"Inspired by penitence, he was beheaded." ~ The mysterious last days and death of Pope Saint Marcellinus

Pope Saint Marcellinus from Shea's Pictorial Lives of the Saints.

April 26 is the feast day of one of the most enigmatic Popes, Saint Marcellinus, who perished at the height of the Great Persecution in AD 304. Because his reign took place during a time when the Church was under extreme duress, the facts surrounding his pontificate are hazy. Similarly hazy is his fate. 

Following is the complete brief biography of Pope Saint Marcellinus as contained in the Liber Pontificalis, that useful if occasionally confused catalog of all the ancient popes prior to Saint Gregory the Great that was compiled in the late 6th century:

Marcellinus, by nationality a Roman, son of Projectus, occupied the see 8 years, 2 months and 25 days (or 9 years, 4 months and 16 days). 

He was bishop in the time of Diocletian and Maximian, from July 1 in the 6th consulship of Diocletian and the 2nd of Constantius (AD 296) until the year when Diocletian was consul for the 9th time and Maximian for the 8th (AD 304). At that time was a great persecution, so that within 30 days 17,000 Christians of both sexes in divers provinces were crowned with martyrdom. 

Click for more info.

For this reason Marcellinus himself was haled to sacrifice, that he might offer incense, and he did it. 

After a few days, inspired by penitence, he was beheaded by the same Diocletian and crowned with martyrdom for the faith of Christ in company with Claudius and Cyrinus and Antoninus, and the blessed Marcellinus on his way to his passion abjured Marcellus, the priest, that he should not fulfill the commands of Diocletian. 

And afterwards the holy bodies lay in the street for an example to the Christians 26 days by order of Diocletian.  

Then the priest Marcellus and the other priests and deacons took up the bodies by night with hymns and buried them on the Via Salaria in the cemetery of Priscilla in a chamber which is well known to this day, as Marcellinus himself had commanded, when in penitence, he was being haled to execution, in the crypt near the body of holy Criscentio, April 25.  

He held 2 ordinations in the month of December, 4 priests, 2 deacons, 5 bishops in divers places. 

From that day the bishopric was empty 7 years, 6 months and 25 days while Diocletian was persecuting the Christians.

In Loomis's edition of the Liber Pontificalis, a further passage is included, drawn from a single manuscript, which refers to a councils of bishops which took place in Italy during the Persecution:

And after a few days, a synod was held in the province of Campania in the city of Sessana [Sinuessa], where with his own lips he professed his penitence in the presence of 180 bishops. He wore a garment of haircloth and ashes upon his head and repented, saying that he had sinned. Then Diocletian was wroth and seized him and bade him sacrifice to images. But he cried out with tears, saying, "It repenteth me sorely for my former ignorance," and he began to utter blasphemy against Diocletian and the images of the demons made with human hands. So, inspired by penitence, he was beheaded.

Needless to say, these passages have inspired controversy ever since. Consensus seems to be that the so-called Synod of Sinuessa where St. Marcellinus professed his guilt before his brother bishops, was a fabrication. This seems likely as it would have been inconceivable for a synod of 180 bishops to be held in southern Italy during the apogee of the Great Persecution. Mentions of Diocletian, the Augustus of the East who ruled from Nicomedia, also seem to lend doubt to these accounts. However, a curious passage in Lactantius's work, On the Deaths of the Persecutors, may shed some light:

Click for more info.

Diocletian, whom prosperity had now abandoned, set out instantly for Rome, there to celebrate the commencement of the twentieth year of his reign. That solemnity was performed on the twelfth of the kalends of December; and suddenly the emperor, unable to bear the Roman freedom of speech, peevishly and impatiently burst away from the city. The kalends of January approached, at which day the consulship, for the ninth time, was to be offered to him; yet, rather than continue thirteen days longer in Rome, he chose that his first appearance as consul should be at Ravenna. [Lactantius, On the Deaths of the Persecutors, Chapter 17]

The twentieth year of Diocletian's reign would have been AD 304, so this passage refers to events late in the year 303. This makes it clear that Diocletian was in Italy near the time assigned to the death of Saint Marcellinus, and he was in Rome specifically for about a month. Furthermore, the Augustus was, if not wroth, at least peevish during this his only visit to the Imperial City during his reign. Why Lactantius doesn't mention the acts of the persecutors while in Rome, particularly with regard to Saint Marcellinus, is an interesting question. However, Lactantius is hardly alone in his silence. None of the key ecclesiastical historians of the subsequent generation mention this event, and several of the early compilers of lists of the ancient popes exclude Marcellinus's name all together. One important exception is the Liberian Catalog of AD 354 which lists all of the Popes up to that time, Marcellinus included.

Scholars over the centuries have attributed this lack of information about Saint Marcellinus to the shame associated with his name in antiquity. However, it is equally likely that because the death of Marcellinus coincided with the most intense period of persecution, that the records were lost or purposely destroyed. As we have seen in other posts, the destruction of Christian literature was one of key aspects of Diocletian's effort, leading later Christians like Prudentius to lament the "oblivion of a silent age," and Pope Damasus to seek out assiduously the stories of the persecution by those who had lived through it even decades later. Also telling is that after Marcellinus's death, there was an unprecedented papal interregnum of some seven years during which time the Church in Rome had no visible head.

A century after the death of Marcellinus in the time of Saint Augustine of Hippo, the name of Marcellinus would re-appear as part of his debates with the Donatists. One of his opponents, a Donatist bishop named Petilianus, would invoke Marcellinus among those who offered incense to the pagan gods and handed over the sacred texts to be burnt by the heathens:

Maximian also perished, at whose command that men should burn incense to their gods, burning the sacred volumes, Marcellinus indeed first, but after him also Mensurius of Carthage, and Cæcilianus, escaped death from the sacrilegious flames, surviving like some ashes or cinders from the burning. [Answer to Petilian the Donatist, Book II, Chapter 93:202]

Augustine answered this charge as follows:

For now you go on to make mention of the bishops whom you are wont to accuse of having delivered up the sacred books, concerning whom we on our part are wont to answer: Either you fail in your proof, and so it concerns no one at all; or you succeed and then it still has no concern with us. For they have borne their own burden, whether it be good or bad; and we indeed believe that it was good. But of whatever character it was, yet it was their own; just as your bad men have borne their own burden, and neither you theirs nor they yours. [Answer to Petilian the Donatist, Book II, Chapter 93:208]

This is far from an absolute denial of the accusation, specifically with regard to Marcellinus. Augustine well knew that some Catholic bishops in Africa had indeed surrendered the sacred books, as noted in a previous post. So he had to fall back to a position saying he doesn't believe all of the accusations, but that even if they are true, the sins belong to the men in question, not to the whole Church.

Based on our rather limited knowledge, it seems possible that Marcellinus managed to retain his position during the early days of the Great Persecution perhaps by temporizing, compromising or negotiating with the vacillating figure of Maximianus Herculius who was the Augustus of the West. We know from Lactantius and other sources that Maximian was a rather crass, greedy fellow who was not above having his policies influenced by favors, flattery or an influx of gold. Perhaps Marcellinus was able to achieve a sort of secret coexistence with Maximian that was only broken when Diocletian arrived in Rome late in AD 303 to celebrate his vicenalia. Perhaps one thing that made Diocletian peevish on his visit was the discovery that his colleague, Maximianus, had been less assiduous in his rooting out of the hated Christians than expected.

If Saint Marcellinus had indeed taken some questionable measures to help preserve his flock during the persecution, or even secretly abjured under torture, the sources seem to agree that he later suffered bravely for the Faith, likely having been martyred. The fact that the pontifical seat remained empty after the death of Marcellinus provides mute testimony to status of the Christian population of Rome in AD 304 as they hid in fear of the tempest, not even daring to name a leader for the Church for seven full years.

An even more detailed examination of the possible apostasy and repentance of Pope Marcellinus may be found at the excellent Unam Sanctam Catholicam blog here.