Portal:Catholicism/Patron Archive/December 31
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Pope Saint Sylvester I or Silvester I was pope from January 314 to December 31, 335, succeeding Pope Miltiades.
The accounts of his Papacy preserved in the Liber Pontificalis (7th or 8th century) and in Anastasius are little else than a record of the gifts said to have been conferred on the Roman Church by Emperor Constantine I. These gifts, the so called Patrimonium Petri were the base of the Papal State.
He was represented at the First Council of Nicaea, and is said to have held a council at Rome to condemn the heresies of Arius and others.
The legend of his having baptized Constantine is fictional, as contemporary evidence shows the emperor to have received this rite near Nicomedia at the hands of Eusebius, bishop of that city.
According to the 19th century historian Ignaz von Döllinger, the entire legend of Sylvester and Constantine, with all its details of Constantine's leprosy the proposed bath of blood and the Patrimonium Petri, cannot have been composed later than the close of the 5th century, while it is certainly alluded to by Gregory of Tours and Bede.
The so-called Donation of Constantine was long ago shown to be spurious, but the document is of very considerable antiquity and quality, and in Döllinger's opinion, was forged in Rome between 752 and 777. It was certainly known to Pope Adrian I in 778, and was inserted in the false decretals towards the middle of the next century.
Sylvester's legendary relationship to Constantine was important in the Middle Ages. Pope Sylvester II (999-1003), himself a close associate of Emperor Otto III, chose the name Sylvester in imitation of Sylvester I.
As the feast day of St. Sylvester is December 31st, New Year's Eve is known as or also referred to as Sylvester in certain countries.
His relics are housed in the church of San Silvestro in Capite, in Rome.
The controversial author Malachi Martin alleges that Sylvester once met the Desposyni, members of Jesus's family.
Attributes: as a pope with snake, shell, angel or olive branch, with a bull or a dragon
Patronage: domestic animals, forage harvest and a happy new year
Prayer:
