New Year’s Eve celebrates St. Silvester – the 4th-century pope whose legend shaped ideas of church and state

A mosaic of St. Silvester baptizing Emperor Constantine, from the Basilica Santi Quattro Coronati in Rome. Peter1936F/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

On Dec. 31, while many people are preparing for their New Years Eve parties, some Roman Catholic Christians will also mark the feast day for St. Silvester.

Little is known for certain about Silvester’s life, but he lived during a transformational period in the history of Christianity. From 314-335 C.E., Silvester was the bishop of Rome: what we now call the pope, although the role was not so powerful at the time. “Pope” comes from the Greek word for “father,” and was widely used by bishops until the fifth century, when the bishop of Rome began to monopolize the title.

Silvester’s era was one of both turmoil and transition for Christians living in the Roman Empire, as some Christian communities emerged from persecution into a powerful alliance with the Roman state. His story is deeply intertwined with this alliance, which would fundamentally change the trajectory of the movement initiated by the figure of Jesus of Nazareth three centuries earlier. Christianity would now become the faith of kings, states and empires.

A change in fortune

Trustworthy details of Silvester’s life are hard to come by. The “Liber Pontificalis,” a catalog of papal biographies that began to be compiled in the sixth century, tells us that he was from Rome and the son of an otherwise unknown man named Rufinus.

As a young man, Silvester lived through the persecutions initiated under one of the co-emperors at the time, Diocletian, which began in 303 C.E. These persecutions continued for several years after Diocletian stepped down.

Though many people picture early Christians being constantly persecuted by the Roman state, historians doubt these claims. The persecutions that began under Diocletian, however, are an exception. During this period, the state expected Christians to sacrifice to the gods for the well-being of the empire, or face consequences – sometimes violent ones.

A mural from the Ubisi Monastery in Georgia depicts Diocletian with St. George before his martyrdom.
Titus Project via Wikimedia Commons

According to the Christian theologian Augustine, some Christians later accused Silvester of having “betrayed” his faith during this period. Silvester was accused of turning over Christian sacred books to the Roman authorities and making offerings to the Roman gods.

The persecution came to an end in 313, when the co-emperors Constantine and Licinius signed the Edict of Milan, which granted tolerance to Christianity in the empire. Just a year later, Silvester became the bishop of Rome.

Constantine quickly became a major patron of Christians, though the extent to which he practiced Christianity is debated. With imperial support came a massive Christian building campaign in Rome – so much so that most of Silvester’s biography in the “Liber Pontificalis” consists of lists of all the churches that Constantine gifted to the city.

Christian controversies

Both before and during Silvester’s time as the bishop of Rome, there were many different Christianities in the empire. This diversity was troubling to Constantine, who wanted to promote unity and order in his domain. As such, he began to convene councils of Christian clergy to sort out contentious issues.

In 314, the year that Silvester became bishop, the emperor called the Council of Arles to address a dispute that had arisen among African bishops – what has become known as the Donatist Controversy. At issue was whether a priest who had betrayed his faith during the persecutions retained a valid ordination.

Silvester, though the bishop of an important city, did not attend, but sent representatives in his stead. It may be that, even at this early date, there were already rumors about what Silvester might have done during the persecutions.

An icon from the Mégalo Metéoron Monastery in Greece shows the Council of Nicea, with Arius at the bottom.
Jjensen/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

Around 10 years later, shortly after Constantine had become the sole ruler of the Roman world, he called another council in Nicaea, in modern-day Turkey. This time, he wanted Christian leaders to address an emerging rift centered on the ministry of a charismatic cleric named Arius. Silvester did not attend this council either, but again sent representatives.

The council eventually adopted what has been called the Nicene Creed, a statement of faith that remains important for many modern Christians. However, the council did not resolve the split around Arius. In fact, Constantine would later be baptized by a supporter of Arius, Eusebius of Nicomedia.

These decades when Silvester presided over the church transformed Christianity from a persecuted group into allies of the state. This alliance made theological differences between Christians even more fraught, since the force of the empire might now be wielded against one’s foes.

Rewriting history

But why, given these huge shifts, was Silvester not seen as a major player in the politics of his day?

This was a question that dogged later Christians – in fact, they invented stories about Silvester that put him right in the center of the action.

In the fifth century, an anonymous author wrote a biography now known as the “Acts of Silvester,” which made Silvester seem central to Constantine’s conversion to Christianity.

In the Acts, Constantine starts as a persecutor of Christians, for which God curses him with leprosy. Silvester, who had been in exile on a mountain near Rome amid the persecutions, is recalled to the city after Saints Peter and Paul visit Constantine in a dream. Silvester hears Constantine’s confession of faith, cures him miraculously of his leprosy, and then baptizes the emperor.

Just like that, Constantine now had a proper baptism from an orthodox bishop, not an Arian heretic.

A detail from ‘Baptism of Constantine,’ by Giovan Francesco Penni.
Vatican Museums via Wikimedia Commons

A century later, the “Liber Pontificalis” would claim that it was Silvester, not Constantine, who called the Councils of Arles and Nicaea. The text also credited him with a series of legal rulings. These changes to Silvester’s story elevated him to a major player in the events of his day. They also supported a growing effort to invest the bishop of Rome with the kind of authority that modern popes hold.

Donations and dragons

Legends about Silvester only grew with time – and even include a battle with a demonic dragon. But perhaps the most infamous legacy of Silvester is connected to the so-called “Donation of Constantine.”

This forged document was first drafted in the eighth century C.E. The Donation states that Emperor Constantine had bequeathed to the Roman bishop – at the time Silvester – control of the city of Rome, the western Roman Empire, huge tracts of land under imperial control, and authority over churches in the other centers of the Christian world, Constantinople.

For centuries, this document would undergird papal claims to both ecclesial and civil power. In the 15th century, German cardinal Nicholas of Cusa and the Italian scholar Lorenzo Valla showed the Donation to be a forgery, but by that point popes had already amassed the authority and wealth now associated with the office.

A mosaic depicting the ‘Donation of Constantine’ in Rome’s Basilica Santi Quattro Coronati.
Peter1936F/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

Though the precise details of Silvester’s life will likely remain a mystery, the times he lived in were pivotal for the history of Christianity and the West. While he was bishop, Christianity took its first steps toward a longstanding alliance with imperial and state power. Over time, Silvester’s story was embellished to not only justify this alliance, but to argue that the church should have political power.

Today a powerful block of Christian nationalists in the United States seeks similar power. For some, inspiration for this political project is based on the idea of a natural alliance between church and state – starting with Constantine, but justified by traditions invented around the life of Silvester. Yet this alliance was an accident of history, not foreordained. Over time Christians in the Roman Empire invented reasons for why the church should align with the state – and, eventually, become the state.

Cavan W. Concannon does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.