Pope Sylvester: How to Create a Saint - The Syriac Contribution to the Sylvestrian Hagiography

How to “create” a Saint? Why does a bishop that History nearly forgot, become, thanks to an operation of pro-Constantine propaganda, a historically and hagiographically leading figure? What is the contribution that Syriac tradition gave to the birth and development of the hagiography concerning the Roman Saint Sylvester? About Sylvester, bishop of Rome, the History does not remember much more then the dates of his episcopate (314-335 CE). However, he soon becomes the protagonist of a Legend that would deeply influence the History and, particularly, the History of Christianity: the orthodox baptism of the emperor Constantine. Sylvester, who was, according to this legend, the baptizer of Constantine, therefore becomes an undisputed protagonist of the historical and hagiographical panorama. The Actus Silvestri, the hagiographical work narrating his life, knew an extraordinary fortune, crossing the borders of the Greek and Latin literature, to reach the Syria; and exactly in Syriac the most ancient known witness of Actus Silvestri (7th c.) is kept. This article tries to reconstruct the reasons and ways by which the transition from the historical figure to the hagiographical character occurred, focusing on the contribution that the Syriac tradition carried to the elaboration both of the character of Sylvester as a Saint and of the Legend of which he is protagonist.