Saint CORNEILLE , Pape et martyr

Papa Cornelio
Pope Cornelius, Mosaico nella basilica di Santa Maria in Trastevere, XII secolo circa.

Santi Pietro, Cornelio, Giulio I e Calepodio, Mosaico nella basilica di Santa Maria in Trastevere, XII secolo circa.

Saint Corneille

Pape (21 ème) de 251 à 253 et martyr (+ 253)

Son pontificat fut marqué par la querelle de la réintégration des "lapsi", chrétiens qui n'avaient pas eu le courage du martyre et avaient renié leur foi. Saint Corneille, soutenu par saint Cyprien, les acceptait dans la pénitence. Novatien, élu antipape, leur refusait le pardon. Le schisme se répandit en Italie, en Gaule et même en Orient. Saint Cyprien écrivit alors son traité "Sur l'unité de l'Église", où il rappelle le rôle fondamental du Siège des apôtres Pierre et Paul d'où procède l'unité des évêques. Le schisme se réduisit sans totalement disparaître quand arriva une nouvelle persécution. Saint Corneille fut arrêté et exilé à Civitavecchia où il mourut.

À Rome, sur la voie Appienne, dans la crypte de Lucine au cimetière de Calliste, en 253, la mise au tombeau de saint Corneille, pape et martyr, qui s’opposa avec force au schisme de Novatien, reçut avec une grande charité dans la communion de l’Église un grand nombre de ceux qui avaient failli dans la persécution; enfin chassé de Rome par l’empereur Gallus et envoyé à Cemtucellae [Civitavecchia], il souffrit, dit saint Cyprien, tout ce qu’il est possible de souffrir. (…)

Martyrologe romain

SOURCE : http://nominis.cef.fr/contenus/saint/1858/Saint-Corneille.htmlMartyr (251 to 253)

Papa Cornelio

Saint-Joseph (Robertville), Altarraum links, Statue St. Cornelius

Saint-Joseph (Robertville), statue du chœur (environ 180 cm), représentent saint Corneille

Saint Corneille (251-253)

Son élection eut lieu après d’âpres discussions.

Le prêtre Novicien s’étant autoproclamé pape, saint Corneille convoqua un concile qui condamna Novatien le déclarant antipape.

Saint Corneille fut exilé à Civitavecchia après avoir refusé de sacrifier aux dieux romains. Il décéda en exil.

SOURCE : http://eglise.de.dieu.free.fr/liste_des_papes_02.htm

Papa Cornelio

Pope Cornelius. This illustration is from The Lives and Times of the Popes by Chevalier Artaud de Montor (1772–1849), New York: The Catholic Publication Society of America, 1911. It was originally published in 1842.

Saints Corneille, pape, et Cyprien, évêque, martyrs

Ces deux saints étaient primitivement fêtés le 14 septembre, mais en raison de l’importance prise par la fête de l’Exaltation de la Ste Croix, le pape Clément VI (1342-1352) déplaça leur fête au 16 (le 15 étant le jour octave de la fête de la Nativité de la Ste Vierge). Corneille fut martyrisé en 253, Cyprien en 258.

On commémore aussi Sts Euphémie, Vierge, Lucie et Géminiem, Martyrs.

Leçons des Matines (avant 1960)

Quatrième leçon. Corneille était romain ; il exerça le souverain pontificat sous les empereurs Gallus et Volusien. Aidé de Lucine, femme d’une très grande sainteté, il enleva des catacombes les corps des Apôtres Pierre et Paul, pour les transférer dans un lieu plus digne d’eux. Lucine plaça le corps de saint Paul dans sa propriété, située sur la voie d’Ostie, tout près de l’endroit où il avait été frappé du glaive. Quant au prince des Apôtres, Corneille déposa son corps non loin du lieu où il avait été crucifié. Les empereurs ayant appris ces faits par dénonciation, et sachant que, par le zèle du Pontife, beaucoup se convertissaient à la foi chrétienne, ils l’envoyèrent en exil à Civita-Vecchia, où il reçut par lettres les consolations de saint Cyprien, Évêque de Carthage. 

Cinquième leçon. Comme ils se rendaient fréquemment l’un à l’autre ce devoir de charité chrétienne, les empereurs en prirent ombrage. Ils mandèrent Corneille à Rome, le firent flageller avec des cordes plombées, comme coupable de lèse-majesté, et, l’ayant fait conduire à l’idole de Mars, lui ordonnèrent de sacrifier à ce dieu. Parce qu’il manifestait toute l’horreur que lui inspirait cette impiété, on lui trancha la tête, le dix-huitième jour des calendes d’octobre. La bienheureuse Lucine, aidée par des Clercs, inhuma son corps dans une sablonnière qui lui appartenait, près du cimetière de saint Calixte. Il avait occupé le trône pontifical pendant deux années environ. 

Du Livre de saint Jérôme, Prêtre : Des écrivains ecclésiastiques.

Sixième leçon. Cyprien, africain d’origine, enseigna d’abord la rhétorique avec beaucoup d’éclat. Puis, s’étant fait chrétien, à la persuasion de Cécilius, dont il choisit le nom pour l’ajouter au sien, il donna aux pauvres toute sa fortune. Peu de temps après, il fut élevé au sacerdoce, et enfin nommé Évêque de Carthage. Il serait superflu de parler de son génie, puisque ses œuvres sont plus brillantes que le soleil. Il endura le martyre sous le règne de Valérien et de Gallien, dans la huitième persécution, le même jour que Corneille souffrit à Rome, mais non la même année.

die 16 septembris

Ss. CORNELII Papæ et CYPRIANI Ep.

Martyrum

III classis (ante CR 1960 : semiduplex)

Missa Intret, de Communi plurimorum Martyrum 1 loco.

Oratio.

Beatórum Mártyrum paritérque Pontíficum Cornélii et Cypriáni nos, quǽsumus, Dómine, festa tueántur : et eórum comméndet orátio veneránda. Per Dóminum.

Et fit commemoratio Ss. Euphemiæ Virg., Luciae et Geminiani Mm. :

Oratio.

Præsta, Dómine, précibus nostris cum exsultatióne provéntum : ut sanctórum Mártyrum Euphémiæ, Lúciæ et Geminiáni, quorum diem passiónis ánnua devotióne recólimus, étiam fídei constántiam subsequámur. Per Dóminum nostrum.

Secreta

Adésto, Dómine, supplicatiónibus nostris, quas in Sanctórum tuórum commemoratióne deférimus : ut, qui nostræ iustítiæ fidúciam non habémus, eórum, qui tibi placuérunt, méritis adiuvémur. Per Dóminum.

Pro Ss. Martyribus

Secreta

Vota pópuli tui, quǽsumus, Dómine, propítius inténde : et, quorum nos tríbuis sollémnia celebráre, fac gaudére suffrágiis. Per Dóminum nostrum.

Postcommunio

Quǽsumus, Dómine, salutáribus repléti mystériis : ut, quorum sollémnia celebrámus, eórum oratiónibus adiuvémur. Per Dóminum.

Pro Ss. Martyribus

Postcommunio

Exáudi, Dómine, preces nostras : et sanctórum Mártyrum tuórum Euphémiæ, Lúciæ et Geminiáni, quorum festa sollémniter celebrámus, contínuis foveámur auxíliis. Per Dóminum.

le 16 septembre

Sts CORNEILLE Pape et CYPRIEN Ev.

Martyrs

IIIème classe (avant 1960 : semidouble)

Messe Intret, du Commun de plusieurs Martyrs I.

Collecte

Nous vous en prions, Seigneur, faites qu’en célébrant les fêtes de vos bienheureux Martyrs et Pontifes Corneille et Cyrprien, nous obtenions leur protection, et que leur sainte prière nous serve de recommandation auprès de vous.

Et on fait mémoire des Sts Euphémie, Vierge, Lucie et Géminiem, Martyrs :

Collecte

Touché de nos prières, faites, Seigneur, que cette Fête nous profite ; en sorte que, célébrant avec dévotion, chaque année, le jour où vos saints Martyrs Euphémie, Lucie et Oéminien ont souffert, nous les imitions dans la constance de la foi.

Secrète

Prêtez attention, Seigneur, aux supplications que nous vous adressons en faisant mémoire de vos saints, afin que nous, qui n’avons point de confiance en notre propre justice, nous soyons aidés par les mérites de ceux qui vous ont plu.

Pour les Sts Martyrs

Secrète

Considérez avec bonté, nous vous en prions, Seigneur, les vœux de votre peuple : et faites-nous jouir du fruit des suffrages de ceux dont vous nous accordez de célébrer la fête.

Postcommunion

Rassasiés par la participation à ces mystères de salut, nous vous demandons, Seigneur, d’être aidés grâce aux prières de ceux dont nous célébrons la solennité.

Pour les Sts Martyrs

Postcommunion

Exaucez, Seigneur, nos prières : et faites que nous soyons protégés par l’assistance continuelle de vos saints Martyrs Euphémie, Lucie et Géminiem, dont nous célébrons solennellement la fête.

SOURCE : http://www.introibo.fr/16-09-Sts-Corneille-pape-et

Reliques du Pape Cornelius à Kornelimünster

LE XVI SEPTEMBRE. SAINT CORNEILLE, PAPE ET MARTYR, ET SAINT CYPRIEN, ÉVÊQUE ET MARTYR.

Rencontre à laquelle sourient les Anges ! L'enfer voulut un jour, dans une querelle fameuse (Sur la question de la validité du baptême donné par les hérétiques), opposer Cyprien au Siège suprême ; or voici que, représailles dignes d'elle, la Sagesse présente en une même fête au commun hommage de la terre et des cieux l'évêque de Carthage et l'un des plus nobles successeurs de Pierre.

Noble entre tous, Corneille le fut par la naissance, comme en témoigne son tombeau, retrouvé naguère dans la crypte de famille où les plus beaux noms de l'ancien patriciat lui formaient un cortège d'honneur. L'élévation au pontificat souverain d'un héritier des Scipions reliait dans Rome les grandeurs du passé à celles de l'avenir. C'était le temps où Dèce, redoutant plus d'apprendre l'élection d'un Pape que de voir se lever un compétiteur à l'empire (Cyprian. Epist. X, ad Antonianum. IX), avait lancé l'édit de la septième persécution générale. Mais le césar qu'un bourg de Pannonie vient de donner à la capitale du monde n'arrêtera pas les destinées de la Ville éternelle. En face du sanguinaire empereur et de ses pareils passés ou futurs, dont la cité reine ne connut les pères qu'à titre d'esclaves ou d'ennemis vaincus, le Romain authentique, le descendant des Cornelii, se révèle à la simplicité native qu'on nous décrit en lui, au calme accompagnant sa force d'âme, à l'intrépide fermeté de sa race qui le fait triompher le premier de l'usurpateur que la flèche des Goths attend sur les bords des marais Danubiens (Cyprian. Epist. X, ad Antonianum, vm. IX). O saint Pontife, plus grand pourtant êtes-vous encore par l'humilité qu'admirait en vous Cyprien, votre illustre ami, par cette pureté de votre âme virginale qui selon lui vous rendit l'élu de Dieu et de son Christ (Ibid. VIII).

Près de vous, quelle n'est pas la grandeur de Cyprien lui-même ! Quel sillon de lumière a tracé dans le ciel de l'Église le converti du prêtre Cœcilius ! Dans la générosité de son âme conquise au Christ, il abandonne et les richesses et les honneurs, héritage de famille, et la gloire acquise dans les joutes de l'éloquence. A l'admiration de tous on dirait que, selon le mot de son historien, la moisson des vertus précède en lui les semailles (Pontius Diac. De vita et pass. Cypr.  11). Par une exception justifiée, néophyte encore il est déjà pontife. Il lésera dix ans, durant lesquels Carthage, l'Afrique, le monde, auront les yeux fixés sur lui; les païens, criant: Cyprien au lion ! les chrétiens, attendant son mot d'ordre. Dix années qui représenteront une des périodes les plus troublées de l'histoire  dans l'empire, anarchie au sommet, invasions sur toutes les frontières, peste  promenant partout l'épouvante ; dans l'Église, après une longue paix qui avait endormi les âmes, les persécutions de Dèce, de Gallus, de Valérien, dont la première, éclatant comme la foudre, multipliera les défaillances de la première heure et causera les schismes du lendemain, par la trop hâtive indulgence de plusieurs ou l'excessive rigueur  de  quelques autres envers les tombés.

Or, qui donc (Pontius Diac. De vita et pass. Cypr. VII) enseignera à ceux-ci la pénitence (Cypr. De lapsis), aux hérétiques la vérité, aux schismatiques l'unité (De unitate Ecclesiae), aux fils de Dieu la prière et la paix (De oratione Dominica)? Qui ramènera les vierges aux règles de leur vie sainte (De habitu virginis) ? Qui retournera contre les gentils leurs sophismes blasphématoires (Lib. ad Demetria-num, et De idolorum vanitate) ?  Sous la mort séparant et frappant, qui rappellera les biens futurs et consolera les âmes (De mortalitate) ? De qui apprendront-elles et la miséricorde (De opere et eleemosynis), et la patience (De bono patientiae), et le secret de changer en douceur de salut les poisons provenant des morsures de l'envie (De zelo et livore) ? Qui enfin élèvera les martyrs à la hauteur de l'appel de Dieu ? qui soutiendra les confesseurs sous la torture, au fond des cachots, dans l'exil ? qui préservera des embûches de la liberté retrouvée les survivants du Martyre (De exhortatione martyrii, et Epistolae ad confessores) ?

Dans son calme incomparable, Cyprien, toujours prêt, semble défier les puissances de l'enfer, de la terre et des cieux. Jamais troupeau n'aura eu main plus sûre pour le rallier sous l'irruption soudaine et déconcerter le sanglier de la forêt. Et quelle fierté inspire au pasteur la dignité de cette famille chrétienne dont Dieu l'a fait le guide et le rempart! L'amour de l'Église, si l'on peut ainsi parler, est la note toute spéciale de l'évêque de Carthage ; en d'immortels épanchements avec ses très forts et très heureux frères, confesseurs du Christ, honneur de la Mère commune, il s'écrie : « O bienheureuse notre Église, qu'illumine des plus purs rayons la divine condescendance, qu'illustre en nos temps le glorieux sang des martyrs ! Elle était blanche autrefois des oeuvres de nos frères ; la voilà maintenant empourprée du suc sorti des veines de ses héros. Ni les lis, ni les roses ne manquent à ses fleurs (Epist. VIII, Ad martyres et confessores). »

Étrange infirmité des plus fermes esprits d'ici-bas ! Ce fut cet amour même, ce fut, bien légitime, mais faussement appliqué, son exclusivisme jaloux pour la très noble Épouse du Sauveur, qui fit dévier Cyprien dans la grave question de la validité du baptême conféré par les sectes dissidentes. « Seule l’unique, disait-il, a les clefs, la puissance de l'Époux ; c'est son honneur que nous défendons, en repoussant l'eau adultère de l'hérésie (Epist. ad Jubaianum, I, XI). » C'était oublier que si, grâce à la miséricordieuse libéralité du Sauveur, le plus indispensable des Sacrements ne perd pas sa vertu, quel qu'en soit le ministre, étranger à l'Église ou son ennemi, il n'a de fécondité pourtant même alors que pour et par l'Épouse, ne valant qu'en union de ce qu'elle fait elle-même. Mais il est donc bien vrai : sainteté ou science ne donnent pas à l'homme l'infaillibilité, que la divine promesse assure au seul successeur de Pierre.

Pareille démonstration pouvait avoir son prix ; et sans doute ce fut la raison pour laquelle Dieu permit dans la haute intelligence du primat de l'Afrique romaine une éclipse passagère. Le péril ne pouvait être grave, ni définitive l'erreur, en celui dont la pensée maîtresse est toute dans ces mots que rappellent moins volontiers les adversaires de nos dogmes : « Celui qui ne garde pas l'unité de l'Église, croit-il qu'il garde la foi ? Celui qui abandonne la Chaire de Pierre sur laquelle est fondée l'Église, peut-il se flatter d'être encore dans l'Église (De unitate Ecclesiae, IV)? »

Grande avait été la vie de Cyprien ; plus grande fut sa mort. Valérien venait d'ordonner l'extermination des chefs des Églises. A Rome, Sixte II, suivi de Laurent trois jours plus tard, reprenait le premier le chemin du martyre. Galérius Maximus, proconsul d'Afrique, tenait dans ces jours-là ses assises à Utique ; il ordonna d'y amener Thascius Cyprien. Mais l'évêque refusa de laisser « mutiler l'honneur de son Église », en consentant à mourir sur un territoire autre que celui de sa ville (Epist. ultima, LXXXIII, Ad clerum et plebem). Il attendit que le proconsul rentrât dans Carthage pour se livrer, en y rentrant publiquement lui-même.

Dans la maison qui lui servit de prison quelques heures, Cyprien, toujours égal et l'âme tranquille, réunit une dernière fois à sa table ses familiers ordinaires. Au dehors, les chrétiens accourus ne voulurent pas de toute la nuit s'éloigner du maître et du père ; c'était, lui vivant, la première veille de la fête qui chaque année devait célébrer son triomphe. Conduit au matin chez le proconsul, il se trouva qu'on lui donna pour siège un fauteuil paré comme les chaires épiscopales. C'était bien, en effet, une fonction épiscopale qui commençait, l'office pontifical par excellence de donner sa vie pour l'Église en union du Pontife éternel. L'interrogatoire fut court, on n'espérait pas ébranler Cyprien. Le juge rendit sa sentence : elle portait que Thascius Cyprien serait frappé du glaive. On gagna le lieu où elle devait s'accomplir. Les soldats semblaient former à l'évêque un cortège d'honneur ; lui s'avançait paisible, entouré de ses clercs comme aux jours des solennités. Une émotion profonde régnait dans la foule immense d'amis et d'ennemis venus pour assister au sacrifice. L'heure était arrivée. Le pontife pria, prosterné en terre. Puis, se relevant, il fit donner vingt-cinq pièces d'or à l'exécuteur, et enleva sa tunique qu'il remit aux diacres ; lui-même se banda les yeux ; un prêtre aidé d'un sous-diacre lui lia les mains, tandis que  le peuple étendait autour de lui des linges pour recueillir son sang. Ce fut seulement à la demande de l'évêque, et comme sur son ordre, que le bourreau tremblant abattit son glaive. Le soir, les fidèles vinrent avec des flambeaux et des hymnes ensevelir Cyprien. On était au 14 septembre de l'année 258.

Lisons d'abord les lignes consacrées par la sainte Liturgie à l'évêque de l'Église mère.

Corneille, romain d'origine, fut souverain pontife au temps des empereurs Gallus et Volusien. De concert avec une très sainte matrone du nom de Lucine, il transporta des catacombes en un lieu plus convenable les corps des Apôtres Pierre et Paul. Celui de Paul fut placé par Lucine dans un terrain qu'elle possédait sur la voie d'Ostie, près du lieu où il avait été frappé du glaive ; Corneille déposa celui du Prince des Apôtres non loin également de l'endroit où on l'avait crucifié. Ce fait, comme celui de la conversion d'un grand nombre de personnes au Christ par ses soins, étant dénoncé aux empereurs, on l'envoya en exil à Centumcelles, où vinrent le consoler les lettres de saint Cyprien, évêque de Carthage.

Le commerce de charité chrétienne qui s'établit entre eux de cette manière ayant par sa fréquence irrité les empereurs, Corneille fut rappelé à Rome. On le frappa comme criminel de lèse-majesté avec des fouets armés de plomb, et on l'entraîna pour sacrifier à l'idole de Mars. Sur son refus de se prêter à une impiété aussi détestable, il fut décapité le dix-huit des calendes d'octobre. La bienheureuse Lucine, aidée des clercs, ensevelit son corps dans un arénaire qui lui appartenait près du cimetière de Calliste. Son pontificat fut environ de deux années.

L'Église emprunte à saint Jérôme l'éloge qu'elle fait aujourd'hui de saint Cyprien.

Du livre de saint Jérôme, Prêtre, sur les Écrivains ecclésiastiques.

Cyprien enseigna d'abord la rhétorique avec gloire dans l'Afrique, sa patrie. Le prêtre Caecilius, dont il prit son surnom, l'ayant ensuite persuadé de se faire chrétien, il distribua tous ses biens aux pauvres. Bientôt appelé au presbytérat, il fut aussi fait évêque de Carthage. Il serait superflu de relever son génie ou d'en énumérer les fruits, ses œuvres étant plus éclatantes que le soleil. Il souffrit sous les empereurs Valérien et Gallien, dans la huitième persécution, le même jour que Corneille à Rome, non cependant la même année.

Saints Pontifes, unis dans la gloire comme vous le fûtes par l'amitié et le martyre, gardez en nous le fruit de vos exemples et de votre enseignement. Votre vie nous montre à mépriser pour le Christ la fortune et les honneurs, à réserver pour son Église un dévouement dont le monde n'est pas digne. Puissent-ils le comprendre, ces descendants de tant de races illustres qu'écarte comme en vos temps la défiance d'une société dévoyée ; puissent-ils comme vous déjouer la conjuration qui s'est promis de les éteindre dans l'ignominieux oubli d'une oisiveté inféconde. Si bien méritants de l'humanité qu'aient été leurs pères, des mérites nouveaux s'offrent à eux dans une sphère plus haute où la déchéance est inconnue, où le bien produit dure toujours.

Aux plus petits comme aux premiers de la cité sainte, rappelez que la paix et la guerre  ont également leurs fleurs, dont se forme le diadème glorieux du soldat du Christ : la blanche couronne des œuvres s'offre à quiconque ne saurait espérer la couronne empourprée du martyre (Cypr. Epist. VIII, Ad martyres et confessores).

Veillez, o Cyprien, sur votre Église de Cartilage renaissant après tant d'années. Rendez à Rome, ô Corneille, son glorieux passé ; chassez d'elle l'étranger qui se dit son maître : souveraine du monde, elle n'est point faite pour obéir à d'autres qu'au Roi des rois dans son Vicaire sur terre. Puisse la délivrance être prochaine, et devenir pour les peuples le signal d'un relèvement qui ne saurait plus tarder, si l'univers n'a pas achevé ses destinées.

Entre les vierges, Euphémie de Chalcédoine eut l'honneur de voir assembler le quatrième concile œcuménique dans l'église dédiée à son nom ; c'est sur sa tombe que fut promulguée la condamnation de l'impie Eutychès, et vengée l'intégralité de la double nature de l'Époux, homme et Dieu. La grande martyre sembla conserver d'un si auguste souvenir une prédilection poulies hautes études concernant la doctrine sacrée ; à Paris, la faculté de théologie l'honorait comme patronne spéciale, et Euphémie avait comme élu domicile dans l'antique Sorbonne, où l'on gardait en singulière vénération une part importante de ses reliques saintes. Recommandons-nous de son puissant crédit auprès du Seigneur, sans oublier la sainte veuve Lucie, ni le noble personnage du nom de Géminien que Rome honore avec elle en ce jour.

ORAISON.

Seigneur, donnez pour notre joie efficacité à nos prières ; nous rendons le tribut annuel de notre dévotion au jour où souffrirent vos saints Martyrs Euphémie, Lucie et Géminien : puissions-nous en plus imiter la constance de leur foi. Par Jésus-Christ.

SOURCE : http://www.abbaye-saint-benoit.ch/gueranger/anneliturgique/pentecote/pentecote05/023.htm

Detail des Titelblatts des ersten Repertoriums des Stiftarchivs des adeligen Damenstifts Buchau, 1605 vom Stiftsekretär Gabriel Leuthold verfasst (Staatsarchiv Sigmaringen, StAS Dep. 30/14 T 2 Nr. 1757)
Motive: Apokryphe Wappen der legendären Klostergründer Adelindis (hier „Adelgundis ain geborne herzogin von Schwaben“, geviert Schwaben und Teck) und Atto von Tragant (hier „Otto Graf von Tragandt zu Kesselburg“). Des weiteren oben neben der Madonna die Patrone der Stiftskirche St. Cornelius und Cyprianus, in der Mitte oben das Wappen der Eleonore von Montfort (Äbtissin 1596-1610), links unten der Stiftsdame Dorothea von Mörsperg und Beffort (Stiftsdame seit mind. 1594, Seniorin 1605–1619) und Rosimunda von Ortenburg (Stiftsdame 1604–1610).

Attributed arms of Adelindis of Swabia, of Atto of Tragant and of other persons (including that of Eleonore von Montfort, abbess 1596-1610, under the depiction of the Madonna); illumination of an archival finding aid of the Imperial Abbey of Buchau, written in 1605 (Sigmaringen State archive, Dep. 30/14 T 2 Nr. 1757)

https://www.leo-bw.de/web/guest/themen/landesgeschichte/romer-alemannen-franken

SAINT CORNEILLE ET SAINT CYPRIEN *

Corneille signifie qui comprend la circoncision. En effet, il comprit et conserva un grand détachement pour les choses superflues, les licites et même les nécessaires. Corneille peut venir aussi de corne, et de léos, peuple, comme si on disait la corne ou la force du peuple. Cyprien vient de cypro, mélange et ano, en haut; ou bien de cypro, qui signifie tristesse ou héritage. Car il allia la grâce à la vertu, la tristesse pour le péché à l’héritage des joies célestes.

Corneille, pape, succéda à saint Fabien. Décius, césar, le relégua en exil avec ses clercs: ce fut là que saint Cyprien, évêque de Carthage, lui adressa des lettres d'encouragement. Enfin, il fut ramené de l’exil et présenté à Décius, et comme il restait inébranlable, l’empereur le lit meurtrir avec des fouets garnis de plomb, puis il ordonna de le conduire au temple de Mars, pour y sacrifier ou pour y subir la peine capitale. Or, pendant qu'on l’y conduisait, un soldat le sollicita de se détourner pour aller à sa maison prier en faveur de sa femme Sallustia, paralysée depuis cinq ans. Cette femme ayant été guérie par sa prière, vingt soldats avec elle et son mari se convertirent. Ils furent tous conduits, par l’ordre de Décius, au temple de Mars, sur la statue duquel ils crachèrent; et ils reçurent le martyre avec saint Corneille. Il pâtit vers l’an du Seigneur 256.

Cyprien, évêque de Carthage, fut amené à Paternus, proconsul en cette ville. Comme on ne pouvait le faire varier dans la foi, il fut envoyé en exil. Il en fut rappelé par le proconsul Galérius, successeur de Paternus, et condamné à avoir la tête tranchée; quand on porta la sentence, il répondit: « Deo gratias. Je rends grâces à Dieu. » Parvenu au lieu du supplice avec le bourreau, il commanda aux siens de donner vingt-cinq pièces d'or à cet homme pour son salaire. Alors il prit un linge, se couvrit les yeux de sa main et reçut ainsi la couronne vers l’an du Seigneur 256.

* Bréviaire et actes authentiques

La Légende dorée de Jacques de Voragine nouvellement traduite en français avec introduction, notices, notes et recherches sur les sources par l'abbé J.-B. M. Roze, chanoine honoraire de la Cathédrale d'Amiens, Édouard Rouveyre, éditeur, 76, rue de Seine, 76, Paris mdcccci

SOURCE : http://www.abbaye-saint-benoit.ch/voragine/tome03/138.htm

Papa Cornelio

Ritratto di it:Papa Cornelio nella it:Basilica di San Paolo fuori la Mura, Roma

Portait of en:Pope Cornelius in the en:Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls, Rome

16 septembre

Saints Corneille et Cyprien

Biographie

Après la mort du pape Fabien (20 janvier 250) qui fut une des premières victimes de la persécution de Dèce, la vacance du siège apostolique se prolongea pendant quinze mois au bout desquels, en mars 251, le clergé et les fidèles de Rome (environ trente mille personnes) purent enfin se réunir pour élire pape le prêtre romain Corneille, fils de Castinus. Saint Cyprien écrivit à un autre évêque, à propos du pape Corneille : Il a passé par toutes les fonctions de l’Eglise, il a bien servi le Seigneur dans les divers emplois qui lui ont été confiés, en sorte qu’il n’est monté au faîte sublime du sacerdoce qu’en gravissant tous les degrés ecclésiastiques. Malheureusement, une partie de la communauté romaine refusa l’élection de Corneille au profit du savant Novatien, prêtre ordonné par le pape Fabien, qui refusait énergiquement de réconcilier les lapsi[1] que Corneille absolvait pouvu qu’ils reconnussent leur faute et fissent pénitence ; ce schisme s’étendit à toute l’Italie, à la Gaule et à l’Afrique où Cyprien de Carthage soutenait vigoureusement Corneille. A l’automne 251, Corneille réunit un synode où siégèrent soixante évêques, qui excommunia Novatien[2], mesure qui, grâce à Fabius d’Antioche et à Denys d’Alexandrie, fut adoptée en Orient. Ces évènement n’empéchèrent pas le pape Corneille d’organiser le clergé de Rome et les institutions caritatives.

A la fin de l'année de 251, alors que les frontières de l’Empire étaient gravement menacées par les Goths et les Sassanides, une terrible peste secoua plusieurs provinces. Les païens accusant les Chrétiens d'avoir provoqué la colère des dieux, l'empereur Gallus (251-253) rouvrit la persécution. Dès le début de la persécution, Corneille fut arrêté et, solidement défendu par les nombreux fidèles qui l'accompagnèrent jusqu'au tribunal, il ne fut condamné qu'à l'exil à Centum Cellæ (Civita-Vecchia) où il mourut, probablement en juin 253 ; son corps fut transporté à Rome et enterré dans la crypte de Lucine, proche de la catacombe Saint-Callixte, sur la voie Apienne, le 14 septembre 253.

Saint Cyprien, ancien avocat converti, devenu évêque de Carthage, fut un des grands pontifes africains du III° siècle. Il fut décapité le 14 septembre 258 : Il convient que ce soit dans la ville où il est à la tête de l’Eglise qu’un évêque confesse le Seigneur et qu’ainsi le rayonnement de sa confession rejaillisse sur tout le peuple. Saint Cyprien est fêté en même temps que le pape Corneille parce qu’il entretenait avec lui une grande amitié : Si l’un fait à l’un de nous la grâce de mourir bientôt, lui avait-il écrit, que notre amitié se continue auprès du Seigneur.

Né à Carthage, entre 200 et 210, de riches parents païens, Thascius Cæcilius Cyprianus fut d’abord rhéteur, puis, vers 246, gagné au christianisme par le prêtre Cæcilianus, il fut baptisé. Devenu évêque de Carthage, vers 248, son activité pastorale fut interrompue par la persécution de Dèce (250) qui l’obligea à se tenir caché près de Carthage. Après la persécution, comme saint Cyprien avait repoussé la prétention des confesseurs qui demandaient une réconciliation immédiate pour les lapsi, un parti de mécontents se forma sous la direction du diacre Felicissimus. Cinq prêtres qui s’étaient opposés à l’épiscopat de Cyprien, donnèrent leur adhésion et l’un d’eux Novat se rendit bientôt après à Rome et y soutint le schisme de Novatien. Au printemps de 251, saint Cyprien put retourner à Carthage. Dans un synode, il chassa de l’Église les chefs des opposants et décida que les sacrificati et les thurificati[3], même s’ils se convertissaient, devraient faire une sévère pénitence ; cependant si une nouvelle persécution éclatait, ils pourraient, même avant l’expiration de la durée de leur pénitence, recevoir l’Eucharistie pour avoir la force de lutter. Pendant la peste qui ravagea certaines provinces de l’Empire, saint Cyprien organisa héroïquement les secours aux malades.

Le 14 septembre au matin, une grande foule se rassembla au Champ de Sextus, sur l’ordre du proconsul Galère Maxime. Ce proconsul ordonna que Cyprien lui fût présenté le jour même quand il siégerait au Portique des exécutions. Lorsque l’évêque Cyprien fut amené, le proconsul lui demanda: «C’est toi qui es Thascius Cyprien ? - C’est moi.» Le proconsul : «C’est toi qui prétends être le chef d’hommes aux doctrines sacrilèges ? - C’est moi. - Les très saints empereurs ont ordonné que tu sacrifies aux dieux. - Je ne le ferai pas.» Galère Maxime lui dit: «Réfléchis.» Cyprien répondit : «Fais ce qu’on t’a commandé. Dans une affaire aussi juste, il n’y a pas à réfléchir.» Le proconsul, après avoir délibéré avec son conseil, se décida enfin à prononcer sa sentence. Il parla ainsi : «Tu as longtemps vécu dans une doctrine sacrilège et tu as rassemblé beaucoup de gens autour de toi pour un complot criminel ; tu t’es dressé en ennemi des dieux de Rome et de leurs rites sacrés ; nos religieux et saints souverains, Valérien et Gallien, nos Augustes, et Valérien, notre très noble César, n’ont pu te ramener à la pratique de leur culte. Et c’est pourquoi, parce que tu as été convaincu d’être l’auteur et le propagateur de crimes infâmes, tu serviras de leçon à ceux que tu as associés à ton forfait ; l’ordre public sera consacré par ton sang.» Après ce discours, il lut sa décision sur une tablette : «Nous ordonnons que Tascius Cyprien soit châtié par le glaive.» Cyprien dit: «Je rends grâce à Dieu.»

[1] Les lapsi étaient des chrétiens qui s’étaient rendus coupables d’apostasie pendant les persécutions

[2] Novatien qui avait réuni autour de lui un puissant parti, les purs (ou katharoi), se fit consacrer évêque et devint le premier antipape de l’histoire de l’Eglise. Novatien, dit Socrate, écrivit à toutes les Eglises qu’il ne fallait pas admettre aux saints mystères ceux qui avaient sacrifié mais les exhorter à la pénitence en laissant à Dieu le soin de leur pardonner car seul il peut remettre les péchés. Certains évêques, comme Marcianus d’Arle, entrèrent en communion avec Novatien, et d’autres, comme Fabius d’Antioche restèrent hésitants, tandis que la plupart, comme saint Cyprien de Carthage restaient unis au Pape. L’Eglise novatienne, outre qu’elle excluait pour toujours les apostats et les coupables de péché mortel de la communauté chrétienne, tenaient pour invalides les baptêmes donnés hors de ses rangs et s’imposait un stricte règle ascétique ; comme, en Orient, ils se rencontrèrent avec les montanistes, ils poussèrent plus loin leur rigorisme en déclarant illicites les secondes noces et refusant l’absolution aux coupables de fornication et d’adultère. En Occident, ils furent assez puissants pour que l’évêque Réticius d’Autun rédigeât contre eux un gros volume (315), pour qu’Innocent I° écrivît à leur sujet à l’évêque Victrice de Rouen, pour que l’évêque Pacien de Barcelone dût s’en défendre, pour que saint Ambroise consacrât son traité De pænitentiæ à réfuter leurs doctrines. Constantin offrit aux Novatiens des conditions faciles de réconciliation puis tenta d’exterminer ceux qui restaient, mais, à la faveur des persécutions de Julien l’Apostat, ils purent se reconstituer. Il fallut attendre le V° siècle pour les voir disparaître d’Occident et le VIII° siècle pour n’en plus entendre parler en Orient.

[3] Lapsi qui avaient offert des sacrifices aux divinités païennes (sacrificati) ou qui avaient brûlé l’encens à leurs autels (thurificati).

L'hérésie des Novatiens

L’un et l’autre furent en butte à la même hérésie, celle des Novatiens. Le savant Novatien était fort célèbre dans l’Eglise de Rome, au temps du pape Fabien qui l’avait ordonné prêtre. Pendant la persécution de Dèce, après que le pape Fabien eut été martyrisé (20 janvier 250), on resta quatorze mois sans pouvoir réunir le collège électoral et Novatien participait activement au gouvernement de l’Eglise, mais les électeurs lui préférèrent Corneille. Rigoriste à l’extrême, Novatien reprochant au pape Corneille d’admettre à l’absolution et à la communion des chrétiens qui s’étaient rendus coupables d’apostasie pendant les persécutions, les lapsi, réunit autour de lui un puissant parti, se fit consacrer évêque et devint le premier antipape de l’histoire de l’Eglise. Peut-être fut-il lui aussi éloigné de Rome pendant la persécution de Gallus ; nul ne sait plus rien de certain sur lui, encore que Socrate dit qu’il fut martyrisé sous Valérien, mais ses fidèles tentèrent de poursuivre son œuvre.

Bien que rapidement excommunié par un synode romain réuni sous le pape Corneille, Novatien, dit Socrate, écrivit à toutes les Eglises qu’il ne fallait pas admettre aux saints mystères ceux qui avaient sacrifié mais les exhorter à la pénitence en laissant à Dieu le soin de leur pardonner car seul il peut remettre les péchés. Certains évêques, comme Marcianus d’Arle, entrèrent en communion avec Novatien, et d’autres, comme Fabius d’Antioche restèrent hésitants, tandis que la plupart, comme saint Cyprien de Carthage restaient unis au Pape. Les fidèles de l’Eglise novatienne qui se nommaient eux-mêmes les purs, outre qu’ils excluaient pour toujours les apostats et les coupables de péché mortel de la communauté chrétienne, tenaient pour invalides les baptêmes donnés hors de leurs rangs et s’imposaient un stricte règle ascétique ; comme, en Orient, ils se rencontrèrent avec les montanistes, ils poussèrent plus loin leur rigorisme en déclarant illicites les secondes noces et refusant l’absolution aux coupables de fornication et d’adultère. Ils furent assez puissants en Occident pour que l’évêque Réticius d’Autun rédigeât contre eux un grand volume (315), pour que le pape Innocent I° écrivît à leur sujet à l’évêque Victrice de Rouen, pour que l’évêque Pacien de Barcelone dût s’en défendre, pour que saint Ambroise consacrât son traité De pænitentiæ à réfuter leurs doctrines. Constantin offrit aux Novatiens des conditions faciles de réconciliation puis tenta d’exterminer ceux qui restaient, mais, à la faveur des persécutions de Julien l’Apostat, ils purent se reconstituer. Il fallut attendre le V° siècle pour les voir disparaître d’Occident et le VIII° siècle pour n’en plus entendre parler en Orient.

SOURCE : http://missel.free.fr/Sanctoral/09/16.php

Papa Cornelio

Maestro di Meßkirch  (fl. 1520–1540), papa Cornelio, Pieces of the side altars of St. Martin in Messkirch, circa 1535, 62 x 28,7, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart

Pope Saint Cornelius

Memorial

16 September

formerly 14 September

Profile

Bishop. Reluctant 21st pope, elected after a year-and-a-half period during which the persecutions were so bad that papal ascension was a quick death sentence.

Worked to maintain unity in a time of schism and apostasy. Fought Novatianism and called a synod of bishops to confirm him as rightful pontiff, as opposed to the anti-pope Novatian. Had the support of Saint Cyprian of Carthage and Saint Dionysius. He welcomed back those who had apostacized during the persecutions of Decius; the documents that settled this matter prove the final authority of the Pope. Exiled to Centemcellae in 252 by Roman authorities to punish Christians in general, who were said to have provoked the gods to send plague against Rome. Martyr.

A document from Cornelius shows the size of the Church in Rome in his papacy: 46 priests, 7 deacons, 7 subdeacons, approximately 50,000 Christians.

Papal Ascension

251

Died

martyred in 253

buried at the cemetery of Saint Callistus at Rome, Italy

Name Meaning

battle horn

Patronage

against earache

against epilepsy

against fever

against twitching

cattle

domestic animals

earache sufferers

epileptics

Albano Sant’Alessandro, Italy

Cerro Maggiore, Italy

Kornelimünster, Germany

Linwood, Lincolnshire, England

Representation

pope holding a battle horn or cow‘s horn

pope with a cow nearby

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Book of Saints, by the Monks of Ramsgate

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MLA Citation

“Pope Saint Cornelius“. CatholicSaints.Info. 6 April 2024. Web. 15 September 2024. <https://catholicsaints.info/pope-saint-cornelius/>

SOURCE : https://catholicsaints.info/pope-saint-cornelius/

Papa Cornelio

Pope Saint Cornelius, Antwerpen Kerk Sanctvs-Andreas-Apostvlvs

Pope Saint Cornelius

Pope St. Cornelius whose feast day is September 16th. A Roman priest, Cornelius was elected Pope to succeed Fabian in an election delayed fourteen months by Decius’ persecution of the Christians. The main issue of his pontificate was the treatment to be accorded Christians who had been apostasized during the persecution.

He condemned those confessors who were lax in not demanding penance of these Christians and supported St. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, against Novatus and his dupe, Felicissimus, whom he had set up as an antibishop to Cyprian, when Novatus came to Rome. On the other hand, he also denounced the Rigorists, headed by Novatian, a Roman priest, who declared that the Church could not pardon the lapsi (the lapsed Christians), and declared himself Pope – the first antipope.

The two extremes eventually joined forces, and the Novatian movement had quite a vogue in the East. Meanwhile, Cornelius proclaimed that the Church had the authority and the power to forgive repentant lapsi and could readmit them to the sacraments and the Church after they had performed proper penances. A synod of Western bishops in Rome in October 251 upheld Cornelius, condemned the teachings of Novatian, and excommunicated him and his followers. When persecutions of the Christians started up again in 253 under Emperor Gallus, Cornelius was exiled to Centum Cellae (Civita Vecchia), where he died a martyr probably of hardships he was forced to endure.

SOURCE : https://ucatholic.com/saints/cornelius-old/

Papa Cornelio

St. Bartholomäus (Wiesenbach), Fresko im gotischen Chor (15. Jh.), St. Kornelius

St. Cornelius

Feastday: September 16

Cornelius whose feast day is September 16th. A Roman priest, Cornelius was elected Pope to succeed Fabian in an election delayed fourteen months by Decius' persecution of the Christians. The main issue of his pontificate was the treatment to be accorded Christians who had been apostasized during the persecution. He condemned those confessors who were lax in not demanding penance of these Christians and supported St. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, against Novatus and his dupe, Felicissimus, whom he had set up as an antibishop to Cyprian, when Novatus came to Rome. On the other hand, he also denounced the Rigorists, headed by Novatian, a Roman priest, who declared that the Church could not pardon the lapsi (the lapsed Christians), and declared himself Pope. However, his declaration was illegitimate, making him an antipope. The two extremes eventually joined forces, and the Novatian movement had quite a vogue in the East. Meanwhile, Cornelius proclaimed that the Church had the authority and the power to forgive repentant lapsi and could readmit them to the sacraments and the Church after they had performed proper penances. A synod of Western bishops in Rome in October 251 upheld Cornelius, condemned the teachings of Novatian, and excommunicated him and his followers. When persecutions of the Christians started up again in 253 under Emperor Gallus, Cornelius was exiled to Centum Cellae (Civita Vecchia), where he died a martyr probably of hardships he was forced to endure.

SOURCE : https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=421

Papa Cornelio

Pope Cornelius / Cornelius Paus, stampa, circa 1870, Thijs Collection (University of Antwerp), University Library of Antwerp: Special Collections, http://anet.be/record/opacuactobj/tg:uact:975/E

New Catholic Dictionary – Pope Saint Cornelius

Article

(251–253) Martyr, born Rome; died Centumcellæ (Civita Vecchia). He had scarcely been elected when Novatian set himself up as antipope. Cornelius gathered sixty bishops at a synod in Italy and established himself as the legitimate pontiff. Through Saint Cyprian and Saint Dionysius he gained the support of Africa and the East. As pope he sanctioned Saint Cyprian’s mild measures for receiving again into communion those who had apostatized in the Decian persecution, and his correspondence with the saint remains as evidence of the primacy of the chair of Peter. Feast, Roman Calendar, 14 September.

MLA Citation

“Pope Saint Cornelius”. New Catholic Dictionary. CatholicSaints.Info. 13 August 2018. Web. 15 September 2024. <https://catholicsaints.info/new-catholic-dictionary-pope-saint-cornelius/>

SOURCE : https://catholicsaints.info/new-catholic-dictionary-pope-saint-cornelius/

Papa Cornelio

Parochiekerk Sint-Hermes. Ronse. Oost-Vlaanderen. BelgiumInterieur, zuidtransept, altaar van Sint-Hermes, top: Sint-Cornelius als paus. Parish church (Parochiekerk Sint-Hermes). Interior. . Cultural heritage; Cultural heritage|Techniques|Sculpture; Europe|Belgium; Europe|Belgium|Oost-Vlaanderen; Europe|Belgium|Oost-Vlaanderen|Ronse. Ref: PM_124854_B_Ronse. Photo: Paul M.R. Maeyaert. www.polmayer.com.© Paul M.R. Maeyaert; pmrmaeyaert@gmail.com

St. Cornelius

Pope Cornelius (251-253) was the successor to Pope Fabian. During his reign a controversy arose concerning the manner of reinstating those who had fallen from the faith under the duress of persecution. The Novatians accused the Pope of too great indulgence and separated themselves from the Church. With the help of St. Lucina, Cornelius transferred the remains of the princes of the apostles to places of greater honor. On account of his successful preaching the pagans banished him to Centumcellae, where he died. St. Cyprian sent him a letter of condolence. At the time of Pope Cornelius there were at Rome forty-six priests, seven deacons, seven subdeacons, forty-two acolytes, fifty-two clerics and more than five hundred widows who were supported by the Church (according to Cornelius' letter to Bishop Fabian of Antioch).
—Excerpted from The Church's Year of Grace, Pius Parsch

Patronage: against earache; against epilepsy; against fever; against twitching; cattle; domestic animals; earache sufferers; epileptics; Albano Sant’Alessandro, Italy; Kornelimünster, Germany

Symbols and Representation: horn and triple papal cross; cows or oxen; font; tall cross; sword; also papal symbols of tiara, church and/or triple cross; martyr's crown; palm frond (for martyr); papal tiara.

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Catholic Encyclopedia

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Catholic Cuisine has an idea for Orecchiette "Little Ears" Pasta for St. Cornelius.

SOURCE : https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/calendar/day.cfm?date=2014-09-16

Papa Cornelio

Statue of Saint Cornelius at the facade of Saint Cornelius' church at the Kerkplein in Wanroij, The Netherlands

Standbeeld van Sint Cornelius op de voorgevel van de Sint Corneliuskerk aan het Kerkplein in Wanroij

Pope Cornelius

We may accept the statement of the Liberian catalogue that he reigned two years, three months, and ten days, for Lipsius, Lightfoot, and Harnack have shown that this list is a first-rate authority for this date. His predecessor, Fabian, was put to death by Decius, 20 January, 250. About the beginning of March, 251 the persecution slackened, owing to the absence of the emperor, against whom two rivals had arisen. It was possible to assemble sixteen bishops at Rome, and Cornelius was elected though against his will (Cyprian, Ep. lv, 24), "by the judgment of God and of Christ, by the testimony of almost all the clergy, by the vote of the people then present, by the consent of aged priests and of good men, at a time when no one had been made before him, when the place of Fabian, that is the place of Peter, and the step of the sacerdotal chair were vacant". "What fortitude in his acceptance of the episcopate, what strength of mind, what firmness of faith, that he took his seat intrepid in the sacerdotal chair, at a time when the tyrant in his hatred of bishops was making unspeakable threats, when he heard with far more patience that a rival prince was arising against him, than that a bishop of God was appointed at Rome" (ibid., 9). Is he not, asks St. Cyprian, to be numbered among the glorious confessors and martyrs who sat so long awaiting the sword or the cross or the stake and every other torture?

A few weeks later the Roman priest Novatian made himself antipope, and the whole Christian world was convulsed by the schism at Rome. But the adhesion of St. Cyprian secured to Cornelius the hundred bishops of Africa, and the influence of St. Dionysius the Great, Bishop of Alexandria, brought the East within a few months to a right decision. In Italy itself the pope got together a synod of sixty bishops. (See NOVATIAN.) Fabius, Bishop of Antioch, seems to have wavered. Three letters to him from Cornelius were known to Eusebius, who gives extracts from one of them (Church History VI.43), in which the pope details the faults in Novatian's election and conduct with considerable bitterness. We incidentally learn that in the Roman Church there were forty-six priests, seven deacons, seven subdeacons, forty-two acolytes, fifty-two ostiarii, and over one thousand five hundred widows and persons in distress. From this Burnet estimated the number of Christians in Rome at fifty thousand, so also Gibbon; but Benson and Harnack think this figure possibly too large. Pope Fabian had made seven regions; it appears that each had one deacon, one subdeacon and six acolytes. Of the letters of Cornelius to Cyprian two have come down to us, together with nine from Cyprian to the pope. Mgr. Merrati has shown that in the true text the letters of Cornelius are in the colloquial "vulgar-Latin" of the day, and not in the more classical style affected by the ex-orator Cyprian and the learned philosopher Novatian. Cornelius sanctioned the milder measures proposed by St. Cyprian and accepted by his Carthaginian council of 251 for the restoration to communion, after varying forms of penance, of those who had fallen during the Decian persecution (see CYPRIAN).

At the beginning of 252 a new persecution suddenly broke out. Cornelius was exiled to Centumcellæ (Civita Vecchia). There were no defections among the Roman Christians; all were confessors. The pope "led his brethren in confession", writes Cyprian (Ep. lx, ad Corn.), with a manifest reference to the confession of St. Peter. "With one heart and one voice the whole Roman Church confessed. Then was seen, dearest Brother, that faith which the blessed Apostle praised in you (Romans 1:8); even then he foresaw in spirit your glorious fortitude and firm strength." In June Cornelius died a martyr, as St. Cyprian repeatedly calls him. The Liberian catalogue has ibi cum gloriâ dormicionem accepit, and this may mean that he died of the rigours of his banishment, though later accounts say that he was beheaded. St. Jerome says that Cornelius and Cyprian suffered on the same day in different years, and his careless statement has been generally followed. The feast of St. Cyprian was in fact kept at Rome at the tomb of Cornelius, for the fourth century "Depositio Martirum" has "XVIII kl octob Cypriani Africæ Romæ celebratur in Callisti". St. Cornelius was not buried in the chapel of the popes, but in an adjoining catacomb, perhaps that of a branch of the noble Cornelii. His inscription is in Latin: CORNELIUS* MARTYR* whereas those of Fabian and Lucius are in Greek (Northcote and Brownlow, "Roma sotteranea", I, vi). His feast is kept with that of St. Cyprian on 14 September, possibly the day of his translation from Centumcellæ to the catacombs. 

Sources

The two Latin letters will be found in all editions of CYPRIAN. A better text is in MERCATI, D'alcuni muori sussidi per la critica del texto di S. Cipriano (Rome, 1899). They will be found with the fragments in COUSTANT, Epp. Rom. Pontt. and in ROUTH, Reliquæ Sacræ. There is a spurious letter to St. Cyprian in the appendix to his works, another to Lupicinus of Vienne, and two more were forged by Pseudo-Isidore. All these will be found in the collections of councils and in MIGNE. The pseudo-Cyprianic Ad Novatianum is attributed to Cornelius by NELKE, Die Chronol. der Correspondenz Cyprians (Thorn, 1902); but it is by an unknown contemporary. On Cornelius see TILLEMONT, III; Acta SS. 14 Sept.; BENSON, Cyprian (London, 1897). The Acta of St. Cornelius are valueless.

Chapman, John. "Pope Cornelius." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 4. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1908. 16 Sept. 2015 <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04375c.htm>.

Transcription. This article was transcribed for New Advent by WGKofron. With thanks to Fr. John Hilkert, Akron, Ohio.

Ecclesiastical approbation. Nihil Obstat. Remy Lafort, Censor. Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York.

Copyright © 2023 by Kevin Knight. Dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

SOURCE : http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04375c.htm

Golden Legend – Lives of Saints Cornelius and Cyprian

Here followeth of Saint Cornelius the Pope and Martyr, and first the exposition of his name. And of Saint Cyprian.

Cornelius is expounded, and is as much to say as, entending in prayer, and the gard, in abiding things outrageous. Or Cornelius is said of cornu, which is as much to say as strong, and of leos, that is people, that is the strength of people.

Cyprian is said of cypress, that tincture, and ana, that is high.

Then Cyprian is as much to say as tincture of height, for he had tincture of the grace, sovereign, and of virtues. Or Cyprian is said of cypress, that is to say heaviness or heritage, for he had heaviness of his sins and heritage of the heavenly joys.

Of Saint Cornelius and Saint Cyprian.

Saint Cornelius succeeded to Fabian in the papacy, and was sent in exile of Decius Cæsar, and his clerks with him. And there received letters of comfort from Cyprian, bishop of Carthage.

And at the last he was brought again from exile and presented to Decius.

And when he saw him fast in the faith, he commanded that he should be beaten with plummets of lead, and that he should be brought to the temple of Mars for to do sacrifice, or else to have his head smitten off. And as he was led, a knight prayed him that he would return to his house because of Sallustia his wife, which had lain sick five years of the palsy. And she was healed by his prayers, and one and twenty knights with her believed in God, and were all brought to the temple of Mars by the commandment of Decius.

And all they spit against it and were all martyred with Cornelius.

And they suffered death about the year of our Lord two hundred and fifty-three.

And Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, was present in the same city and was brought tofore Patronus the consul, and when he could not turn him in no wise from the faith of Christ, he sent him in exile. And from thence he was called again of Angliricus proconsul, which came after Patronus, and received martyrdom by smiting off his head. And when the sentence was given on him, he said: Graces and thankings be given to God. And when he came to the place of his martyrdom he commanded his servants to give to him that should smite off his head twenty-five pieces of gold. And then he took a linen cloth and bound his eyes with his own hands, and thus he received the crown of martyrdom, the year of our Lord two hundred and fifty-six.

SOURCE : https://catholicsaints.info/golden-legend-lives-of-saints-cornelius-and-cyprian/

Papa Cornelio

Pope Cornelius / Paus Cornelius, stampa, circa 1920, Thijs Collection (University of Antwerp), University Library of Antwerp: Special Collections. http://anet.be/record/opacuactobj/tg:uact:1041/E

September 16

St. Cornelius, Pope and Martyr

From Eus. l. 6, c. 43. S. Pacianus, ep. 23. S. Cypr. ep. 52, ed. Pam. 55, ed. Oxon. ad Antonianum, item ep. 44, &c. ed. Oxon. See Berti, Diss. Hist. t. 2, p. 167. Orsi and Tillemont, Suysken, t. 3, Sept. p. 18.

A.D. 252.

THE HOLY pope Fabian having been crowned with martyrdom on the 20th of January, in the year 250, the see of Rome remained vacant above sixteen months, the clergy and people not being able all that while, through the violence of the persecution, to assemble for the election of a bishop. St. Cyprian says, that such was the rage of the persecutor Decius, that he would more easily have suffered a competitor in his empire than a bishop in Rome. At length, however, when that emperor was taken up in opposing the revolt of Julius Valens, or in his wars against the Goths, at a distance from Rome, Cornelius was chosen to fill the apostolic chair in 251. St. Cyprian testifies that he was a person of an unblemished character and virginal purity, remarkable for his humility; meek, modest, peaceable, and adorned with all other virtues; that he was not advanced to the episcopal dignity on a sudden, but had gone through all the orders of the clergy, as the previous steps, and served the Lord in the functions of each distinct order, as the canons require. At the time of St. Fabian’s death he was a priest in the Roman church, and had the chief share in the direction of affairs during the vacancy of the holy see. Far from aiming at, or desiring the supreme dignity in the church to which he was raised, he suffered violence, says the same St. Cyprian, and was promoted to it by force and compulsion. In this we see the character of the Spirit of God, which teaches holy men in humility and distrust sincerely to fear and decline such posts, which presumption, vanity and ambition make others seek and invade, who by this mark alone, are sufficiently proved to be most unworthy. And Cornelius, by gradually proceeding through all the functions of the ministry, according to the spirit of the church, had attained all the graces and virtues by which he was qualified for that high station. The election of Cornelius was made by a due assembly of almost all the clergy of Rome; a great number also of the laity, who were present, consented to and demanded his ordination. The concurring suffrages of sixteen ancient and worthy bishops, (two of whom were Africans,) who happened then to be in Rome, confirmed the same, and the elect was compelled to receive the episcopal consecration. St. Cyprian and other bishops, according to custom, despatched to him letters of communion and congratulation. Matters were thus settled when the devil found in Novatian an instrument to disturb the peace of the church.

This man had been a Stoic philosopher, and had gained a considerable reputation by his eloquence. He at length embraced the faith, but continued a catechumen, till, falling dangerously ill, and his life being despaired of, he was baptized in bed, not by immersion, which was then the most usual method, but by infusion, or the pouring on of water. Recovering, he received not the seal of the Lord by the hand of the bishop, says St. Pacian, that is to say, the sacrament of confirmation. Both these defects were, by the ancient discipline of the church, bars to holy orders. The Clinici, or persons who had been baptized in bed in time of sickness, were declared irregular, and excluded from the priesthood; not as if such a baptism was defective, but in detestation of the sloth and lukewarmness by which such persons put off their baptism till they were in immediate danger of death. Novatian, notwithstanding this double irregularity, was afterwards ordained priest. The persecution coming on, he kept himself shut up in his house; and when the deacons solicited him to go and assist his brethren, he went away in a rage, saying he would no longer serve the church, being fond of another kind of philosophy. Afterwards, with a view to make himself conspicuous by opposing the pastors, he became very rigid, and complained that some who had fallen in the persecution were too easily admitted again. By this pharisaical zeal he made a small party, and counted some among the confessors who were in prison at Rome in his interest. He was much emboldened in his cabals by Novatus, a wicked priest of Carthage. This man having strenuously abetted the deacon Felicissimus in the schism which he raised against St. Cyprian, about the beginning of the year 251, to avoid the sentence of excommunication with which St. Cyprian threatened him, fled to Rome, and there, joining Novatian, either first stirred him up to commence an open schism, or at least very much encouraged him in it. So notoriously were ambition and faction the aim of this turbulent man, that though at Carthage he had condemned the conduct of St. Cyprian towards the lapsed as too severe, he was not ashamed to ground his schism at Rome upon the opposite principle, calling there the self-same discipline of the church a criminal relaxation of the law of the gospel.

To frame a clear conception of this controversy, it is necessary to observe that those Christians who in the persecution had offered incense to idols, were called Sacrificati and Thurificati; others who purchased with money of the imperial officers libels or certificates of safety, as if they had offered sacrifice, (by which they were guilty of the same scandal,) were called Libellatici, or certificate-men. All the lapsed, upon giving marks of sincere repentance, were admitted by the church to a course of severe canonical penance, which was shorter and milder with regard to the certificate-men than to apostates; which term being completed, (or abridged by an indulgence given by the bishop,) they were received to communion. If any penitent, during the course of his penance, happened to be in danger of death the benefit of absolution and communion was granted him. This discipline was confirmed by several councils at Rome, in Africa, and other places, and at this Novatian took offence, pretending that the lapsed ought never to be again admitted to penance, or to receive absolution, not even after having performed any course of penance, or in the article of their death. Yet he did not bid them despair, but left them to the divine mercy, exhorting them privately (though excluded from the communion of the rest of the faithful) to make application to God for mercy, hoping that he would be moved to show them compassion at the last day. Novatian soon added heresy to his schism, maintaining that the church had not received from Christ power to absolve sinners from the crime of apostacy, how penitent soever they might be. His followers afterwards taught the same of murder and fornication, and condemned second marriages. 1 His disciples were called Novatians and Cathari, that is, pure. Having separated many persons from the communion of Cornelius, he decoyed three bishops from a corner of Italy, to come to Rome, and ordain him bishop of that city. One of these bishops returned soon after to the church, bewailing and confessing his guilt, and was admitted by St. Cornelius to lay-communion; for he remained deposed from his dignity, as well as the two other bishops who were concerned with him, and Pope Cornelius sent others to fill up their sees. Thus Novatian was the first anti-pope, though he was author not only of a schism, but also of a heresy, and was acknowledged bishop only by heretics. On account of his errors he is called by St. Cyprian, 2 “A deserter of the church, an enemy to all tenderness, a very murderer of penance, a teacher of pride, a corrupter of the truth, and a destroyer of charity.”

St. Cornelius assembled at Rome a synod of sixty bishops, in which he confirmed the canons, by which it was ordained to admit the lapsed that were penitent to public penance; and bishops and priests, who had fallen, only to the rank of laymen, without power of exercising any sacerdotal function. Novation, who was there present, and obstinately refused to communicate with such penitents, was excommunicated. The confessors, Maximus a priest, Urbanus, Sidonius, Celerinus, and Moses, who had been seduced by Novatian to favour his schism, were disabused by the letters of St. Cyprian and the evidence of truth and justice, and were all received to communion by St. Cornelius, to the great joy of the people, as appears from a letter of this pope to St. Cyprian, 3 and from a fragment of the last of his four letters to Fabius, bishop of Antioch, preserved by Eusebius. This historian informs us that there were in the church of Rome, in the time of Pope Cornelius, forty-six priests, seven deacons, seven sub-deacons, forty-two acolytes, fifty-two exorcists, lectors, and janitors, or door-keepers, and one thousand five hundred widows and other poor persons whom the church maintained.

St. Cyprian exceedingly extols the zeal and piety with which St. Cornelius behaved in his pastoral charge; and the courage and steadfastness with which he adhered to his duty in the most perilous times. “Should not he be ranked among the most illustrious martyrs and confessors,” says he, “who continued so long under the expectation of tormentors and savage executioners from the enraged tyrant, to mangle his body; to behead, or to burn, or to crucify: or, with some new and unexampled invention of malice and cruelty to tear and torture the bowels of this intrepid champion, opposing the dreadful edicts, and, through the mighty power of his faith, despising the torments wherewith he was threatened! Though the goodness of God hath hitherto protected his bishop, yet Cornelius gave sufficient evidence of his love and fidelity, by being ready to suffer all he could suffer, and by his zeal conquering the tyrant (Decius) first, who was soon after conquered in battle.” 4 Our saint, who deserved by his constancy to be ranked among the martyrs in the persecution of Decius, attained to his crown a short time after. Decius being defeated by the Goths in Thrace, perished in a bog, towards the end of the year 251, and was succeeded by Gallus, the general of his army, who had betrayed him. The respite which this revolution seemed to give the church was of a short continuance. A pestilence which ravaged the empire, alarmed the superstition of the new emperor, who thought he should appease the anger of his false gods by taking vengeance on the Christians, though his persecution is called by most writers a part of the seventh, or a continuation of that of Decius, whose edicts he put more rigorously in execution than that emperor himself had ever done. Pope Cornelius was the first person who was apprehended at Rome. Having made a glorious confession of his faith, he was sent into banishment to Centumcellæ, now called Civita Vecchia. St. Cyprian wrote him a congratulatory letter upon the news of his happiness in suffering for Christ. 5 In this epistle he clearly foretels the approaching conflicts of them both, and says God had, by a special revelation, warned him of his own, and that he therefore earnestly exhorted his people to prepare for it in continual watchfulness, fasting, and prayer. He adds: “Whoever of us shall be first favoured with a removal hence, let our charity persevere with the Lord for our brethren in never-ceasing prayers unto the Father for our brethren and sisters.”

St. Cornelius was called to eternal bliss in 252, on the 14th of September, on the same day on which St. Cyprian was martyred six years after, though they are commemorated together in the present Roman Martyrology on the 16th. The Liberian Calendar mentions, that St. Cornelius having been banished to Centumcellæ, slept in the Lord on the 14th of this month. St. Jerom tells us, in his life of St. Cyprian, that this holy pope was brought back from Centumcellæ to Rome, and there suffered death, which is confirmed by Eusebius in his chronicle, by St. Prosper in his, by St. Eulogius of Alexandria, quoted by Photius, (Bibl. p. 1622.) St. Pacianus, (ep. 2, ad. Symphor.) St. Cyprian, writing to his successor St. Lucius, (ep. 58,) and in a letter to the next pope, Stephen, (ep. 67,) styles Cornelius a blessed martyr. His relics were first interred in the cemetery of Calixtus, where St. Leo. I. built a chapel in honour of them; Adrian I. placed them in a stately church, which he built in the city to bear his name, as Anastasius relates. In the reign of Charles, the son of Lewis Debonnaire, the sacred remains of St. Cornelius were translated to Compeigne in France, 6 where the emperor built a church and monastery of canons to receive them, which in 1150 was put in the hands of Benedictine monks; of which famous abbey of St. Cornelius a considerable portion of these relics is to this day esteemed the richest treasure. The head and one arm were removed to the abbey of Inda, on the river of that name, near Aix la Chapelle, and there honoured with pilgrimages to this day, and miracles. Part of this arm and other bones were translated from Inda to Rotnay, or Rosnay, formerly a monastery founded by St. Amand, in the diocess of Cambray, now in that of Mechlin, between Courtray and Tourney, and converted long since into a collegiate church of canons. 7

St. Irenæus, Origen, and other fathers observe, that most of the heretics were spared in the persecutions, which fell either solely, or at least most heavily upon the Catholics. This was sometimes owing to the subterfuges of the heretics, often to the persecutors. St. Cyprian, in his last letter to Pope Cornelius, 8 makes the same remark concerning the Novatians; but attributes it to the devil: “Who,” says he, “are the servants of God, whom the devil so molests? Who are truly Christians, whom Antichrist with all his might opposes? For the devil troubles not himself with those whom he hath already made sure of, nor does he labour to conquer those who are now in his power. The great enemy of the church overlooks them as his captives and passes them by without thinking them worth his notice, whom he hath already seduced and alienated from the church, and employs his pains and stratagems upon those in whom he observes Christ to dwell. Although, if it should so happen, that one of that wretched company should be seized, he could have no reason to flatter himself with any hopes upon his confession of Christ; since it is an agreed rule, that whoever suffers without the church, is so far from being entitled to the crown of faith, that he continues obnoxious to the punishment of having forsaken it.”

Note 1. On these errors of the Novatians see Bellarm. l. 3, de Eccl. Milit. c. 2. Juenin de Pœnit. c. 1, qu. 1. Albaspinæus, Observ. Eccl. l. 2, c. 21. Orsi, De Criminum Capitalium inter veteres Christianos Absolutione, p. 251. Mosheim, Instit. Histor. Eccl. sæc. 3, part. 2, sect. 14. Nat. Alex. sæc. 3, &c. [back]

Note 2. Ep. 57, Pam. 60, Fello. p. 172. [back]

Note 3. Inter. Cyprian, ep. 46, ed. Pam. 49, ed. Oxon. [back]

Note 4. S. Cypr. ep. 55, ad Antonian. [back]

Note 5. Compeigne was a royal palace in the reign of the children of Clovis I. as appears from St. Gregory of Tours. The Emperor Charles the Bald built here a stately church adjoining to his palace with a cloister, in which he placed one hundred canons and other clergymen. When he was crowned emperor by John VIII. in 875, that pope made him a present of the bodies of SS. Cornelius and Cyprian, which he deposited in this church, which he called SS. Cornelius and Cyprian’s. Pope Eugenius III. and King Lewis VI. expelled the canons, and placed in this royal monastery monks from St. Denys in 1150, which have adopted the reformation of the congregation of S. Maur. [back]

Note 6. Compeigne was a royal palace in the reign of the children of Clovis I. as appears from St. Gregory of Tours. The Emperor Charles the Bald built here a stately church adjoining to his palace with a cloister, in which he placed one hundred canons and other clergymen. When he was crowned emperor by John VIII. in 875, that pope made him a present of the bodies of SS. Cornelius and Cyprian, which he deposited in this church, which he called SS. Cornelius and Cyprian’s. Pope Eugenius III. and King Lewis VI. expelled the canons, and placed in this royal monastery monks from St. Denys in 1150, which have adopted the reformation of the congregation of S. Maur. [back]

Note 7. See Pamelius in S. Cypr. Miræus in Fastis, the Bollandists, p. 188, &c. [back]

Note 8. Ep. 57, alias 60, ad Corn. [back]

Rev. Alban Butler (1711–73).  Volume IX: September. The Lives of the Saints.  1866.

SOURCE : http://www.bartleby.com/210/9/161.html

Papa Cornelio

Cornelius in de Sint-Michiel-en-Cornelius-en-Ghislenuskerk te Machelen-aan-de-Leie

CORNELIUS I

Letter To Fabius of Antioch

Synopsis — Cornelius describes the character of Novatian, including an interesting story about an exorcism performed on him.  The letter appears mean-spirited and as such the story it describes is suspect, especially coming  from a person who perhaps felt threatened by Novatian.

But that you may know that a long time ago this remarkable man desired the episcopate, but kept this ambitious desire to himself and concealed it, — using as a cloak for his rebellion those confessors who had adhered to him from the beginning, — I desire to speak. Maximus, one of our presbyters, and Urbanus, who twice gained the highest honor by confession, with Sidonius, and Celerinus, a man who by the grace of God most heroically endured all kinds of torture, and by the strength of his faith overcame the weakness of the flesh, and mightily conquered the adversary, — these men found him out and detected his craft and duplicity, his perjuries and falsehoods, his unsociability and cruel friendship. And they returned to the holy church and proclaimed in the presence of many, both bishops and presbyters and a large number of the laity, all his craft and wickedness, which for a long time he had concealed. And this they did with lamentations land repentance, because through the persuasions of the crafty and malicious beast they had left the church for the time…How remarkable, beloved brother, the change and transformation which we have seen take place in him in a short time. For this most illustrious man, who bound himself with terrible oaths in nowise to seek the bishopric, suddenly appears a bishop as if thrown among us by some machine. For this dogmatist, this defender of the doctrine of the Church, attempting to grasp and seize the episcopate, which had not been given him from above, chose two of his companions who had given up their own salvation. And he sent them to a small and insignificant corner of Italy, that there by some counterfeit argument he might deceive three bishops, who were rustic and very simple men. And they asserted positively and strongly that it was necessary that they should come quickly to Rome, in order that all the dissension which had arisen there might be appeased through their mediation, jointly with other bishops. When they had come, being, as we have stated, very simple in the craft and artifice of the wicked, they were shut up with certain selected men like himself. And by the tenth hour, when they had become drunk and sick, he compelled them by force to confer on him the episcopate through a counterfeit and vain imposition of hands. Because it had not come to him, he avenged himself by craft and treachery. One of these bishops shortly after came back to the church, lamenting and confessing his transgression. And we communed with him as with a layman, all the people present interceding for him. And we ordained successors of the other bishops, and sent them to the places where they were. This avenger of the Gospel then did not know that there should be one bishop in a catholic church; yet he was not ignorant (for how could he be?) that in it there were forty-six presbyters, seven deacons, seven sub-deacons, forty-two acolyths, fifty-two exorcists, readers, and janitors, and over fifteen hundred widows and persons in distress, all of whom the grace and kindness of the Master nourish. But not even this great multitude, so necessary in the church, nor those who, through God’s providence, were rich and full, together with the very many, even innumerable people, could turn him from such desperation and presumption and recall him to the Church…Permit us to say further: On account of what works or conduct had he the assurance to contend for the episcopate? Was it that he had been brought up in the Church from the beginning, and had endured many conflicts in her behalf, and had passed through many and great dangers for religion? Truly this is not the fact. But Satan, who entered and dwelt in him for a long time, became the occasion of his believing. Being delivered by the exorcists, he fell into a severe sickness; and as he seemed about to die, he received baptism by affusion, on the bed where he lay; if indeed we can say that such a one did receive it. And when he was healed of his sickness he did not receive the other things which it is necessary to have according to the canon of the Church, even the being sealed by the bishop. And as he did not receive this, how could he receive the Holy Spirit?...In the time of persecution, through coward- ice and love of life, he denied that he was a presbyter. For when he was requested and entreated by the deacons to come out of the chamber in which he had imprisoned himself and give aid to the brethren as far as was lawful and possible for a presbyter to assist those of the brethren who were in danger and needed help, he paid so little respect to the entreaties of the deacons that he went away and departed in anger. For he said that he no longer desired to be a presbyter, as he was an admirer of another philosophy...For this illustrious man forsook the Church of God, in which, when he believed, he was judged worthy of the presbyterate through the favor of the bishop who ordained him to the presbyterial office. This had been resisted by all the clergy and many of the laity; because it was unlawful that one who had been affused on his bed on account of sickness as he had been should enter into any clerical office; but the bishop requested that he might be permitted to ordain this one only…For when he has made the offerings, and distributed a part to each man, as he gives it he compels the wretched man to swear in place of the blessing. Holding his hands in both of his own, he will not release him until he has sworn in this manner (for I will give his own words): Swear to me by the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ that you will never forsake me and turn to Cornelius.’ And the unhappy man does not taste until he has called down imprecations on himself; and instead of saying Amen, as he takes the bread, he says, I will never return to Cornelius…But know that he has now been made bare and desolate; as the brethren leave him every day and return to the church. Moses also, the blessed martyr, who lately suffered among us a glorious and admirable martyrdom, while he was yet alive, beholding his boldness and folly, refused to commune with him and with the five presbyters who with him had separated themselves from the church.

(Preserved in Eusebius of Caesarea’s Ecclesiastical History 6:43)

Letter To Cyprian of Carthage

Synopsis — Cornelius informs Cyprian of the solemn return of the confessors to the church, and describes it.

1. Cornelius to Cyprian his brother, greeting. In proportion to the solicitude and anxiety that we sustained in respect of those confessors who had been circumvented and almost deceived and alienated from the Church by the craft and malice of that wily and subtle man, was the joy with which we were affected, and the thanks which we gave to Almighty God and to our Lord Christ, when they, acknowledging their error, and perceiving the poisoned cunning of the malignant man, as if of a serpent, came back, as they with one heart profess, with singleness of will to the Church from which they had gone forth. And first, indeed, our brethren of approved faith, loving peace and desiring unity, announced that the swelling pride of these men was already soothed; yet there was no fitting assurance to induce us easily to believe that they were thoroughly changed. But afterwards, Urbanus and Sidonius the confessors came to our presbyters, affirming that Maximus the confessor and presbyter, equally with themselves, desired to return into the Church; but since many things had preceded this which they had contrived, of which you also have been made aware from our co-bishops and from my letters, so that faith could not hastily be reposed in them, we determined to hear from their own mouth and confession those things which they had sent by the messengers. And when they came, and were required by the presbyters to give an account of what they had done, and were charged with having very lately repeatedly sent letters full of calumnies and reproaches, in their name, through all the churches, and had disturbed nearly all the churches; they affirmed that they had been deceived, and that they had not known what was in those letters; that only through being misled they had also committed schismatical acts, and been the authors of heresy, so that they suffered hands to be imposed on him as if upon a bishop. And when these and other matters had been charged upon them, they entreated that they might be done away and altogether discharged from memory.

2. The whole of this transaction therefore being brought before me, I decided that the presbytery should be brought together; (for there were present five bishops, who were also present today;) so that by well-grounded counsel it might be determined with the consent of all what ought to be observed in respect of their persons. And that you may know the feeling of all, and the advice of each one, I decided also to bring to your knowledge our various opinions, which you will read subjoined. When these things were done, Maximus, Urbanus, Sidonius, and several brethren who had joined themselves to them, came to the presbytery, desiring with earnest prayers that what had been done before might fall into oblivion, and no mention might be made of it; and promising that henceforth, as though nothing had been either done or said, all things on both sides being forgiven, they would now exhibit to God a heart clean and pure, following the evangelical word which says, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” What remained was, that the people should be informed of all this proceeding, that they might see those very men established in the Church whom they had long seen and mourned as wanderers and scattered. Their will being known, a great concourse of the brotherhood was assembled. There was one voice from all, giving thanks to God; all were expressing the joy of their heart by tears, embracing them as if they had this day been set free from the penalty of the dungeon. And to quote their very own words, — “We,” they say, “know that Cornelius is bishop of the most holy Catholic Church elected by Almighty God, and by Christ our Lord. We confess our error; we have suffered imposture; we were deceived by captious perfidy and loquacity. For although we seemed, as it were, to have held a kind of communion with a man who was a schismatic and a heretic, yet our mind was always sincere in the Church. For we are not ignorant that there is one God; that there is one Christ the Lord whom we have confessed, and one Holy Spirit; and that in the Catholic Church there ought to be one bishop.” Were we not rightly induced by that confession of theirs, to allow that what they had confessed before the power of the world they might approve when established in the Church? Wherefore we bade Maximus the presbyter to take his own place; the rest we received with great approbation of the people. But we remitted all things to Almighty God, in whose power all things are reserved.

3. These things therefore, brother, written to you in the same hour, at the same moment, we have transmitted; and I have sent away at once Nicephorus the acolyte, hastening to descend to embarkation, that so, no delay being made, you might, as if you had been present among that clergy and in that assembly of people, give thanks to Almighty God and to Christ our Lord. But we believe — nay, we confide in it for certain — that the others also who have been ranged in this error will shortly return into the Church when they see their leaders acting with us. I think, brother, that you ought to send these letters also to the other churches, that all may know that the craft and prevarication of this schismatic and heretic are from day to day being reduced to nothing. Farewell, dearest brother.(Cyprian of Carthage’s Letters, Letter 45)

Letter To Cyprian of Carthage

Synopsis — Cornelius gives Cyprian an account of the faction of Novatian.

Cornelius to Cyprian his brother, greeting. That nothing might be wanting to the future punishment of this wretched man, when cast down by the powers of God, (on the expulsion by you of Maximus, and Longinus, and Machaeus;) he has risen again; and, as I intimated in my former letter which I sent to you by Augendus the confessor, I think that Nicostratus, and Novatus, and Evaristus, and Primus, and Dionysius, have already come thither. Therefore let care be taken that it be made known to all our co-bishops and brethren, that Nicostratus is accused of many crimes, and that not only has he committed frauds and plunders on his secular patroness, whose affairs he managed; but, moreover (which is reserved to him for a perpetual punishment), he has abstracted no small deposits of the Church; that Evaristus has been the author of a schism; and that Zetus has been appointed bishop in his room, and his successor to the people over whom he had previously presided. But he contrived greater and worse things by his malice and insatiable wickedness than those which he was then always practicing among his own people; so that you may know what kind of leaders and protectors that schismatic and heretic constantly had joined to his side. I bid you, dearest brother, ever heartily farewell.

(Cyprian of Carthage’s Letters, Letter 47)

See Also Cyprian of Carthage’s Letters 40-56 for Cyprian’s replies and other letters to Cornelius

SOURCE : http://www.seanmultimedia.com/Pie_Cornelius_I_Letters.html

Papa Cornelio

Pope Cornelius / Paus Cornelius, stampa, circa 1920, Thijs Collection (University of Antwerp), University Library of Antwerp: Special Collections, http://anet.be/record/opacuactobj/tg:uact:1015/E

Saints Cornelius and Cyprian, Shepherds for Christ and Martyrs for His Truth

By John Paul Meenan, Editor

September 16, 2023

Saint Cornelius was Pope for a scant two years in the middle of the third century, elected in 251 and put to death in 253 in the persecution under Emperor Decius. During his short tenure, he had to deal with the machinations of his fellow bishop Novatian, who eventually declared himself the true Pope, thus also unwittingly making himself history’s first anti-Pope. Novatian was an early rigorist, teaching that certain sins were so evil, so beyond the pale – especially apostasy, failing in the face of martyrdom, sacrificing to the ‘gods’ even under pretense – that one could never again seek reconciliation with the Church (nor with God, one might presume). Banished! Cast off! Into the outer darkness! Anathema sit!

Cornelius, on the other hand, inspired by the Holy Spirit offered by the grace of his office, realized that God’s mercy was far greater than any of our sins, and that if men must forgive each other ‘seventy times seven times’, God forgiveness is infinitely beyond this, even welcoming back apostates, and those who may have apostatized seven times.

Novation proved implacable and obstinate, so was excommunicated along with his followers in a synod called by the Pope. But Cornelius, we may presume, would have welcomed them back in, had they too repented.

Although Cornelius helped lay the groundwork for healing this error and its schism within the Church, he was not so fortunate in placating the Roman authorities, meeting his end and gaining his final reward in succumbing to the hardships of exile – or other accounts say he was beheaded – sometime in Anno Domini 235. His remains are in the catacombs, and not in the tombs of the Popes.

Saint Cyprian, whom we also celebrate today, was bishop of the coastal city of Carthage, infamous for its hedonistic culture, in what was then Roman-governed territory in North Africa.  He is renowned for his theological treatises, composed in fluent and flowing classical Latin; he too was a foe of the Novatians, and helped fight and heal the ensuing schism.  A certain amount of controversy surrounds his episcopacy, as he fled into hiding under the threat of martyrdom under the same Decian persecution that took the Pope’s life. But we should not be too hard on Cyprian, for who’s to say what we might have done?

Cyprian’s flight, however, was complicated by the fact that he was the bishop, and hence was seen to be abandoning his flock. He defended his action, saying that he was more useful alive, and able to shepherd that same scattered flock, even from a distance, than dead. For would not death itself be an abandonment, of sorts? We might sympathize with that argument.

Cyprian was later to prove himself, and demonstrate his underlying courage and steadfastness, for God did call him to martyrdom eventually when a subsequent persecution arose under Emperor Valerian (the same one that took Pope Sixtus II and his deacons, including Saint Lawrence).  Cyprian penned his final treatise, De exhortatione martyrii, a noble exhortation to die of the faith, and he gave his final witness, losing his head to the sword on September 14, 258, on what would later be the feast of the Triumph of the Cross.

Todays Office of Readings offers the final words of Bishop Cyprian. When the governor, Galerius Maximus, asked him, “Our most venerable emperors have commanded you to perform the religious rites”, (that is, pagan worship), Cyprian replied quite simply: “I will not do so”. Galerius Maximus said: “Consider your position”. Cyprian replied: “Follow your orders. In such a just cause there is no need for deliberation”.

Just so. Cyprian was beheaded and went straight to heaven, and may we join him and Cornelius there in whatever time and manner God so wills.

We again live in an era where bishops are fighting bishops, cardinals, cardinals, laymen against them also and each other, and the language and stakes are increasing in intensity, with even bishops, as well as the current holder of the office of Peter has mentioned the spectre of schism.

I suppose there was never an era where such potential and incipient divisions in the Church were not the case. It seems now we are getting to the very nub of the matter of what it means to be ‘Catholic’, a follower of Christ and His Church. This requires a solid intellectual and spiritual foundation and formation, which can guide the empathy and passions, the whispers of the world in all its seductions. We must see past the fog of obfuscation, keeping our eyes focused on the truth, and the Truth, our face set like flint, in those things, those truths, that are absolutely necessary and not open to compromise, like throwing our own ‘grains of incense’ in worship of all the false gods before us.

So did our Fathers of old. So must we.  And the grace of Christ will not only sustain us, but give us great joy and hope in the journey. Unity in charity, and charity in unity.

Saints Cyprian and Cornelius, orate pro nobis!

SOURCE : https://catholicinsight.com/saints-cornelius-and-cyprian/

Papa Cornelio

Maître de Pacully, saint Corneille,  fin du XVe siècle, musée de Cluny

Columns

A patron saint for hearing ailments

Thomas Craughwell

9/11/09

St. Cornelius (died 253)

Feast day: Sept. 16

With St. Cornelius we have an example of a saint whose patronage is based on the Latin meaning of his name, combined with confused iconography. The name Cornelius comes from the Latin word for horn, such as a bull or ram’s horn. In art St. Cornelius is usually shown holding a horn, although more often than not it is a curved brass horn, the type that was used in the Middle Ages to rally troops in battle. As it happens, these war horns had an almost identical shape as the ear trumpets or ear horns that hard-of-hearing people once used to amplify sounds. And so, by this long process, St. Cornelius became the patron of everyone who suffers from any type of hearing trouble.

Cornelius belonged to one of the most distinguished patrician families in Rome. His ancestors had served as consul (one of the two chief administrators of Rome) or as tribune (the representative of the working classes and the poor) since the 5th century B.C. One of his female ancestors had been the wife of Julius Caesar and another the wife of Caesar’s political rival, Pompey the Great.

In 251, when Cornelius was elected pope, the Church in Rome was in disarray. The Christians had just endured an especially violent period of persecution under the late Emperor Decius. Across the empire there were Christian men and women who, under torture or out of fear of a terrible death, had abandoned their faith and sacrificed to the pagan gods to save their lives. There was a faction within the Church that insisted the lapsed Christians should never be permitted to return, but Pope Cornelius took the more lenient view. Arguing that for those who sincerely repented there was no limit to God’s forgiveness, Cornelius declared that after a proper penance the lapsed who wished to return the Church would be welcome.

The controversy caused a split in the Church, with a priest named Novatian setting himself up as a rival or anti-pope. When St. Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, learned of Novatian’s schism he rallied the 100 bishops of North Africa in support of Pope Cornelius. In Alexandria the bishop, St. Dionysius, persuaded the bishops of Egypt and the Middle East also to side with Cornelius against Novatian.

Cornelius’ reign was very short. In 252 a plague broke out in Rome and the pagans blamed the Christians. Cornelius was seized and sent into exile in Civitavecchia, where he was so badly mistreated that he died in 253. Although he did not die a violent death, because of the sufferings he endured in exile the Roman Christians venerated him as a martyr. St. Cornelius’ original tombstone has survived in the Catacomb of San Callisto outside Rome. It reads very simply, “Cornelius, Martyr.”

Craughwell is the author of numerous books about the saints, including Saints Behaving Badly (Doubleday, 2006).

SOURCE : https://www.catholicherald.com/article/columns/a-patron-saint-for-hearing-ailments/

Papa Cornelio

Den Hl. Cornelius an der Parkierch vu Leideleng

St. Cornelius, Pope, Martyr and St. Cyprian, Bishop, 

Martyr Feast day: Sep 16

Saint Cornelius was elected Pope in 251 during the persecutions of the Emperor Decius. His first challenge, besides the ever present threat of the Roman authorities, was to bring an end to the schism brought on by his rival, the first anti-pope Novatian. He convened a synod of bishops to confirm him as the rightful successor of Peter.

The great controversy that arose as a result of the Decian persecution was whether or not the Church could pardon and receive back into the Church those who had apostacized in the face of martyrdom.

Against both the bishops who argued that the Church could not welcome back apostates, and those who argued that they should be welcomed back but did not demand a heavy penance of the penitent, Cornelius decreed that they must be welcomed back and insisted that they perform an adequate penance.

In 253 Cornelius was exiled by the emperor Gallus and died of the hardships he endured in exile. He is venerated as a martyr.

Saint Cyprian of Carthage is second in importance only to the great Saint Augustine as a figure and Father of the African church. He was a close friend of Pope Cornelius, and supported him both against the anti-pope Novatian and in his views concerning the re-admittance of apostates into the Church.

Saint Cyprian was born to wealthy pagans around the year 190, and was educated in the classics and in rhetoric. He converted at the age of 56, was ordained a priest a year later, and made bishop two years after that.

His writings are of great importance, especially his treatise on The Unity of the Catholic Church, in which he argues that unity is grounded in the authority of the bishop, and among the bishops, in the primacy of the See of Rome.

In, "The Unity of the Catholic Church," St. Cyprian writes, "You cannot have God for your Father if you do not have the Church for your mother.... God is one and Christ is one, and his Church is one; one is the faith, and one is the people cemented together by harmony into the strong unity of a body.... If we are the heirs of Christ, let us abide in the peace of Christ; if we are the sons of God, let us be lovers of peace."

During the Decian persecutions Cyprian considered it wiser to go into hiding and guide his flock covertly rather than seek the glorious crown of martyrdom, a decision that his enemies attacked him for.

On September 14, 258, however, he was martyred during the persecutions of the emperor Valerian.

SOURCE : https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/saint/st-cornelius-pope-martyr-and-st-cyprian-bishop-martyr-596

Papa Cornelio

Katholische Pfarrkirche Kreuzauffindung in Elsig (Euskirchen), Wandmalerei im südlichen Seitenschiff, um 1520/1530, mit der Darstellung der Kölner Marschälle, des hl. Hubertus und des hl. Cornelius

The Lives and Times of the Popes – Saint Cornelius – A.D. 251

Article

Like many of his predecessors, Saint Cornelius was a Roman priest; he was the son of Castinus, or Calixtus, of the noble family of the Octavii, or of the Cornelii. Many authors include him among the regular canons. Cornelius, against his own will, was created pontiff A.D. 251, more than a year after the death of Saint Fabian, and he refused the sovereign dignity with an exemplary and humble generosity. Sixteen bishops, as well as the clergy and the people, were present at that election. He ordered that only those who could prove themselves professors of the true faith could put a cleric to his oath. An oath should be taken while fasting, and no one could be sworn at an earlier age than fourteen years.

Notwithstanding the persecution which raged so violently during the time of Saint Cornelius, there were at that time in Rome, as appears in a letter given by Eusebius, forty-six priests, who superintended the like number of parishes, seven deacons, seven subdeacons, forty-two acolytes, fifty-two exorcists, readers, and ostiaries, fifteen hundred widows, very many poor persons, and Christian cenobites; all these were properly supported by the Church. Besides these, there was an immense number of Christians. Tertullian, consequently, is justified in saying in his Apology that if, in his time, the Christians had migrated from the Roman Empire to other countries, their absence would have produced a sort of solitude.

In a Roman council, composed of sixty bishops, Cornelius excommunicated the antipope Novatian, a Roman priest, a pagan by birth, a Christian in appearance, and heretic from despair. All Novatian’s sectaries were included in that excommunication. It was then taught that the Church could not receive into her bosom the fallen or relapsed, nor pardon their offence. The name of caduci was given to those who from fear of torture abandoned the doctrines of Christianity. The caduci were subdivided into several distinct classes. Some were called sacrificati, because they had sacrificed to the idols; others, thurificati, because they had offered incense in the pagan sacrifices; others were called idolatri, because they recurred to the worship of the false gods; and others, again, libellatici, because, becoming renegades to the Catholic faith, they paid money to redeem themselves from the penalty of being ignominiously led to the pagan altars, and on payment of the money were furnished by the magistrates with a libellus, or written certificate of protection. Of the libellatici there were several different classes. Among the caduci there was also a class called traditori (traitors), because, obeying the edicts of the tyrants, they gave up to the pagan judges some of the sacred vessels, or the books of prayer, or church ornaments, or were still more heinously guilty in furnishing the pagans with the names of the faithful. The schism of the Donatists had its origin in the excommunications pronounced against bishops suspected of being traditori.

Among the bishops of that time, whether faithful or heretical, there were some who demanded that the caduci should be received again into communion without the enforcement of penance; while others maintained that they should not be received to penance itself, but should be rejected. Felicissimus, a priest of Carthage, was for a time at the head of the relaxed party; and Novatian defended the rigorists, a kind of Jansenists of that time. This was in reality to deprive on the one hand those unfortunates of all trust in repentance, and to take from the Church, on the other hand, the divine faculty of pardoning. Cornelius, like a wise and moderate father, endeavored to reconcile the stern laws of discipline with the gentler promptings of compassion. He held out to penitent caduci the hand of mercy for the alleviation of their pain; but he would not allow of their return into the bosom of the Church until they had substantially proved the truth of their penitence by submitting to the wholesome severity of penance. Finally, he would not allow the complete rehabilitation of repentant caduci until they had complied with everything formally ordered by the Church, except when such were in danger of death. It is a touching spectacle, calculated to convert even the most hardened heart, to behold the inexhaustible tenderness of the Church towards the dying, and that disarmed hand which falls without smiting. A wise severity no longer interposes between the culprit and his judges; the priest, who until then has had so much power, no longer speaks with the same sternness, because the Master of both culprit and priest is about to speak, and because in the depths of our souls that Master has placed a certain disposition to that mixture of attrition and contrition which most frequently becomes a frank contrition, that is to say, a horror of sin caused by the love of God, whose goodness is so great that the sinner no longer fears the penalties which God’s justice has ordained.

The decision of the pontiff was confirmed by that council of sixty bishops of which we have spoken, all approving of the excommunication of Novatian. In fact, to maintain that an apostasy is in some sort a matter of indifference, and that, immediately after having apostatized, a person may present himself just as one who had remained a faithful Christian, is to be wanting alike in courage, in faith, and in dignity. On the other hand, to maintain that, because an error has been committed, one should be forever reputed a pagan, and driven forth like some unclean creature, is to act with a harshness which Christianity should shrink from. Those two opposite opinions equally fell under condemnation. Those who maintained them were no longer recognized as Christians, and the malignant men who advised so many evils became isolated and execrated by the Church and by humanity.

For some time the Christians had been permitted to breathe freely; but a pestilence having broken out, it was attributed to the disdain which Christians had manifested towards the false gods. Cornelius was too eminent a person not to be proscribed. He was exiled to Centum Cellae (now Civita Vecchia), where he found that crown of martyrdom which he desired. He merited it, says Saint Cyprian, for he had defied the fury of the tyrants in daring to accept a title which in those times was in itself equivalent to a sentence of death. A holy purity and a singular self-control and firmness characterized Saint Cornelius.

In two ordinations he created seven or eight bishops, one or four priests, and two or four deacons. He governed the Church one year, three months, and ten days. It was in that inconsiderable space of time that he achieved so much of good.

Fleury, speaking of the acts of Saint Cornelius, says: “A council assembled at Rome, and, consisting of sixty bishops, condemned Novatian, his schism, and his cruel doctrine, which refused communion to those who had fallen, however penitent they should become.”

From Civita Vecchia the body of Saint Cornelius was translated to the cemetery of Calixtus, and afterwards placed in the Church of Saint Mary in Trastevere.

The Holy See was vacant during one month and five days.

MLA Citation

Alexis-François Artaud de Montor. “Saint Cornelius – A.D. 251”. The Lives and Times of the Popes, 1911. CatholicSaints.Info. 28 July 2022. Web. 15 September 2024. <https://catholicsaints.info/the-lives-and-times-of-the-popes-saint-cornelius-a-d-251/>

SOURCE : https://catholicsaints.info/the-lives-and-times-of-the-popes-saint-cornelius-a-d-251/

Papa Cornelio

Cromolitografia in L. Tripepi, Ritratti e biografie dei romani pontefici: da S. Pietro a Leone 13, Roma, Vaglimigli Davide, 1879, Biblioteca comunale di Trento

San Cornelio Papa e martire

16 settembre

Roma (?) - Centumcellae (Civitavecchia), maggio 253

(Papa dal 03/251 al 06/253)

Cornelio, originario di Roma, fu eletto papa per la sua umiltà e la sua bontà, dopo un periodo di sede vacante a causa della violenta persecuzione di Decio. L'eretico Noviziano lo contrastò scatenando uno scisma ma Cornelio fu riconosciuto da quasi tutti i vescovi, primo fra tutti S. Cipriano. Morì nel 253, imprigionato a Civitavecchia, durante la persecuzione di Gallo.

Etimologia: Cornelio = nome di antica famiglia romana

Emblema: Palma

Martirologio Romano: Memoria dei santi martiri Cornelio, papa, e Cipriano, vescovo, dei quali il 14 settembre si ricordano la deposizione del primo e la passione del secondo, mentre oggi il mondo cristiano li loda con una sola voce come testimoni di amore per quella verità che non conosce cedimenti, da loro professata in tempi di persecuzione davanti alla Chiesa di Dio e al mondo.

Cornelio e Cipriano sono ricordati dalla Chiesa in questo stesso giorno. Di Cipriano giovane sappiamo che è nato pagano a Cartagine intorno al 210. Battezzato verso il 245, nel 249 è vescovo di Cartagine. Nel 250 l’imperatore Decio ordina che tutti i sudditi onorino le divinità pagane (offrendo sacrifici, o anche solo bruciando un po’ d’incenso) e ricevano così il libello, un attestato di patriottismo. Per chi rifiuta, carcere e tortura. O anche la morte: a Roma muore martire papa Fabiano. A Cartagine, Cipriano si nasconde, guidando i fedeli come può dalla clandestinità. 

Cessata la persecuzione (primavera 251) molti cristiani, che hanno ceduto per paura, vorrebbero tornare nella Chiesa. Ma quelli che non hanno ceduto si dividono tra indulgenti e rigoristi. Cipriano è più vicino ai primi, e con altri vescovi d’Africa indica una via più moderata, inimicandosi i fautori dell’epurazione severa. A questo punto le sue vicende s’intrecciano con quelle di Cornelio, un presbitero romano d’origine patrizia. Eletto papa a 14 mesi dal martirio di Fabiano, si trova di fronte a uno scisma provocato dal dotto e dinamico prete Novaziano, che ha retto la Chiesa romana in tempo di sede vacante. Novaziano accusa di debolezza Cornelio (che è sulla linea di Cipriano) e dà vita a una comunità dissidente che durerà fino al V secolo. 

Da Cartagine, Cipriano affianca Cornelio e si batte contro Novaziano, affermando l’unità della Chiesa universale. Non è solo sintonia personale con papa Cornelio: Cipriano parte dall’unità dei cristiani innanzitutto con i rispettivi vescovi, e poi dei vescovi con Roma quale sede principalis, fondata su Pietro capo degli Apostoli. Ucciso in guerra l’imperatore Decio, il suo successore Treboniano Gallo è spinto a perseguitare i cristiani perché c’è la peste, e la “voce del popolo” ne accusa i cristiani, additati come “untori” in qualunque calamità. Si arresta anche papa Cornelio, che muore in esilio nel 253 a Centumcellae (antico nome di Civitavecchia). E viene definito “martire” da Cipriano, che appoggia il suo successore Lucio I contro lo scisma di Novaziano.

Autore: Domenico Agasso

SOURCE : http://www.santiebeati.it/dettaglio/24500

Papa Cornelio

Sint-Hermesbasiliek. Ronse. Oost-Vlaanderen. Belgium. Schilderij van Paus Cornelius. Basilica (Sint-Hermesbasiliek). Interior. Painting of Saint Cornelius. Cultural heritage; Cultural heritage|Techniques|Painting; Europe|Belgium; Europe|Belgium|Oost-Vlaanderen; Europe|Belgium|Oost-Vlaanderen|Ronse. Photo: Paul M.R. Maeyaert. Ref: PM_132473_B_Ronse. www.polmayer.com.© Paul M.R. Maeyaert; pmrmaeyaert@gmail.com

 

CORNELIO, santo

di Manlio Simonetti

Enciclopedia dei Papi (2000)

Il Liber pontificalis, nr. 22, lo dice romano, «ex patre Castino». Fu eletto vescovo di Roma in un giorno imprecisato di marzo o aprile 251, dopo aver percorso, come si ricava da Cipriano (ep. 55, 8), tutti i gradi della gerarchia. L’elezione pose fine a un periodo di sede vacante prolungatosi per parecchi mesi, perché il predecessore Fabiano era stato messo a morte all’inizio della persecuzione di Decio (250) e la comunità cristiana di Roma aveva ritenuto opportuno soprassedere alla nomina del successore in attesa di tempi migliori. Perciò durante il tempo della persecuzione la comunità fu retta dal Collegio dei presbiteri. Terminata la persecuzione già prima che Decio fosse ucciso in battaglia dai Goti, si decise di procedere alla nuova elezione, che per altro riuscì contestatissima dato che due presbiteri della comunità romana, Novaziano e C., si affrontarono senza esclusione di colpi.

Al di là di evidenti antipatie personali, il contrasto era sollecitato da forti motivazioni d’ordine comunitario, provocate dalla questione dei lapsi, cioè dei moltissimi fedeli che durante la persecuzione avevano apostatato o comunque si erano compromessi con le autorità romane e, mentre ancora la persecuzione era in corso, già avevano cominciato a chiedere in gran numero e con insistenza di essere riammessi nella comunità dei fedeli. In essa, come in altre comunità cristiane (Cartagine, Alessandria, Antiochia, ecc.), si fronteggiarono in quella contingenza due tendenze, una rigorista, di chi a nessun costo era disposto a permettere la riammissione dei lapsi, e una lassista, di chi era propenso alla riammissione, a condizione che i lapsi espiassero la loro colpa con un congruo periodo di penitenza pubblica, da valutarsi, da parte della gerarchia, caso per caso; per altro, tra gli aderenti a questa tendenza non mancava chi era disposto ad accordare la riammissione ai lapsi praticamente senza pretendere alcuna concreta penitenza. Novaziano era dalla parte dei rigoristi, C. dei lassisti. I contrasti furono forti, e i contendenti cercarono appoggi anche in altre comunità: Cipriano, vescovo di Cartagine, il cui epistolario è fonte principale per la conoscenza di questi fatti, fu sollecitato in questo senso da una delegazione a lui inviata da Novaziano (ep. 44). Sul conto di C. furono messe in giro voci poco rassicuranti, la cui consistenza oggi non si è in grado di verificare: fu detto tra l’altro che al tempo della persecuzione egli era stato uno dei libellatici (ep. 55), cioè che si era procurato a pagamento il certificato (libellus) che attestava il suo atto di ossequio alle divinità pagane, un peccato meno grave di quello della piena apostasia, ma comunque tale che, se provato, avrebbe reso impossibile a un membro della gerarchia di conservare il suo ufficio e, tanto meno, di poter adire la dignità episcopale. Comunque,

l’accusa meglio documentata, che in quella occasione gli fu mossa, fu di aver riammesso nella comunità Trofimo, un presbitero che aveva apostatato e, insieme con lui, molti altri. Cipriano (ep. 55) a questo proposito chiarisce che Trofimo era stato riammesso nella comunità solo in qualità di laico; che C. aveva preso questa decisione in accordo con altri colleghi; che la riammissione era sembrata opportuna in considerazione del fatto che insieme con Trofimo erano stati molti ad apostatare, disposti a rientrare nella comunità a patto che anche quello vi fosse riammesso. Di contro, a danno di Novaziano, al di là di generiche accuse di ambizione, si fece valere il fatto che era stato battezzato, a causa di grave malattia, per aspersione e non per infusione, con una prassi guardata con sospetto nella Chiesa antica.

Nonostante le accuse divulgate a danno di C., la maggioranza della comunità fu dalla sua parte, ed egli fu consacrato vescovo di Roma da sedici vescovi, forse il 6 o il 13 marzo 251; ma Novaziano non volle desistere e si fece ordinare da tre vescovi, e non pochi della comunità furono dalla sua parte, determinandone la frattura: ebbe così inizio lo scisma novazianeo. Di fronte alla scissione, la Chiesa di Cartagine in un primo momento preferì temporeggiare: Cipriano non volle prestare ascolto alla delegazione che Novaziano gli aveva inviato, e invece inviò lui alcuni colleghi africani a Roma per rendersi conto direttamente della situazione e cercare di riportare la concordia. Nel frattempo le lettere ufficiali inviate da Cartagine a Roma furono indirizzate al Collegio dei presbiteri, del che C. ebbe a lamentarsi con Cipriano (ep. 48). Finalmente i vescovi africani

tornarono a Cartagine: la loro iniziativa pacificatrice non aveva avuto successo, ma comunque essi sul posto si erano convinti della regolarità dell’elezione di C. e perciò dell’irregolarità perpetrata da Novaziano. A questo punto Cipriano si decise a favore di C. e lo appoggiò con grande energia presso vari colleghi che erano tuttora titubanti, manifestando l’avversione più completa nei confronti di Novaziano. Al di là della più o meno regolare elezione dei due candidati, Cipriano era sollecitato a favore di C., piuttosto che di Novaziano, perché egli stesso nel trattare a Cartagine e nelle altre sedi di Africa e Numidia la questione dei lapsi, si era alla fine deciso a favore di una soluzione moderata, che contemplava, a determinate condizioni, la riammissione di quanti avessero, chi in un modo chi in un altro, ceduto alla pressione dei persecutori. Dal complesso di tutti i dati che vengono dalle lettere di Cipriano e da altre fonti si ricava l’impressione che C. avesse adottato, nei confronti dei lapsi, provvedimenti un po’ più lassisti di quelli presi da Cipriano: ma senza dubbio questi era meno lontano dall’atteggiamento di C. che non da quello di Novaziano. Anche Dionigi ad Alessandria si regolava sullo stesso metro, e perciò anch’egli si allineò con C. e così la maggioranza dei vescovi della cristianità. L’unica eccezione di gran peso che si conosce fu quella di Fabio, vescovo di Antiochia, un rigorista, perciò più portato a favore di Novaziano, al quale C. indirizzò una lunga lettera violentemente polemica nei confronti del suo avversario, di cui Eusebio (Historia ecclesiastica VI, 43) ha riportato ampi stralci: non sembra che questa lettera abbia avuto buona accoglienza da parte di Fabio; comunque questi morì da lì a poco, e il suo successore Demetriano si schierò senza difficoltà sulla linea di Dionigi e di Cipriano. L’appoggio di Cipriano fu particolarmente importante per il trionfo definitivo della causa di C., non soltanto perché con lui si allinearono tutte le Chiese africane ma anche perché egli si adoperò attivamente a favore di quello che considerava il legittimo vescovo di Roma. Anche per sua insistenza rientrarono nelle file della comunità cattolica di Roma alcuni fedeli, tra cui il presbitero Massimo, che si erano illustrati per la loro fermezza nella persecuzione, e perciò godevano di grande prestigio presso i fedeli di Roma, e che in un primo momento avevano aderito alla parte di Novaziano. Riferisce del loro rientro nella comunità cattolica una lettera dello stesso C., indirizzata a Cipriano e conservata nel suo epistolario (ep. 49). Nella lettera è riportata letteralmente la dichiarazione che essi fecero in pubblico al momento della riammissione, riconoscendo C. quale vescovo della Chiesa cattolica eletto da Dio onnipotente e da Cristo signore, ammettendo di essere stati fuorviati dalla perfidia e dalla loquacità di Novaziano ma dichiarando che in spirito essi avevano voluto sempre appartenere alla Chiesa: «Sappiamo che uno solo è Dio Signore onnipotente, uno solo Cristo Signore, che abbiamo confessato, uno solo è lo Spirito Santo, e nella Chiesa cattolica ci deve essere un solo vescovo». Rinforzata così la propria posizione, C. fu in condizione di riunire a Roma, nell’ottobre del 251, un concilio cui presero parte ben sessanta vescovi italiani, oltre a molti presbiteri e diaconi: il concilio confermò le misure che erano state già adottate, a Roma come anche a Cartagine, a favore dei lapsi e ratificò la scomunica di Novaziano, il quale per altro non desistette affatto dal suo atteggiamento contestatore. L’esito del concilio fu comunicato da C. a Fabio, nel tentativo di trarlo dalla sua parte, tramite la lettera già sopra ricordata e conservata da Eusebio (Historia ecclesiastica VI, 43). Di qui, oltre a varie notizie su Novaziano anteriori allo scisma, si apprende che in quel tempo, cioè alla metà del III secolo, nella Chiesa di Roma erano attivi quarantasei presbiteri, sette diaconi, sette suddiaconi, quarantadue accoliti, cinquantadue esorcisti, e che la comunità soccorreva regolarmente millecinquecento tra vedove e indigenti; è questo il dato numerico più attendibile che si conosce su Roma cristiana nel mondo antico, tale da evidenziare una comunità ormai molto numerosa, oltre che bene organizzata: si è ipotizzato che l’intera comunità contasse allora trentamila fedeli (qualche studioso ha calcolato addirittura cinquantamila).

Nell’anno successivo, il 252, fu C. che ebbe occasione di appoggiare Cipriano in una questione interna alla Chiesa di Cartagine. Quando Cipriano, poco tempo prima della persecuzione di Decio, era stato eletto vescovo non molto tempo dopo la conversione, cinque presbiteri di Cartagine, tra i quali Novato e Fortunato, non ne avevano accettato l’elezione e gli avevano rifiutato obbedienza. Essi avevano ordinato diacono il laico Felicissimo, che da questo momento era diventato il principale esponente dell’opposizione a Cipriano. Durante la persecuzione, profittando del fatto che Cipriano per sicurezza si era allontanato da Cartagine, essi avevano sollecitato i fedeli a disattendere le sue prescrizioni ed erano stati tra coloro che avevano sostenuto la riammissione dei lapsi senza l’obbligo di una previa congrua penitenza. Perciò Cipriano li aveva condannati e un concilio di vescovi africani, riunitosi nel 251, aveva confermato la condanna. Mentre nel frattempo Novato si era recato a Roma e, paradossalmente, aveva preso le parti di Novaziano, il gruppo degli scismatici aveva eletto vescovo Fortunato, e con lui Felicissimo e alcuni altri aderenti si erano recati a Roma per cercare di far approvare da C. l’elezione episcopale. Dall’epistola 59 di Cipriano, di risposta a una di C., si apprende che Felicissimo e una «caterva desperatorum» che lo accompagnava avevano cercato di forzare la mano a C., minacciandolo di leggere pubblicamente la lettera che recavano con sé, se questi non l’avesse accettata: ma C. non aveva prestato loro ascolto e li aveva fatti scacciare dalla Chiesa. Dopo questi fatti non si ha altra notizia dello scisma di Felicissimo, mentre invece quello di Novaziano, ben altrimenti motivato (anche se, come si è visto, perdeva a Roma qualche aderente della prima ora), non solo continuava ma si diffondeva ampiamente anche fuori d’Italia. Mentre C. era alle prese con lo scisma, ci fu una nuova breve ripresa di persecuzione, a opera del successore di Decio, Triboniano Gallo. Costui appena salito al trono si era mostrato benevolo verso i cristiani, ma verso la fine del 251 una terribile pestilenza cominciò a devastare varie regioni dell’Impero, per cui l’imperatore indisse sacrifici generali di espiazione. Questa circostanza acuì a Cartagine l’odio per i cristiani da parte della massa dei pagani, convinta che la peste fosse una punizione divina sollecitata dall’empietà di quelli, e provocò tumulti popolari contro di loro. In questa occasione C. fu inviato in esilio (252) a Centumcellae (Civitavecchia), dove morì nel giugno del 253. Dato che non si ha altra notizia della persecuzione a danno dei cristiani in questa occasione all’infuori delle lettere di Cipriano (59 e 61), si è pensato a un movimento popolare anticristiano ristretto a Cartagine e si è ipotizzato che la relegazione di C. debba essere collegata con i disordini provocati nella comunità cristiana di Roma dallo scisma novazianeo. Ma quanto si legge nell’epistola 60 di Cipriano, che parla di un violento terrore che aveva turbato «Christi castra» ed esalta la fermezza manifestata, in questa occasione, da C. e dall’intera comunità, che si era stretta con un solo animo e una sola voce intorno a lui («Dum apud vos unus animus et una vox est, ecclesia omnis Romana confessa est»), fa piuttosto pensare che la violenza della folla a danno dei cristiani si fosse esercitata anche a Roma, e allora l’esilio comminato a C. si presenta come un provvedimento anticristiano grazie al quale l’autorità aveva cercato di placare quella manifestazione di violenza. C. fu sepolto nel cimitero di Callisto.

Dal Liber pontificalis (I, p. 151) si apprende che le spoglie di C. furono deposte in un’area sepolcrale prossima al cimitero di S. Callisto sull’Appia: «Cuius corpus noctu collegit beata Lucina cum clericis et sepelivit in crypta iuxta cymiterium Calisti, via Appia in praedio suo XVIII kal[endas] octob[res]». La figura della pia donna Lucina, che peraltro occorre anche in relazione alle sepolture di Pietro e Paolo, è ovviamente un elemento leggendario. È invece storicamente fondata e archeologicamente documentata in tutti i suoi dettagli la sepoltura di C. realizzata in un cubicolo (L) di una piccola area sepolcrale, a nord-est del cimitero di Callisto, già attiva alla fine

del II secolo. Il sepolcro contestualmente all’epitaffio che lo accompagnava fu ritrovato da G.B. de Rossi tra il 1849 e il 1852: una sepoltura a mensa chiusa da una iscrizione lapidaria che reca «Cornelius martyr / ep[iscopus]» (Inscriptiones Christianae urbis Romae. Nova series, I-X, a cura di G.B. de Rossi et al., Romae-In Civitate Vaticana 1922-92: IV, nr. 9367). In questa iscrizione vanno rilevati alcuni elementi di non secondaria importanza che almeno in apparenza risultano incongrui rispetto alla prassi epigrafica dell’epoca: in primo luogo l’uso della lingua latina quando tutti gli epitaffi superstiti dei papi del III secolo sono costantemente scritti in greco (da Ponziano a Caio: ibid., nrr. 10670, 10558, 10694, 10645, 10616, 10584); in secondo luogo l’impiego dell’epiteto «martyr» che infatti, sebbene assolutamente contestuale al resto dell’iscrizione, esercitò a lungo l’acribia di G. Wilpert che tentò di dimostrare un suo inserimento successivo: nell’epigrafia martiriale il titolo «martyr» è infatti attestato solo dall’inizio del IV secolo (all’indomani della persecuzione dioclezianea), come per esempio dimostrato eloquentemente dall’epitaffio di s. Giacinto pervenuto in originale (ibid., X, nr. 26662). È evidente che questi elementi potrebbero portare alla conclusione che l’epitaffio di C. non sia coevo alla sua deposizione ma che sia stato redatto e inserito successivamente (al tempo di Damaso?). A partire dal IV secolo la tomba di C. fu oggetto di particolari cure da parte dei pontefici romani. Damaso soprattutto, come anche descritto in un epigramma appositamente composto in onore di C., pose mano ad alcune opere strutturali che previdero l’ampliamento della galleria che conduceva alla cripta, la realizzazione di un lucernario e la creazione di una scala che dal sopratterra permetteva di raggiungere direttamente la tomba venerata: «[descenso extruc]to teneb[risque fu]gatis» dice Damaso a sintetizzare l’essenziale del suo intervento (ibid., IV, nr. 9368). Successivamente si registra un ulteriore intervento (non meglio precisabile) ad opera di Siricio come sembra testimoniare un frammento di epigramma ancora sul luogo sotto la sepoltura di C. (ibid., nr. 9369); nel primo trentennio del V secolo si realizzò poi una basilica sopratterra per iniziativa di Leone I (Liber pontificalis [I, p. 233]), ma di essa finora non è emersa alcuna evidenza archeologica. Il culto di C. ebbe uno sviluppo immediato e di esso sussistono importanti testimonianze. Una delle più antiche, di carattere privato, è l’iscrizione di tale Serpentius che, verso l’inizio del V secolo, acquista dal fossore Quintus una tomba (una delle tante ad sanctos) nell’area di papa C.: «Serpentiu|s emit loc|m a Quinto | fossore ad santum Co|rnelium» (Inscriptiones Christianae, IV, nr. 9441). Altre rilevanti testimonianze cultuali si colgono inoltre nella presenza accanto alla sua sepoltura di una mensa oleorum (o, secondo alcuni, di un supporto per i pasti funerari) e di pitture ad affresco della metà del VII secolo che raffigurano C. con vesti ecclesiastiche (tunica talare, dalmatica, casula) e insegna vescovile (pallio bianco) insieme a s. Cipriano. Sui bordi di queste pitture così come sulla lastra marmorea che recava l’epitaffio di C. lasciarono la loro memoria scritta «a sgraffio» numerosi pellegrini dei secc. VII e VIII (soprattutto presbiteri) che si recavano presso questa area sacra sulla scorta delle precise indicazioni loro fornite dagli Itineraria del VII secolo: «postea pervenies via Appia [...] Cornelius papa et martir longe in antro altero requiescit» (Notitia ecclesiarum urbis Romae, a cura di Fr. Glorie, Turnholti 1965 [Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, 175]). Tra le firme lasciate da questi visitatori vi è quella di un «Sergius praesbyter» (Inscriptiones Christianae, IV, nr. 9373a) che con ogni probabilità può essere identificato con l’omonimo pontefice che regnò dal 687 al 701: il Liber pontificalis (I, p. 371) ricorda infatti che papa Sergio «tempore presbiteratus sui inpigre per cymiteria diversa missarum sollemnia celebrabat». Con la metà del VII secolo, a ulteriore conferma del radicamento del culto di C., iniziò la parcellizzazione e la distribuzione in luoghi diversi delle sue reliquie: una parte fu traslata da Paolo I nella chiesa urbana di S. Maria in Trastevere, una parte successivamente fu prelevata da papa Adriano I e donata ad una chiesa da lui fondata in un insediamento rurale presso Roma («domus culta Capracorum»: ibid., [p. 506]). Si trattò comunque di reliquie parziali poiché, ancora tra la fine dell’VIII e l’inizio del IX secolo, è attestato un intervento di restauro presso la tomba originaria di C. da parte di Leone III: «renovavit [...] cimiterium Xysti atque Cornelii» (ibid. [II, p. 80]). L’abbandono definitivo del santuario della via Appia si può fissare al tempo di Gregorio IV che dovette trasferire ancora in S. Maria in Trastevere (chiamata anche dei SS. Callisto e Cornelio) quanto delle spoglie di C. si era ancora conservato nella tomba originaria.

La memoria liturgica di C. viene celebrata il 16 settembre.

fonti e bibliografia

Le Liber pontificalis, a cura di L. Duchesne, I-II, Paris 1886-92: I, nr. 22, pp. 150-52. Il Catalogo Liberiano, contenuto nel Liber pontificalis, fornisce, oltre le coordinate cronologiche, alcune notizie sullo scisma novazianeo, ma la notizia che Novaziano sarebbe stato ordinato da Novato appare poco attendibile. Il Liber là dove non segue il Catalogo dà notizie di evidente carattere leggendario. Di C. sono rimaste tre lettere: una a Fabio di Antiochia riportata parzialmente da Eusebio, Historia ecclesiastica VI, 43, a cura di E. Schwartz, Leipzig 1908 (Die Griechischen Christlichen Schriftsteller. Eusebius Werke, II, 2), pp. 614-22; due indirizzate a Cipriano e comprese come epistole 49 e 50 tra le sue lettere (Sancti Cypriani Episcopi epistularium [...], a cura di G.F. Diercks, Turnholti 1994 [Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, 3B], pp. 231-39).

Sulla controversia tra C. e Novaziano informano le epistole 44-55 dell’epistolario ciprianeo (ibid., pp. 211-95); su C. e Felicissimo l’epistola 59 (ibid., ivi 1996 [Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, 3C], pp. 336-73); sull’esilio di Cornelio l’epistola 60 (ibid., pp. 374-79).

Mancano studi specifici moderni sulla figura e l’operato di papa Cornelio. Sulla sua vicenda v.: E. Caspar, Geschichte des Papsttums, I, Tübingen 1930, pp. 66-70; J. Zeiller, in Histoire de l’Église, a cura di A. Fliche-V. Martin, II, Paris 1948, pp. 151-52; J. Lebreton, ibid., pp. 193-95; J. Zeiller, ibid., pp. 409-10; G. Bardy, Corneille, in D.H.G.E., XIII, coll. 891-94; sui caratteri delle persecuzioni di Decio e di Triboniano Gallo, cfr. M. Sordi, Il cristianesimo e Roma, Bologna 1965, pp. 261-86.

Per la documentazione archeologica ed epigrafica relativa a C. v. G. Wilpert, La cripta dei papi e la cappella di Santa Cecilia nel cimitero di Callisto, Roma 1910, pp. 34-6; L. Reekmans, La tombe du pape Corneille et sa région cémétériale, Città del Vaticano 1964; C. Carletti, Viatores ad martyres. Testimonianze scritte altomedievali nelle catacombe romane, in Epigrafia medievale greca e latina. Ideologia e funzione, a cura di G. Cavallo-C. Mango, Spoleto 1995, pp. 203-04.

© Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana fondata da Giovanni Treccani - Riproduzione riservata

SOURCE : https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/santo-cornelio_(Enciclopedia-dei-Papi)/

Papa Cornelio

Joannes Josephus de Loose  (1770–1849), Saint Cornelius blesses the sick children, 1813, 240 x 165, Sint-Jacobskerk (Gent)

Den hellige pave Kornelius ( -253)

Minnedag: 16. september

Den hellige Kornelius var romer og sønn av en Castinus, muligens i den patrisiske Gens Cornelia.

Presteskapet i Roma så seg lenge ikke i stand til å velge en etterfølger etter Fabians martyrium i år 250 på grunn av keiser Decius' (249-251) voldsomme forfølgelser av de kristne. Det ble hevdet at Decius sa at han heller ville ha en rivaliserende keiser enn en biskop av Roma. Men det var også uenighet mellom de kristne selv, og valget ble også utsatt med vilje fordi mange var i fengsel, blant annet presten Moses, som var den som mest sannsynlig ville bli valgt. I 14 måneder styrte de kirken i fellesskap med presten Novatian som sin talsmann.

Våren 251 fikk keiseren hendene fulle med å ta seg av opprørere, og forfølgelsene avtok. Dermed ble det mulig å gjennomføre et valg. Da Moses i mellomtiden var død, valgte det store flertall ikke Novatian (som hadde ventet det), men Kornelius, som biskop Kyprian av Kartago beskrev som en uambisiøs prest som hadde tjent i alle de lavere grader i tjenesten. Men han hadde en sterk forstand og en sterk karakter, og skulle få bruk for begge deler.

Valget ble straks sterkt bestridt av den skuffede Novatian som snart fikk seg selv konsekrert som rivaliserende biskop, og sammen med en gruppe tilhengere startet et skisma.

Det store spørsmålet som Kirken nå sto overfor, var hva som skulle gjøres med det store antall kristne som hadde falt fra under forfølgelsen, men som nå ville gjenopptas i fellesskapet. Motsetningene mellom de to mennene kan ha sin rot i deres ulike holdning til dette spørsmålet, i alle fall ble de skjerpet av det. Striden sto mellom laxister og rigorister («slappe» og «strenge»). Kornelius gikk inn for at de frafalne skulle bli gjenopptatt etter en passende bot, mens Novatian hevdet at apostasi (frafall) var en utilgivelig synd. Han mente at Kirken ikke hadde noen makt til å tilgi og gjeninnlemme medlemmer som var falt fra under forfølgelsene, men siden kom tilbake, og han gikk inn for fullstendig eksklusjon. Det er trolig at Kornelius ble valgt til pave nettopp på grunn av sin velkjente støtte til den mer realistiske og medfølende politikken.

Noen av de frafalne hadde til og med ofret til hedenske gudebilder, mens andre hadde bestukket tjenestemenn til å si at de hadde ofret. Mange bekjennere, det vil si de som hadde bekjent Kristus foran de hedenske dommerne, tok nå på seg å gi de angrende apostatene sertifikater som ga innehaveren rett til å bli gjenopptatt i kommunion. Men dette degenererte raskt til ren forretning.

Da den hellige Kyprian, biskop av Kartago, prøvde å stoppe den, satte en viss Novatus opp en Felicissimus som motbiskop og dro til Roma for å få støtte. Men paven fordømte skismaet og den laxistiske praksisen. Han forlangte at de angrende apostatene først måtte gjøre en passende bot.

Dette provoserte rigoristene, og Kornelius' stilling var vanskelig en tid. Novatian arbeidet energisk og dyktig for å få sin egen bispetittel anerkjent av de ledende kristne sentra, mens en rigorøs gruppe av geistlighet og legfolk i Roma nektet å akseptere det de så som utålelig lemfeldighet fra Kornelius. De anklaget ham dessuten for selv å ha bestukket en tjenestemann til å si at han hadde avsverget Kristus, for dermed å slippe unna forfølgelsene.

Etter hvert var Kornelius i stand til å overvinne disse hindringene, spesielt da Kyprian av Kartago og Dionysios av Alexandria kom ned på hans side. Det er imidlertid megetsigende at Kyprian, til Kornelius' ergrelse, følte seg tvunget til å foreta undersøkelser før han traff sin avgjørelse. Det var på denne tiden Kyprian skrev sin klassiske avhandling «Om Kirkens enhet».

Novatian og hans lære ble fordømt på et konsil i Kartago, og Kornelius fikk stor hjelp av Kyprian i å overvinne den rigoristiske opposisjonen i Roma, som inkluderte noen afrikanske bekjennere. Paven hadde Kyprians fulle støtte da han til slutt høsten 251 ekskommuniserte Novatian og hans tilhengere på et konsil i Roma, hvor over 60 biskoper var til stede i tillegg til annen geistlighet. Konsilet bekreftet også den politikken som var på linje med Kyprians avgjørelse i Nord-Afrika, om å gjenoppta frafalne kristne etter at de hadde gjort en passende bot.

Det er ironisk at etter å ha klaget over at Kyprian nølte med å anerkjenne hans valg, skulle Kornelius sommeren 252 ha mottatt utsendinger fra en opposisjonsbiskop, Fortunatus, som Kyprian hadde store problemer med i Kartago. Selv om Kornelius avviste dem, var Kyprian forståelig nok irritert og sendte paven en streng irettesettelse.

Kornelius er kjent for å ha skrevet en rekke brev, hovedsakelig for å gjøre sitt syn på skismaet kjent for andre kirker; to av disse, adressert til Kyprian, er bevart som nr 49 og 50 i Kyprians korrespondanse. I tillegg har Eusebius bevart deler av et brev Kornelius skrev til Fabius, den rigoristiske biskopen av Antiokia, hvor han ba ham om å trekke tilbake støtten til Novatian og akseptere det fakta at flertallet av kirkene foretrakk en moderat politikk overfall de frafalne. Dette brevet gir et frastøtende, nesten injurierende bilde av Novatian, og tjener Kornelius liten ære, men det inneholder også detaljert statistikk av stor historisk verdi. I Roma var det 46 presbytere, 7 diakoner, 7 subdiakoner, 42 akolytter (ministranter), 52 eksorsister (djevleutdrivere), lektorer og hostarier (dørvoktere), samt 1500 enker og hjelpetrengende - et vitnesbyrd om den romerske menighetens størrelse. Bevarte brev fra Kyprian vitner om Kornelius' godhet og gavmildhet.

Etter en pest flammet hatet opp mot de kristne, og folket krevde deres blod. Keiser Gallus (251-53) lyttet til disse ropene og tok opp forfølgelsene igjen i juni 252. Denne gangen var de kristne bedre forberedt, og det kom ingen ny sjokkerende apostasi-bølge. Men paven ble arrestert og forvist til Centumcellae (Romas nåværende havneby Civitavecchia), hvor han mottok et varmt gratulasjonsbrev fra Kyprian.

Kornelius døde der i juni året etter. Sannsynligvis bukket han under for strabasene i sitt eksil, og det er ikke noe historisk belegg for senere utsagn om at han skal være blitt halshogd. Liberius' katalog fra 354 skriver at han døde «en ærefull død», men han ble i begynnelsen ikke regnet som martyr i streng forstand, heller ikke i Depositio martyrum fra 300-tallet. Hans angivelige rettergang for keiser Decius, gjengitt i LP, er hentet fra en apokryf lidelseshistorie fra 400-tallet og har intet historisk grunnlag.

Hans legeme ble på slutten av 200-tallet brakt til Roma. Fordi det var fullt i pavekrypten, ble han bisatt i Lucinakrypten, et sakramentskapell fra 200-tallet i Callistus-katakomben. Inskripsjonen på hans grav var den første pavelige gravskrift på latin. 100 år senere flyttet kong Karl den Skallete hans relikvier til byen Compiegne i Frankrike, hvor de ble bisatt ved høyalteret i kirken Saint-Germain. Hans hode befinner seg i det tidligere benediktinerklosteret Kornelimünster ved Aachen.

Kornelius feires sammen med sin venn Kyprian av Kartago. Deres minnedag var tidligere 14. september, i dag feires de 16. september. Begge nevnes i Den romerske Canon (Eukaristisk bønn I) før forvandlingen.

Paverekken - Kildehenvisninger - Kompilasjon og oversettelse: p. Per Einar Odden - Sist oppdatert: 1998-02-11 21:50

SOURCE : http://www.katolsk.no/biografier/historisk/korneliu