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From The Lives of the Popes from the Time of our Saviour Jesus Christ to the Accession of Gregory VII. Written Originally in Latin by B. Platina, Native of Cremona, and translated into English (from an anonymous translation, first printed in 1685 by Sir Paul Rycaut), Edited by William Benham, Volume I, London: Griffith, Farran, Okeden & Welsh, [1888, undated in text]; pp. 103-105.

The Lives of the Popes,
BY
B. Platina

Volume I.


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[103]

SIXTUS  III.

A.D. 432-440.

SIXTUS the Third, a Roman, son of Sixtus, lived in the time of Valentinian, who, being governor of the Western Empire, entered into a league with Gensericus, king of the Vandals, whom he permitted to inhabit part of Africa, confining themselves within certain boundaries agreed upon between them. Genseric being afterwards instigated by the Arians, became very zealous in propagating their errors, and violently persecuted the orthodox bishops. And Valentinian going to Constantinople, and there marrying Theodosius’s daughter, the Vandals in the meantime, under Genseric’s conduct, retook and sacked Carthage in the five hundred and eighty-fourth year since its first being in the hands of the Romans. While these things were transacting in Africa, Attila, King of the Huns, not contented to have invaded the two Hungaries, miserably harasses Macedonia, Mysia, Achaia, and the Thraces; and then, that he might have no sharer in the kingdom, puts to death his brother Bleda. Soon after, his growing ambition prompts him to endeavour the gaining of the western Empire; and therefore getting together in a very little time a great army, he begins his march upon that design. This Aetius having intelligence of, forthwith sends ambassadors to Toulouse to King Theodoric to strike up a peace, with whom so strict a league was concluded, that they both jointly engage in the war against Attila, at a common charge and with equal forces. The Romans and Theodoric had for their auxiliaries the Alanes, Burgundians, Franks, Saxons, and indeed almost all the people of the west. At length Attila comes upon them in the fields of Catalonia, and battle is joined with great valour and resolution on either side. The fight was long and sharp; a voice being overheard, none knowing from whence it came, was the occasion of putting an end to the dispute. In this engagement were slain on both sides eighteen thousand 104 men, neither army flying or giving ground. And yet it is said that Theodoric, father of King Thurismond, was killed in this action.

Sixtus had not long enjoyed the pontificate before he was publicly accused by one Bassus; but in a synod of fifty-seven bishops he made such a defence of himself, that he was by them all with one consent acquitted. Bassus, his false accuser, was, with the consent of Valentinian and his mother Placidia, excommunicated and condemned to banishment, but with this compassionate provision, that at the point of death the Viaticum of the blessed sacrament should not be denied him; the forfeiture of his estate was adjudged, not to the Emperor, but the Church. It is said that in the third month of his exile he died, and that our Bishop Sixtus did with his own hands wrap up and embalm his corpse, and then bury it in St Peter’s church. Moreover, Sixtus repaired and enlarged the church of the Blessed Virgin, which was anciently called by the name of Liberius, near the market place of Livia, then had the name of St Mary at the manger, and last of all was called St Maries the Great. That Sixtus did very much beautify and make great additions to it, appears from the inscription on the front of the first arch in these words, Xystus Episcopus Plebi Dei; for, according to the Greek orthography, the name begins with X and y, though by custom it is now written Sixtus with S and i. To this church this bishop was very liberal and munificent; among other instances adorning with porphyry stone the ambo or desk where the gospel and epistles are read. Besides what he did himself, at his persuasion the Emperor Valentinian also was very liberal in works of this nature. For over the Confessory of St Peter, which he richly adorned, he placed the image of our Saviour in gold set with jewels, and renewed those silver ornaments in the Cupola of the Lateran Church which the Goths had taken away. Some are of an opinion that in his time one Peter, a Roman presbyter, by nation a Sclavonian, built the Church of St Sabina upon the Aventine, not far from the monastery of St Boniface, where St Alexius is interred. But I rather think this to have been done in the pontificate of Cœlestine the First, as appears from an inscription in heroic verse, yet remaining, which expresses as much. It is said also, that at this time flourished Eusebius of Cremona and Philip, two scholars of St Hierom, both very elegant writers, as also Eucherius, Bishop of Lyons, a man of great learning and eloquence, 105 and Hilarius, Bishop of Arles, a pious man, and of no mean parts. Our Sixtus having employed all his estate in the building and adorning of churches, and relieving the poor, and having made twenty-eight presbyters, twelve deacons, fifty-two bishops, died, and was buried in a vault in the Via Tiburtina, near the body of St Laurence. He was in the chair eight years, nine days, and by his death the see was vacant twenty-two days.

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Previous Pope:  45. Cœlestinus I. 46. Sixtus III. Next Pope: 24. Leo I. The Great.

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