According to legend, Pope Sylvester II was an occultist and it was this connection with the “forces of darkness” which helped him become pope in the first place.
He was born in 946 as Gerbert, in a French town called Bellac. His childhood is unrecorded, and we know of nothing that was suspicious surrounding his youth.
In 963, he discerned the call to consecrated life and became a monk in the monastery of St. Gerald of Aurillac. It is this connection with the monastery that Gerbert became known to history as “Gerbert of Aurillac”.
In 967, Borrel II, Count of Barcelona, and the abbot of the monastery, who’s name has been lost to time, asked Count Borrel II to bring Gerbert with him to Catalonia, where he might study the “Arabic sciences”.
You see, around this time, scholasticism was all but dead in Catholic Europe. It was in the Muslim countries that continued on with scientific endeavor. And so any individual that wished to become educated in the natural sciences, would have to learn it in Arabic.
It was while he was in Seville and Cordoba, learning about the natural sciences that he also learned the occult sciences. He stole a book of spells from an Arabic philosopher in Spain, and used the knowledge in the book to prevent becoming trapped.
After he got the book he also made a pact with Meridiana, his succubus. And she taught him how to make a mechanical contraption that she called a “bronze head” which would answer truthfully any questions with yes or no.
In 969, Count Borrel II was on a pilgrimage to Rome and brought Gerbert with him. There Gerbert met with Pope John XIII and Emperor Otto, the Great. The Pope persuaded Emperor Otto to employ Gerbert to tutor his young son, Otto II.
Some years later, Emperor Otto allowed Gerbert to leave where he was appointed as a teacher at the Cathedral School of Rheims by Archbishop Adalberon.
When Otto II became Holy Roman Emperor in 973, he appointed Gerbert the abbot of the monastery of Bobbio and also appointed him as count of the district, but the monastery had been ruined by previous abbots, and Gerbert soon returned to Rheims to teach.
After the death of Otto II, Gerbert became involved in the politics of his time. In 985, with the support of his archbishop, he opposed Lothair of France’s attempt to take the Lorraine (a piece of land) from Emperor Otto III by supporting Hugh Capet. Capet became King of France, ending the Carolingian line of Kings in 987. One could imagine that the book of spells stolen from the Arabic magus was instrumental in obtaining Gerbert’s political desires, dynasties do not fall every day.
In 989, Archbishop Adalberon died. Gerbert was the natural candidate so succeed him in the Rheims diocese, but Hugh Capet, King of France (the one Gerbert empowered with his magic), appointed Arnulf, an illegitimate son of Lothair instead. Arnulf was deposed in 991 for alleged treason, and Gerbert was elected his successor.
In 995, Archbishop Gerbert became the teacher of Otto III, and Pope Gregory V, Otto III’s cousin, appointed him Archbishop of Ravenna in 998, at this time a synod found Arnulf’s deposition to be false, and he was reinstated as Archbishop of Rheims.
With the Emperor’s support, he was elected to succeed Gregory V as Pope in 999. Gerbert took the name of Sylvester II, alluding to Pope Sylvester I, the advisor to Emperor Constantine I.
As Pope, in 1003, he was going to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and Meridiana warned the Pope that if he ever said Mass in Jerusalem, the devil would come for him. Fearing for his life, he canceled his pilgrimage. But, he said Mass in the Santa Croce in Gerusalemme (Holy Cross of Jerusalem) Church. After completing the Mass he became very sick and died. The devil had come for him.
And that is the legend of Pope Sylvester II and Meridiana.
