Gelasius I was Pope (492 - 496). He is known as the third pope of African origin (more exactly from Kabylie) in Catholic history. Gelasius had been closely employed by his predecessor Felix, especially in drafting papal documents, and his election, March 1, 492, was a gesture for continuity: Gelasius inherited Felix's struggles with Eastern Roman Emperor Anastasius I and the patriarch of Constantinople and exacerbated them by insisting on the removal of the name of the late Acacius, patriarch of Constantinople, from the diptychs, in spite of every ecumenical gesture by the current, otherwise quite orthodox patriarch Euphemius (q.v. for details of the Acacian schism).

The split with the emperor and the patriarch of Constantinople was inevitable, from the western point of view, because they had embraced a view of a single, Divine ('Monophysite') nature of Christ, which the papal party viewed as heresy. Gelasius' book De duabus in Christo naturis ('On the dual nature of Christ') delineated

Powers of Church and State

During the Acacian schism, Gelasius went further than his predecessors in asserting the primacy of Rome over the entire Church, East and West, and he presented this doctrine in terms that set the model for subsequent popes asserting the claims of papal supremacy.

In 494, Gelasius wrote a very influential letter, known from its incipit as Duo sunt, to Anastasius . This letter established the dualistic principle that would underlie all Western European political thought for almost a millennium. In the letter Gelasius expressed a distinction between "two powers", which he called the "holy authority of bishops" (auctoritas sacrata pontificum) and the "royal power" (regalis potestas). These two powers, auctoritas lending justification to potestas, and potestas providing the executive strength for auctoritas were, he said, to be considered independent in their own spheres of operation, yet expected to work together in harmony.

Suppression of pagan rites and heretics

Closer to home, Gelasius finally suppressed the ancient Roman festival of the Lupercalia, after a long contest. Gelasius' letter to Andromachus, the senator, covers the main lines of the controversy and incidentally offers some details of this festival combining fertility and purification that might

Gelasius smoked out the closeted Manichaeans, the heretical dualists who considered themselves Christians and certainly passed for such and were present in Rome in large numbers, it was suspected. Gelasius decreed that the Eucharist had to be received "under both kinds", with wine as well as bread. As the Manichaeans held wine to be impure and essentially sinful, they would refuse the chalice and thus be recognized. Later, with the Manichaeans suppressed, the old normal method of receiving communion under the form of bread alone returned into vogue.

After a brief but dynamic reign, his death occurred on November 19, 496; (his interment occurred on November 21).

Writings

Gelasius was the most prolific writer of the early popes. A great mass of correspondence of Gelasius has survived, forty-two letters and fragments of forty-nine others, carefully archived in the Vatican, ceaselessly expounding to Eastern bishops the primacy of the see of Rome. There are extant besides six treatises that carry the name of Gelasius. The reputation of Gelasius attracted to his name other works not by him.

Main article: Decretum Gelasianum.

The most famous of pseudo-Gelasian works is the 5th-century list de libris recipiendis et non recipiendis ("books to be received and not to be received"), the so-called Decretum Gelasianum, connected to the pressures for orthodoxy during the pontificate of Gelasius and intended as a decretal by Gelasius on the canonical and apocryphal books, which internal evidence reveals to be of later date. Thus the fixing of the canon of scripture has traditionally been attributed to Gelasius and a non-historical Roman synod of 494 has been invented as the supposed occasion.

Gelasius natione Afer

Some have asserted that Gelasius was a black African by descent, because the Liber Pontificalis plainly states that he was natione Afer ('African by birthright'). Gelasius' own statement in a letter that he is Romanus natus (Roman-born) is certainly not inconsistent. However, his being of African heritage does not prove that he was a black African, since the natives of that continent's Mediterranean shores are not black. No visual representation of Gelasius, or description of his skin color, survives to settle the issue.

References

• Catholic Encyclopedia, 1908.
• Norman F. Cantor, Civilization of the Middle Ages. Gelasi I

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