St. Anastasius (1)

Bishop of Antioch, A.D. 559, distinguished for his learning and austerity of life, excited the enmity of the Emperor Justinian by opposing certain imperial doctrines about the Body of Christ. He was to he deposed from his see and exiled, when Justinian died; but Justin II carried out his uncles purpose five years later, and another bishop, named Gregory, was put in his place; on the death of that prelate in 593, Anastasius was restored to his see. This was chiefly due to Pope Gregory the Great, who interceded with the Emperor Maurice and his son Theodosius, asking that Anastasius be sent to Rome, if not reinstated at Antioch. From some letters sent to him by Gregory, it is thought that he was not sufficiently vigorous in denouncing the claims of the Patriarch of Constantinople to be universal bishop. He died in 598, and another bishop of the same name is said to have succeeded him in 599, to whom the translation Gregory's "Regula Pastoralis" is attributed, and who is recorded as having been put to death in an insurrection of the Jews. Nicephorus (Hist. Eccl., XVIII, xliv) (declares that these two are one and the same person. The same difficulty occurs with regard to certain Sermons de orthodoxâ fide, some ascribing them to the latter Anastasius; others claiming that there was but one bishop of that name.

Acta, SS., 21 April; BUTLER, Lives of the Saints, 21 April; MICHAUD, Biog. Univ.; Venables in Dict. Christ. Biog.

T.J. CAMPBELL