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St. Miltiades

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Saints and feasts

St. Miltiades

Pope

Miltiades, also called Melchiades, was pope when persecution gave way to greater freedom for the Church. Butler recalls his part in the early Donatist controversy and his moderation.

Sources

The life below remains the existing Butler-based reading, with its edition citation. The profile preserves the feast date and source title already listed in the library. Additional personal dates and historical details are shown only when separately documented.

Name also found in the source: Melchiades
Butler uses Melchiades in the heading and Miltiades in the opening sentence for the same pope.

Butler sourceAlban Butler, The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints, Volume XII (December), Thomas Richardson and Son, Derby, for the Catholic Book Society, 1846; December 10, “St Melchiades, Pope,” pp. 226-229.

Butler’s Lives of the Saints (1846)Alban Butler, The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints, Volume XII (December), Thomas Richardson and Son, Derby, for the Catholic Book Society, 1846; December 10, “St Melchiades, Pope,” pp. 226-229.

The reading

ⓘ Butler source

Alban Butler, The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints, Volume XII (December), Thomas Richardson and Son, Derby, for the Catholic Book Society, 1846; December 10, “St Melchiades, Pope,” pp. 226-229.

Miltiades, called Melchiades in Butler’s heading, became bishop of Rome in 311. His pontificate saw the defeat of Maxentius and the new freedom granted to Christians under Constantine. Butler remembers both the relief brought by that peace and the responsibilities it placed upon the Church.

A dispute over the church of Carthage brought the Donatist controversy before a council at Rome. Miltiades and the assembled bishops examined the charges against Caecilian and found him innocent. Butler especially recalls the moderation shown toward other bishops willing to return to communion.

Miltiades died in January 314 and was buried on the Appian Way. Butler prints his life under December 10 and explains that the martyr title found in some calendars refers to suffering in earlier persecutions. It is not an account of his being executed at the end of this pontificate.

Historical note

An original Novena Regina reading adapted and summarized from the cited pre-1962 source. This is not a transcription of Butler’s words.

Miltiades and Melchiades are names of the same pope. Butler’s December 10 entry distinguishes his January death and explains the older martyr title by earlier suffering rather than an execution in 314.

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