via Appia, catacombs in San Sebastiano. You really do get a sense of the early Christian there, and there is, in fact, the crypt of the early popes in that catacomb related to San Sebastiano, which one can visit to, and that would be well worth visiting.
1:00:37 Tristan Hughes? Rosamund, you've been absolutely wonderful. It just goes to me to say thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast today.
1:00:42 Speaker 05 No, it's been a pleasure. Thank you, Tristan.
1:00:48 Tristan Hughes? Well, there you go. There was Professor Rosamund McKittirig talking you through the story of the first Pope's early Christianity in Rome and the Lieber Pontificals. I hope you enjoyed the episode. Thank you for listening. Please follow the show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. That really helps us and you'll be doing us a big favour. If you'd be kind enough to leave us a rating as well, well, we'd really appreciate that. Don't forget, you can also sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a new release every week. Sign up at historyhit.com/subscribe. That's all from me. I'll see you in the next episode.
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