Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/161

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CALLIGONUS
CALLISTUS
143

the Weasel, and the Encyclic of Basiliscus condemning the decisions of the council of Chalcedon (Evagr. H. E. iii. 10; Niceph. H. E. xv. 28). He is reported to have endeavoured to counteract the Monophysite bias given to the Trisagion by Peter the Fuller in the addition of the words ὁ σταυρωθεὶς δἰ᾿ ἡμᾶς, by prefixing the clause Χριστὲ Βασιλεῦ (Theod. Lector. p. 556 b.) Calandio translated the remains of Eustathius, the banished bp. of Antioch, with the permission of Zeno, from Philippi in Macedonia, where he had died, to his own city—a tardy recognition of the falsehood of the charges against Eustathius, which had the happy result of reuniting to the church the remains of the party that still called itself by his name (Theod. Lector. p. 577; Theophanes, p. 114). Calandio fell into disfavour and was banished by the Emperor Zeno, at the instigation of Acacius, to the African Oasis, A.D. 485, where, probably, he died. The charge against him was that of having erased from the diptychs the name of Zeno, as the author of the Henoticon; and of having favoured Illus and Leontius in their rebellion, A.D. 484. But the real cause of his deposition was the theological animosity of Acacius, whom he had offended by writing a letter to Zeno accusing Peter Mongus of adultery, and of having anathematized the decrees of the council of Chalcedon (Evagr. H. E. ii. 16; Liberatus Diaconus, Breviar. c. xviii.; Gelasius, Ep. xiii. ad Dardan. Episc.; Labbe, iv. 1208‒1209, xv. ad Episc. Orient. ib. 1217). On his deposition, the victorious Peter the Fuller was recalled to occupy the see of Antioch.

[E.V.]

Calligonus, eunuch and chamberlain to Valentinian II., insulted Ambrose, A.D. 385 (Ambr. Ep. xx. (1), iii. p. 859). He conveyed a message, or reported a saying, of the emperor's, and added, "While I am alive, dost thou contemn Valentinian? I will remove thy head from off thee." Ambrose answered, "God grant thee to fulfil thy threat; for I shall suffer what bishops suffer, and thou wilt do what eunuchs do. And would that God would avert them from the church, that they might turn all their weapons on me." Calligonus was afterwards put to death on a peculiarly infamous charge (Augustine, contra Julianum, vi. 14, vol. x. 845). Tillemont (x. 175) supposes that these events were in the mind of Ambrose when he wrote the 6th chapter of his book on Joseph. This is very probable, but the further inference that that book was written two years later seems wholly erroneous. The event that occurred after two years was the usurpation of Maximus. It is possible that Ambrose encountered two eunuchs. Cf. also de Broglie, l’Eglise et l’Empire, vi. 173.

[E.B.B.]

Callistus (1) (i. q. formosissimus; later spelt Calistus, but Calixtus first in 11th cent., Bunsen's Hippolytus, i. 131, note), the successor of pope Zephyrinus in A.D. 218, said to have been a Roman, and the son of Domitius.

Nothing was known of Callistus, except that the Martyrologium Romanum contained a tradition of his martyrdom, till the discovery of the Philosophumena in 1850. This work, which first appeared under the name of Origen, but is now ascribed to Hippolytus, almost certainly the contemporary bp. of Portus, gives an account of the life of Callistus which is scarcely credible respecting one of the bishops of Rome, who had before been honoured as a saint and martyr. Accordingly, much controversy has sprung up round the names of Callistus and Hippolytus. If Hippolytus is to be believed, Callistus was an unprincipled adventurer; if Callistus can be defended, grave doubt is thrown upon the veracity of Hippolytus. Bunsen and Wordsworth adopt the former view; Döllinger the latter, in an ingenious treatise translated by Dr. Plummer (T. & T. Clark, 1876). The story as told by Hippolytus is lifelike and natural, and, however much we may allow for personal rancour, we cannot but believe it to be substantially true.

He tells us that Callistus was originally a slave in the household of a rich Christian called Carpophorus. His master intrusted to his charge a bank in the Piscina Publica, where Callistus induced his fellow-Christians to deposit their savings upon the security of the name of Carpophorus. The bank broke, and Callistus fled, but Carpophorus tracked him to Portus, and found him on board an outward-bound ship. The slave threw himself overboard in despair, but was picked up, and delivered to his master, who brought him back and put him to the pistrinum, or mill worked by the lowest slaves, for a punishment. After a time, however, he was set at liberty, and again attempted suicide, and for this purpose raised a riot in a synagogue of the Jews. By them he was brought before Fuscianus, the praefectus urbi, who, in spite of the fact that Carpophorus claimed him as his slave, condemned him, as a disturber of public worship allowed by the Roman laws, to be sent to the mines of Sardinia (Philosophumena, ed. Miller, pp. 286, 287).

His supposed desire for death certainly seems an inadequate motive for raising the riot in the Jewish synagogue. Döllinger supposes that, while claiming his debts at the hands of members of the Jewish synagogue, his zeal for religion impelled him to bear witness for Christ, and that thus his exile to Sardinia was a species of martyrdom for Christianity (Döllinger, Hippolytus u. Kallistus, p. 119). The date of his exile is proximately fixed, since Fuscianus served the office of praefectus urbi between A.D. 188 and A.D. 193 (Bunsen's Hippolytus, i. 138). Some time after, proceeds Hippolytus, Marcia, the Christian mistress of Commodus, persuaded the emperor to grant an amnesty to Christians undergoing punishment in Sardinia; and Callistus, at his own entreaty, was released, although his name was not on the list (supplied by the then bp. Victor) of those intended to benefit by Marcia's clemency. Callistus reappeared in Rome, much to the annoyance of Victor, for the outrage on the synagogue was recent and notorious. He therefore sent him to Antium, making him a small monthly allowance (Philosophumena, p. 288). Milman dates this c. A.D. 190, in the very year of Victor's accession (Lat. Christ. i. 55, note).

That Carpophorus's runaway slave should be of such importance that the pope should buy him off with an allowance, and insist upon