Editing Pope Celestine I (section)

==Pontificate==
According to the ''[[Liber Pontificalis]]'', the start of his papacy was 3 November.<ref name=LiberPontificalis>{{cite book|last=Loomis|first=Louise Ropes|title=The Book of the Popes (Liber Pontificalis)|year=1916|publisher=Columbia University Press|location=New York|pages=92f|url=https://archive.org/stream/bookofpopesliber00loom#page/92/mode/2up}}</ref> However, Tillemont places the date at 10 September.<ref name=Tillemont>{{cite book|last=Tillemont|first=Louis Sébastien Le Nain de|title=Memoires pour servir a l'histoire ecclesiaástique des six premiers siécles|year=1709|publisher=Charles Robustel|location=Paris|pages=14:148|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C10QftN9LSYC&pg=GBS.PA148}}</ref>  The Vatican also gives his pontificate as starting on 10 September 422.<ref name=Vatican>[https://www.vatican.va/content/vatican/en/holy-father/celestino-i.html Vatican Pope Celestine I]</ref>

Various portions of the [[catholic liturgy|liturgy]] are attributed to Celestine I, but without any certainty on the subject. In 430, he held a synod in Rome, at which the teachings of [[Nestorius]] were condemned. The following year, he sent delegates to the [[First Council of Ephesus]], which addressed the [[Nestorianism|same issue]].<ref name=shea/> Four letters written by him on that occasion, all dated 15 March 431, together with a few others, to the [[Africa]]n bishops, to those of [[Illyria]], of [[Thessalonica]], and of [[Narbonne]], are extant in re-translations from the [[Greek language|Greek]]; the [[Latin]] originals having been lost.

Celestine actively condemned the [[Pelagianism|Pelagians]] and was zealous for Roman orthodoxy. To this end he was involved in the initiative of the Gallic bishops to send Germanus of Auxerre and [[Lupus of Troyes]] travelling to Britain in 429 to confront bishops reportedly holding Pelagian views.

He sent [[Palladius (bishop of Ireland)|Palladius]] to [[Ireland]] to serve as a bishop in 431. Celestine strongly opposed the [[Novatians]] in [[Rome]]; as [[Socrates Scholasticus]] writes, "this Celestinus took away the churches from the Novatians at Rome also, and obliged Rusticulus their bishop to hold his meetings secretly in private houses."<ref>{{cite web|title=Ecclesiastical History 7:11|url=http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/26017.htm|access-date=3 March 2012}}</ref> The Novationists refused absolution to the [[Lapsi (Christianity)|lapsi]], but Celestine argued that reconciliation should never be refused to any dying sinner who sincerely asked for it.<ref name=shea/> He was zealous in refusing to tolerate the smallest innovation on the constitutions of his predecessors. As St. Vincent of Lerins reported in 434:

:Holy Pope Celestine also expresses himself in like manner and to the same effect. For in the Epistle which he wrote to the priests of Gaul, charging them with connivance with error, in that by their silence they failed in their duty to the ancient faith, and allowed profane novelties to spring up, he says: "We are deservedly to blame if we encourage error by silence. Therefore rebuke these people. Restrain their liberty of preaching."<ref>{{cite web|last=Lerins|first=St. Vincent of|title=Commonitory 32|url=http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3506.htm|access-date=12 July 2011}}</ref>

In a letter to certain bishops of Gaul, dated 428, Celestine rebukes the adoption of special clerical garb by the clergy. He wrote: "We [the bishops and clergy] should be distinguished from the common people [plebe] by our learning, not by our clothes; by our conduct, not by our dress; by cleanness of mind, not by the care we spend upon our person".<ref>H. Thurston, "Clerical Costume," in ''Catholic Encyclopedia'', vol. 4</ref>