A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

was bishop of Rome from the commencement of A. D. 402 until his death on the 12th of March, A. D. 417. He took an active part in the proceedings with regard to Chrysostom, whom he steadily supported while the patriarch was alive, and whose memory he vindicated from insult after death. Against the Novatians he displayed the most determined hostility, and one of his last acts was the condemnation of Pelagius, a sentence which, as appears evident from his epistles, ought to be regarded rather as a concession to the urgent representations of the Carthaginian Synod than as the result of full and heartfelt conviction. In consequence of the widely-diffused reputation enjoyed by Innocentius for learning and prudence, he was constantly consulted upon various points of doctrine and discipline by ecclesiastics at a distance; and the correspondence in which he thus became engaged with every part of the Christian world was conducted with so much skill, and the replies were couched so judiciously, in a tone of mingled advice, instruction, and authoritative dictation, that the practice of submitting questions of doubt or difficulty to the head of the Roman see became from this time forward general; and to this epoch we may refer the foundation of those claims to universal spiritual domination so boldly asserted, and, to a certain extent, so successfully maintained by Leo and his successors.

[W.R]