Simplicius

Pope Simplicius, Bishop of Rome from 468 until 483, was born at Tivoli (ancient Tibur) in Latium. The Liber Pontificalis, the principal narrative source for his life, names his father as Castinus and gives no further account of his early career. Almost nothing can be verified about him before his elevation. He succeeded Pope Hilarius and was consecrated in March 468, in the last generation of the Western imperial court. His pontificate unfolded against a rapid succession of Western rulers—Anthemius, Olybrius, Glycerius, Julius Nepos, and finally Romulus Augustulus—and ended under the rule of the Germanic king Odoacer, who in 476 deposed the last Western emperor and took power in Italy. Simplicius remained in Rome and continued to govern the Roman church through that political collapse.

In the city itself he is remembered chiefly as an organizer of worship and a builder. The Liber Pontificalis credits him with arranging that priests of the Roman tituli should serve, in weekly rotation, at the major basilicas of St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. Lawrence, so that baptism and penance could be administered at those shrines. The same source attributes to him the dedication of several churches: the basilica of St. Stephen on the Caelian Hill (San Stefano Rotondo), a church of St. Andrew near Santa Maria Maggiore, and a church of St. Stephen near San Lorenzo fuori le Mura. These notices, though brief, are the main evidence for his local pastoral work. No contemporary full biography survives; his letters and the papal chronicle remain the basis for what can be said with confidence.

The dominant theological concern of his reign was the defence of the Council of Chalcedon (451) against Monophysite parties in the East. Simplicius upheld the Chalcedonian teaching of two natures in Christ and repeatedly protested imperial acts that restored or favoured non-Chalcedonian bishops, especially at Alexandria and Antioch. He opposed the Encyclion of the usurper Basiliscus, which set aside Chalcedon, and later resisted the Henotikon issued by Emperor Zeno in 482, a reunion formula associated with Patriarch Acacius of Constantinople that avoided an explicit endorsement of Chalcedon’s decrees. He sought the restoration of Chalcedonian prelates such as those displaced by Timothy Aelurus in Alexandria and by Peter the Fuller in Antioch, and he asserted the Roman see’s right to be consulted in such settlements. The complete breach with Constantinople known as the Acacian Schism opened immediately after his death, under his successor Felix III.

Simplicius died in Rome on 10 March 483 and was buried in the basilica of St. Peter on the Vatican Hill. He was succeeded by Pope Felix III. The Roman Church has honoured him as a saint from an early date; his feast is entered on 10 March in the Roman Martyrology. Beyond the short Liber Pontificalis notice and the surviving correspondence on Eastern affairs, the documentary record is thin, and later legend did not substantially enlarge his biography.