The Acts of Sylvester (Latin: Actus Silvestri) are a series of legendary tales about the fourth-century bishop of Rome, Sylvester I. Sylvester was the bishop of Rome at the critical point in European history when Constantine the Great became the first Christian emperor. Yet, despite the claims that arose in later centuries of Roman primacy, some academics question whether Sylvester played a significant role in the Christianization of the Roman Empire during this crucial period. They contend these legends arose in order to augment the reputation of Sylvester and to correct a number of embarrassing events for the Church, such as his conspicuous absence at both the Synod of Arles in 314 and the First Council of Nicaea in 325, and the fact that Constantine had been baptized by an Arian bishop.
Sapienza Università di Roma professor, Tessa Canella, has written extensively on Pope Sylvester and the Actus in both English and Italian since the early 2000s. Canella's work provides some of the most recent and in-depth scholarship on the origins of the legends, including two detailed works in Italian: Gli Actus Silvestri: Genesi di una leggenda su Costantino imperatore, a book-length study that provides a comprehensive examination of the texts; and a summarized, journal-length version of the former, Gli Actus Silvestri fra Oriente e Occidente: Storia e diffusione di una leggenda Costantiniana. Canella notes that the most recent edition of the Acts was done in 1974 by Pietro De Leo, Ricerche sui falsi medioevali (Research on Medieval Fakes), with the older Latin version published in 1480 by Bonino Mombrizio (Mombritius) available online. Canella states that the Acts had a specific purpose: to create an alternative history and counter the sources that mention the Arian baptism, specifically to give Constantine an orthodox baptism given by the bishop of Rome himself.
Background Constantine's deathbed baptism by the Arian Bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia was well-documented by a number of sources. The first record came from his contemporary biographer, Eusebius of Caesarea in his Life of Constantine. Jerome's Chronicon (380 CE) also mentions the Arian baptism. Ambrose, bishop of Milan, 374–97, mentions the deathbed baptism but omits the name of the minister administering the sacrament in an attempt to present a more orthodox version in De obitu Theodosii (40:8). Augustine, bishop of Hippo, 395 to 430, easily the most influential of all the Latin fathers on Roman Catholic doctrine, in City of God (Book V, 25) simply omitted the inconvenient truth of the Arian baptism: 'He died at a great age, of sickness and old age, and left his sons to succeed him in the empire.'
Content The main narrative can be divided into four parts written over two books (two parts per book).
Part one (Mombritius, 508–510) The Acts open with a description of the early life of Sylvester, born to a pious widow named Giusta. Later in life, a fictitious Roman prefect named Tarquino has Sylvester arrested and orders the young man to make pagan sacrifices, which Sylvester refuses. Sylvester prophesies that Tarquino will die and asks him to repent. The next day, Tarquino dies just as Sylvester predicted, and he is subsequently released and ordained as a priest. Following the death of Pope Miltiades (311–14), Sylvester is elected pope in which his charity and pastoral care are notable signatures of his papacy.
Part two (Mombritius, 510–515) The second part is the most well-known section of the Acts, and arguably had the most influential aspect on Catholic apologetics. Constantine, stricken with leprosy, consults numerous magicians and physicians to no avail when he is finally advised by the pagan priests to bathe in the warm blood of children. Constantine is moved by the desperation of the mothers and decides not to proceed with sacrificing innocent children for his own sake. That night, Constantine has a dream where he is visited by Peter and Paul who instruct Constantine to seek out Pope Sylvester in order to be healed. Peter and Paul had been sent by Jesus to Constantine because of the piety he showed in refusing to kill the children to save himself. Constantine sends for Sylvester to be brought to Rome, and upon arrival, Constantine tells Sylvester of the dream. Constantine asks to see pictures of the two saints, and confirms that they are the men who appeared to him in his dream.
Constantine then undertakes his first profession of faith by fasting for a week, after which, Sylvester baptizes Constantine at the Lateran Palace in Rome (a building which Constantine had already donated to the Christian Church around 313, a fact missed by the forgers of the legend), and the scales immediately dropped from his skin. This story counters Constantine's baptism by an Arian bishop and is notable for its propaganda as a Nicene orthodox reimagining of the facts.
The Acts then narrate an entire series of fictions which are all favorable to Christians, and more directly for the Roman Church: Jesus is to be worshipped throughout the Roman Empire, blasphemy and injury to Christians is a punishable offense, the bishop of Rome has primacy over all other bishops, and the right of asylum for churches. Finally, Constantine traced out the foundations for the Lateran basilica to be built next to the palace and began construction the next day. In conjunction with the evolution of concepts of papal primacy over the centuries, this series of Constantine's bequests to the Roman Church would become the basis of the forged Donation of Constantine centuries later.
Part three (Mombritius, 515–529) The third section narrates a dispute between Sylvester and twelve Jewish representatives and is the main focus of the second book. Canella notes that details vary across all three versions (A, B, and C) of the Actus. Helena, the mother of Constantine, had converted to Judaism and wrote a letter to her son to applaud his conversion from paganism but urged him to follow the true god of the Jews. Constantine proposes a contest between the Jews and Pope Sylvester, which claimed to have taken place in Rome on 15 March 315; the year 315 corresponds to the time that Constantine and Licinius were both in their fourth terms as consuls:
Sylvester triumphs over the twelve, which Canella states are 'chosen from among rabbis, law experts, scribes and masters of the synagogue'. In the final confrontation, a Jew by the name of Zambri shows the power of the Jewish god by saying the secret name of Yahweh into the ear of a bull, brought there specifically for this demonstration, which immediately dies. Sylvester, not to be outdone, proves the superiority of the Christian god by invoking the name of Jesus and resurrects the bull. Amazed by the power of the Christian god, Helen, the philosopher judges Crato and Zenophilus, and three thousand Jews convert to Christianity.
While this council was not real, in a case of life imitating fiction, an event occurred in 1240 under Pope Gregory IX and is known as the Disputation of Paris; and Canella discusses more similar disputes in her book. Oxford professor, Diarmaid MacCulloch, notes that while Greek language skills had declined among Latin scholars, many knew Hebrew precisely because there was a large community of Jewish rabbis in Europe ready, willing, and able to challenge Christians and their misinterpretations of the Hebrew Bible and other Jewish writings, such as the Babylonian Talmud; a document containing passages derogatory of Jesus which sparked the Disputation of Paris in the first place. Part four (Mombritius, 529–531) The Acts concludes with the most exaggerated story in the series of legends, in which Sylvester tames a dragon that had been killing Roman inhabitants every day since the conversion of Constantine. The dragon became angered by the fact that it no longer received its proper sustenance from the Vestals, and was finally stopped by Sylvester sealing its mouth until Judgment Day. As with the debate with the Jewish scholars who were amazed by the power of the Vicar of Christ, more than thirty thousand pagans, including another fictional prefect, Calpurnius, convert to Christianity.
Origins The date and location of the emergence of the Acts remains a matter of scholarly debate, but the legends are thought to have arisen sometime between the end of the fourth or beginning of the fifth century; though some scholars have speculated an earlier mid-fourth-century origin. Dating the texts accurately is compounded by the fact that there are multiple versions across several languages which share a majority of the content, but all differ slightly in details:
Canella notes that the Mombritius and De Leo versions derive from the C group. Canella discusses how various oral stories were circulating prior to the first, and therefore oldest, text that is written in Latin (A), which has distinctly Roman traits. Further, Canella speculates that the baptismal legend had likely not begun to circulate 'when Ambrose, Rufinus, Augustine, and Orosius provide their 'disguised' versions ... in some cases completely silent about the baptism'.
The story came to be accepted by Trinitarian apologists and it was included in the entry for Sylvester in the Liber Pontificalis (Book of the Popes) in the middle of the sixth century. Gregory of Tours (538–94) was the first Latin historian to cite the baptism by Sylvester in his History of the Franks. Yet, Gregory's contemporary, Isidore of Seville, cites the accepted Arian tradition in his Chronica Majora (VII), which 'testifies that the Orthodox version was not unanimously adopted'. Centuries later there were still those who dismissed the baptism by Sylvester in favor of the original tradition. Professor Johannes Fried notes that in the twelfth century, Otto of Freising considered the baptism by Sylvester to be propaganda meant to elevate the Church, a story he knew derived from the Acts that was promoted by the Romans as a challenge to the other sources, particularly the Tripertita hystoria:
Syriac Version Canella points out early precursors of the leprosy/baptism myth appeared in Syriac writings prior to its subsequent revision for Roman purposes, such as a homily attributed to James of Sarûg, 'probably in an era preceding all the Roman apocryphals, but after 473'. Canella notes a significant difference in this version, such as Constantine having suffered leprosy from birth and that the baptism was not conducted by Sylvester, but by a bishop undeserving of the title. Further, Canella notes that the Acts parallels stories found in the Acts of Giuda Ciriaco, such as the discovery of the true cross, the Council of the Twelve Jews, and the baptism of Constantine by a Roman bishop—not Sylvester, but Eusebius of Rome.
Jonathan Stutz also notes the early existence of the legends in Syriac, and their later inclusion into Islamic writings. In addition to the homily of Sarûg, the Syriac versions of the story appear in the histories of Zacharias Rhetor and the Chronicle of Zuqnin. The story then makes its first appearance in Arabic in the tenth-century works of Agapius of Hierapolis (Maḥbūb al-Manbiǧī), in which Sylvester enters the narration following Constantine's vision of the cross at the Battle of Milvian Bridge in 312. Another tenth-century Syriac version of the legend, the Chronicle of Seert, demonstrates the narrative was in 'wide circulation across the lands under Islamic rule'.
Propagation of the myth Professor Paolo Liverani writes that a mosaic and an inscription of the mid-fifth century over the façade of the original St. Peter's Basilica is the earliest attestation of the myth that Constantine was afflicted with leprosy as it appears in the Acts of Sylvester. Further, Liverani reveals elements of Constantine's relation to the basilica were noted by Pope Leo I (440–461) during the Sack of Rome in 455 by the Vandals: