Callixtus I, whose Greek name means "most beautiful," was born in Rome, likely of a family of Greek origin living in Trastevere, and became a Christian as an adult. As a young slave he served Carpophorus, a Christian freedman of the emperor Commodus. Trusted with funds given by the faithful for widows and orphans, he lost the money when the bank failed, fled the city, and was caught near Portus. According to the hostile account of Hippolytus, he leapt overboard to escape, was rescued, returned to his master, and later rearrested after a violent dispute in a synagogue while seeking to recover debts. Denounced as a Christian, he was condemned to the mines of Sardinia.
After about three years his health was broken. Marcia, the Christian favorite of Commodus, obtained the release of Christian prisoners through the eunuch presbyter Hyacinthus. Callixtus was among them. Fellow Christians sent him to Antium to recover, and Pope Victor I granted him a pension. When Zephyrinus became Bishop of Rome about 199, he ordained Callixtus deacon, made him his close collaborator, and set him over the Christian cemetery on the Appian Way. That burial ground—the first landed property of the Church—became known as the Catacombs of Saint Callixtus; many later popes were laid to rest there in the Crypt of the Popes.
About 217 Callixtus succeeded Zephyrinus as Bishop of Rome. He fought heresy, including the modalism associated with Sabellius, and governed with a pastoral mercy that scandalized rigorists. He admitted into the Church converts from sects and schisms, taught that the Church could absolve all sins—including adultery and even murder—after penance, recognized as valid the marriages of free women with slaves, and allowed the remarriage of widows and their entry into clerical life. Hippolytus, who had hoped for the see himself, denounced these policies as lax, accused Callixtus of ambition and doctrinal weakness, and set himself up as rival bishop—the first antipope. Callixtus held firm to the unity and mercy of the Church.
He was associated with a Christian oratory in Trastevere, later the site of the basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere; tradition says that when tavern-keepers claimed the spot, the emperor Alexander Severus preferred the worship of God to a tavern. Callixtus's episcopate lasted some five years under the emperors Elagabalus and Alexander Severus. Around 222 or 223 he was killed for the faith, likely in a popular uprising against Christians. According to the Acts of Saint Callixtus and later tradition, he was thrown down a well near the present church of San Callisto; the priest Asterius recovered the body by night and buried it, and for that charity was himself martyred. Callixtus was laid to rest in the cemetery of Calepodius on the Aurelian Way. The fourth-century Depositio martyrum already marks his anniversary on 14 October. In the ninth century his relics were translated to Santa Maria in Trastevere and later shared among churches in Rome, Cysoing, Reims, Fulda, Naples, and elsewhere. He is honored as martyr and as patron of cemetery workers.
May Saint Callixtus intercede for us, that we may practice merciful forgiveness toward every penitent sinner.
