Anastasius
Anastasius [1]
is the name of several saints in various calendars, of some of whom we have given details elsewhere:
(1) the monk, a martyr in Persia, commemorated in all the old martyrologies on Jan. 23; (2) saint, April 1 (Bede); (3) the pope, April 27 (old Roman and Bede), or Oct. 28 (Armenian); (4) saint, May 2 (Bede); (5) the Cornicularius, martyr, Aug. 21 (old Roman); (6) Aug. 26 (Jerome); (7) bishop, Oct. 13 (Bede and Jerome).
is further the name of several other early Christian celebrities: (1) saint and martyr, who succeeded St. Anastasius in the patriarchate of Antioch, and was cruelly tortured and burned to death by the Jews, whom he had labored to convert (see Baillet, April 31); (2) a Spanish priest and monk, martyred by the Saracens at Cordova in 853 for having publicly refuted the errors of the Koran (see Baillet, June 14, vol. 2).
patriarch OF Constantinople was promoted by the influence of the emperor Leo Isaurus after the abdication or deposition of Germanus. According to one account, force was employed by the emperor to intimidate those who opposed the election; and when the populace, headed by some nuns, rioted against the new patriarch for removing an image of Christ from the palace, the ringleaders were executed. Anastasius favored the iconoclasts, which led to his excommunication by Gregory III. He was very complaisant to Artabasdus when he seized the throne; for which he was most ignominiously punished on the return to power of Constantius. He was, however, allowed, in mockery, to retain his see, and died in 753. By some chronologies he was made patriarch in 728.
a Persian martyr who was baptized at Jerusalem. After his baptism he retired into the monastery of Anastasius, and thence imbibing the superstitious desire of martyrdom, he journeyed to Caesarea, When there, he was brought before the governor Barzabanes, who endeavored, first by bribes, and afterward by tortures, to induce him to forsake the faith; failing in his attempts, he sent him into Persia, where he was first strangled, and then beheaded by order of Chosroes, January 22, 628, the day on which he is commemorated as a saint both in the East and West. — Baillet, Vies des Saints, Jan. 22; Landon, Eccl. Dict. s.v.
(Bibliothecarius), librarian of the Vatican, and abbot of St. Maria Trans- Tiberim at Rome, a celebrated and learned writer of the ninth century. The dates of his birth and death are unknown. He was on terms of intimacy with the learned men of his age, especially with Photius and Hincmar. He was present in 869 at the eighth council of Constantinople, where Photius was condemned. He translated the Acts of the Council from Greek into Latin. He wrote a Historia Ecclesiastica (Paris, ed. by Fabrotti. 1649, fol.); but the most important of his writings is a History of the Popes, under the title De Vitis Romanorum pontificum, a Petro Apostolo ad Nicolaunz I, adjectis vitis Hadriani II et Stephani IV (Romae, 1718-1735, 4 vols. fol., and several other editions). — Cave, Hist. Lit. ann. 870; Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Generale, 2, 479.
abbot of the monastery OF ST. Euthymius in Palestine, about 740. In the year 749 St. John Damascenus wrote against his error on the subject of the Trisagion, which he referred to the Son alone. The treatise against the Jews given by Canisius in his Antiquitates (III, 1, 123, and contained in vol. 13 of the Bibl. Patrum) is attributed to this writer, but erroneously, since the writer speaks of a space of eight hundred years having elapsed since the destruction of Jerusalem. Ceillier, however, who attributes the work to this Anastasius, makes him to have lived in the 9th century. See Cave, Hist. Lit. 1, 628.
