Saint Sylvester I

Sylvester was bishop of Rome from 314 to 335, and his pontificate lines up almost exactly with the reign of Constantine: that is, with the moment when Christianity stops being persecuted and begins to be the religion of the state. Paradoxically, we know little about what he did. He did not go to the Council of Nicaea in 325 — the first ecumenical council — in person: he sent two priests to represent him. It was Constantine who called it, not him. Over that gap, the Middle Ages built a mountain of legends. The most famous says that Sylvester cured Constantine of leprosy and baptized him, and that the emperor, out of gratitude, gave him Rome and the West. That document — the Donation of Constantine — was for centuries the legal foundation of the popes’ temporal power. In 1440 the humanist Lorenzo Valla proved it was a forgery by analyzing its Latin: it had been written centuries later. It is one of the first triumphs of modern philology. Sylvester died in Rome on December 31, 335. In half the world, his name has now become the name of the last night of the year: in Germany, in Austria, in Poland, in Israel, New Year’s Eve is simply called Silvester. If your name is Sylvester, today is your name day.