Anastasius

The personal name Anastasius (Greek Anastasios, “resurrection”) was extremely common among Christians of late antiquity and the early Middle Ages. It was borne by several popes of Rome, by patriarchs of Constantinople and Antioch, by monks, martyrs, and theologians. The query supplies no epithet, see, century, or other identifier, and no Wikidata or Wikipedia pointer. A single birth year, death place, feast day, or patronage therefore cannot be assigned without guessing which historical person is meant. The following sketches the best-attested bearers of the name in hagiographical tradition, without collapsing them into one biography.

Pope Anastasius I, a Roman, succeeded Siricius as bishop of Rome in 399 and died in 401. Contemporary and near-contemporary notices (including correspondence involving Jerome, Augustine, and Paulinus of Nola) present him as an opponent of Origenist teaching: he condemned the reading of Origen’s more speculative works and required caution in their use. Little is securely known of his life before the papacy; his year of birth is not recorded in reliable sources. He was buried in the cemetery of Pontianus on the Via Portuensis. The Roman Martyrology commemorates him on 19 December. Later popes of the same name (Anastasius II, 496–498; Anastasius III, early tenth century; Anastasius IV, 1153–1154) are distinct figures and should not be confused with him; Anastasius II in particular is remembered for his handling of the Acacian schism rather than for a developed cult.

A different and widely venerated Anastasius is the Persian martyr originally named Magundat, a soldier in the Sasanian army under Khosrau II. After the capture of the True Cross from Jerusalem in the early seventh century he converted, took the baptismal name Anastasius, and entered the monastery of Saint Sabas in the Judean desert. He was later arrested for preaching Christianity, transferred into Persian territory, and put to death by strangulation and beheading. The traditional date of his martyrdom is 22 January 628; his year of birth is unknown. Relics associated with him were translated in stages to Jerusalem, Constantinople, and Rome (notably the church of Santi Vincenzo e Anastasio). Eastern and Western calendars keep his feast on 22 January. He was a monk, not a pope or patriarch; no spouse or children are recorded.

Saint Anastasius of Sinai (Anastasius Sinaita) was abbot of the monastery of Saint Catherine on Mount Sinai in the later seventh century. He is known from his own writings, especially the Hodegos (Guide) against Monophysite Christology, collections of questions and answers, and homilies. Precise years of birth and death are not established; he was active after the Arab conquest of Egypt and Sinai and is usually placed in the second half of the seventh century, with death sometimes given around or after 700. His feast appears on 21 April in Byzantine usage. Other churchmen of the name include patriarchs of Antioch (Anastasius I, died 599; Anastasius II, killed in 609) and of Constantinople, as well as local martyrs and monks whose dossiers are thinner. Because none of these men can be shown to be the intended subject, fields that require a unique identity—birth and death years and places, burial, order, marriage, papal or patriarchal office, feast, patronage, and acts of canonization or beatification—are left blank rather than filled by conjecture.