Felix III

CONCERNING ST. FELIX III, POPE.

IN THE YEAR 492.

HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.

Felix III, Pope (Saint).

By G. H.

Section I: The four Popes named Felix. The sacred cult of St. Felix III. His noble progeny.

[1] Among the supreme Pontiffs of the Roman Church, four called Felix are recorded, all inscribed in the sacred tables of the Roman Martyrology; and the first two, indeed, also irrigated with their own blood the evangelical field entrusted to them. The holy Popes named Felix: Felix I, Martyr. They are honored with the annual celebration of the Ecclesiastical Office at the altar everywhere: Felix I, who was crowned with martyrdom under the Emperor Aurelian around the year 275, on the third before the Kalends of June; and Felix II, on the fourth before the Kalends of August, who, having been cast out of his see by the Arian Emperor Constantius for the defense of the faith and secretly slain by the sword at Caere in Tuscany, died gloriously -- Felix II, Martyr. as is recorded in those very words in the Roman Martyrology, where he is also called the second Pope of that name. So that it is a wonder that he should be stricken from the number of the Pontiffs by Onuphrius Panvinius in the Ecclesiastical Chronicle and his Notes on Platina, by Alphonsus Ciaconius in the History of the Supreme Pontiffs, and by others. There exists an ancient manuscript codex in the library of the Most Serene Christina, Queen of Sweden, should he be established among the Pontiffs? in which, under the name of Pope Damasus, is contained a History of the Supreme Pontiffs, continued after the time of Damasus to St. Felix IV, with the names of the following Pontiffs then appended without any eulogy, down to Pelagius II, the predecessor of St. Gregory the Great. In this history, Felix II is also listed among the Supreme Pontiffs, as the successor of St. Liberius, who was still living and had been relegated to exile by the Emperor Constantius because he refused to consent to the Arian heresy. At that time Liberius appears to have voluntarily resigned the pontificate and to have given the Roman Clergy full and free faculty to appoint a Pastor for the universal Church, who would defend it (as St. Felix did) against the violence and plots of the Arians. The History of the Pontiffs asserts that Felix was ordained either with the counsel of Liberius, or -- as some codices have it -- was ordained by Liberius with the counsel of others. Thus also St. Celestine V, with no public necessity even pressing, in the year 1294, after having administered the pontifical dignity for some time, abdicated. The remaining matters concerning St. Felix II will be discussed at July 29.

[2] Having briefly touched upon these matters in passing, we more safely follow the Martyrologies in calling Felix III Pope by that name, and Felix IV Pope by his, whom Ciaconius asserts were and ought to be called Felix II and Felix III. Felix III, Another controversy concerning these two is which days are assigned to the sacred cult of each in the Martyrologies. The very ancient manuscript Martyrology of Reichenau and the manuscript of the Carmelites of Cologne, also various manuscript copies of Usuard augmented for the use of the churches of the Low Countries, the manuscript Florarium, the Martyrology printed at Cologne in 1490, Bellinus of Padua, and Molanus in his additions to Usuard -- all have these few words on December 30: "At Rome, St. Felix, Bishop," venerated on December 30. whom Maurolycus calls Pope the Third. Peter de Natali in book 2, chapter 21 likewise identifies him as the successor of Pope Simplicius, and reports that he was buried in the basilica of the Blessed Apostle Paul on the third before the Kalends of January. Hermann Greven in his supplement to Usuard says: "According to the Catalogue, at Rome, Felix Pope the Third (according to others, the Fourth) and Confessor." But we have not yet read that anyone assigns Felix IV to that day. The aforecited History of the Pontiffs records that his death occurred on the fourth before the Ides of October, while nothing at all is said about the day on which Felix III had his last day in this life. The memory of the same Felix III is reported to have been consecrated again on the third before the Ides of May in the manuscript Florarium, in these words: May 13, "At Rome, the deposition of Felix Pope the Third, in the year of salvation 492, buried in the basilica of St. Paul." But Canisius in the German Martyrology under September 16: "At Rome," he says, "St. Felix, Pope the Third, September 16, a most holy man, who condemned Acacius, Bishop of Constantinople, for heresy." Concerning the same St. Felix, in the tables of the Roman Martyrology, as revised by the authority of Pope Urban VIII, the following is read under February 25: and February 25. "At Rome, the birthday of St. Felix, Pope the Third, who was the great-great-grandfather of St. Gregory the Pope; of whom Gregory relates that, appearing to his niece St. Tharsilla, he called her to the heavenly kingdom." Before that revision, it read: "At Rome, the birthday of St. Felix, Pope the Fourth, who was the great-great-grandfather of St. Gregory the Pope," etc. Through error, January 30, on which Felix IV is venerated. But on January 30 it formerly read: "At Rome, St. Felix, Pope the Third, who labored much for the Catholic faith." Now the word "Third" has been removed, and Felix IV is venerated on that day, as was then stated on pages 1032 and following.

[3] St. Gregory the Great, in Homily 38 on the Gospels, writes the following about St. Felix, his great-great-grandfather: "On a certain night, to my aunt Tharsilla, who among her sisters had grown in the honor and summit of sanctity Felix the Pope was the great-great-grandfather of St. Gregory the Great, by the virtue of continual prayer, devoted affliction, singular abstinence, and gravity of life -- as she herself narrated -- my great-great-grandfather Felix, the Bishop of this Roman Church, appeared in a vision and showed her a vision of perpetual brightness, saying: 'Come, for in this abode of light I await you.' She thereupon was seized by a fever on the following day and came to her last day." Thus St. Gregory, who in book 4 of the Dialogues, chapter 16, recalls the same things from the cited homily; these will be narrated more fully in the Life of his aunt St. Tharsilla on December 24. The Venerable Bede, in book 2 of the Ecclesiastical History of the English People, chapter 1, also affirms that Felix the Pope was the great-great-grandfather of St. Gregory. "Gregory was," he says, "Roman by nation, of the father Gordian, tracing his lineage from forebears not only noble but also religious. Then Felix, formerly Bishop of the same Apostolic See, a man of great glory in Christ and in the Church, was his great-great-grandfather." Thus Bede, following St. Gregory; but from the words of both, it is not clear which Felix this was. John the Deacon, who wrote four books on the life of St. Gregory around the year 880, not the Fourth, called his great-great-grandfather Felix Pope the Fourth. "This Gregory," he says, "sprung from senatorial stock, traced a most noble as well as most religious genealogy, so that Felix the Fourth, Pontiff of the Apostolic See, a man of great reverence in the Church of Christ, who most beautifully built the basilica of the Holy Martyrs Cosmas and Damian on the Sacred Way near the temple of Romulus, as is still to be seen, was his great-great-grandfather." Thus far that passage. What is reported about the building of the basilica of SS. Cosmas and Damian pertains to St. Felix IV and is narrated in his Acts on January 30. Leo of Ostia, the Marsican, Bishop of Ostia, who flourished around the year 1100, in book 1 of the Cassinese Chronicle, chapter 1, speaking of St. Benedict, adds the following about St. Felix: "St. Benedict flourished," he says, "in the times of the Emperors Justin the Elder and Justinian, and of the Roman Pontiffs John I and Felix the Fourth, whom the holy Pope Gregory testifies was his great-great-grandfather."

[4] Thus Leo, interpreting the aforesaid words of St. Gregory in the same way as John the Deacon, when Gregory himself only says that his great-great-grandfather was Felix, Bishop of the Roman Church; and that he is Felix III, but Felix III, of whom we treat here, is demonstrated both by the homeland of each Felix and by a right consideration of chronology. For Felix IV was a Samnite by nation, from Benevento, while Felix III was a Roman. But it is certain and beyond doubt that St. Gregory did not trace his origin from the Samnites, but from the ancient Roman Senators. Moreover, if the years from the death of Felix IV are counted up to the election of St. Gregory as Pope -- already then an old man -- only sixty are found, which cannot encompass the five generations that must be established from a great-great-grandfather to a great-great-grandson; but they can be accommodated if about a hundred years are interposed, which is roughly the number that elapsed from the death of St. Felix III to the pontificate of St. Gregory. Baronius expounds these matters at greater length in his Notes on the Roman Martyrology and in the Annals at the year of Christ 492, where, having narrated the death of St. Felix III in section 1, he adds that the corrupted reading, by which Felix the Fourth was read in the Roman Martyrology, has been rejected, and St. Felix Pope the Third is now read. The remaining writers agree throughout: Onuphrius Panvinius, John Stella, Alphonsus Ciaconius on the Roman Pontiffs, Arnold Wion, John Seifridus, and others who write on the Anician family, as will presently be mentioned; Petavius in On the Doctrine of Times, book 13, at the year 492; Severinus Binius and others in the Collection of Councils. Ferrarius opposed them in the Catalogue of Saints of Italy, but before the revision of the Roman Martyrology carried out by Urban VIII, and he vainly, without the authority of the ancients, takes refuge in the maternal family of St. Gregory, as though he were of Samnite origin even so. And the strongest argument we have adduced from chronological reckoning, he passes over in silence. Nor does any other escape remain except by weakening the meaning of the word atavus (great-great-grandfather), as though it equally indicates a grandfather or great-grandfather -- which are devices contrived in vain. Vipera, on the Saints of Benevento, on this day agrees with Ferrarius.

[5] Arnold Wion, following Jerome Bardus the Florentine of the Camaldolese Order, whose manuscript book in Italian on the most noble and most ancient family of the Anician house he possessed, in his treatise on the same family asserts that St. Felix III, Pope, [He is believed by some to have been descended from the most noble Anician family,] great-great-grandfather of St. Gregory the Great, descended from Quintus Anicius Praenestinus, whom he places around the year 450 from the founding of the City, about 300 years before Christ, with fifteen generations of most illustrious men interposed. The efforts of Wion and Bardus are illustrated and continued by John Seifridus in the Anician genealogical tree of the Most Serene Princes of the Most August House of Austria. The grandfather of St. Felix is called by these authors Anicius Tertullus, his grandfather Anicius Tertullus, son of Sextus Anicius and brother of Sextus Petronius Probus, who held the consulship with the Emperor Gratian in the year 371. Onuphrius, in book 3 of his Commentary on the Fasti, observed that this Anicius Tertullus administered the Praetorian Prefecture in the West in the year 359 and the two following years. Furthermore, the father of St. Felix, as these authors hold, was Flavius Anicius Felix, son of the said Anicius Tertullus, his father Flavius Anicius Felix, concerning whose marriage Seifridus writes the following in book 3, page 104: "It seems most probable to me that the wife of this Felix was that Petronia whose epitaph is seen at Rome at St. Paul's outside the Walls; perhaps also his mother Petronia? for on one and the same tablet the sepulchral inscription of the son Gordian and the daughter Aemiliana is appended, which names were proper to the Anician-Gordian stock at this period; and she in the same epitaph is declared to have been the wife of a Levite -- which indeed can not improbably be understood of the Felix of whom we speak, especially since the reckoning of time is in no way adverse to us, unless we prefer to suppose that this Petronia lived in the marriage of Felix Pope III before he was initiated into sacred orders." did he have her as a wife? Thus Seifridus. But the aforesaid epitaph was published by Gruter in the appendix of ancient inscriptions, page 1057, and from him by Seifridus; the first part, concerning Petronia, we here submit to the reader's judgment. It reads as follows:

"Petronia, wife of a Levite, a form of modesty, My bones departing these abodes I place in this spot. Spare your tears, sweet daughters, with your husband; Believe it a sin to weep for one who lives with God. Deposited in peace, the third before the Nones of October, in the consulship of Festus, vir clarissimus."

Thus there. Festus was Consul with Marcian in the year 472.

[6] St. Felix the Third was born of his father Felix, a Presbyter of the title of Fasciola, as the ancient History of the Pontiffs records, later augmented by Anastasius, was he himself or his father the Cardinal Presbyter? in all manuscript and printed copies everywhere, or in the various readings to that text recently published by the royal press; and Onuphrius in the epitome of the Supreme Pontiffs calls the same Felix a Cardinal Presbyter of the Roman Church in the title of Fasciola. But Baronius at the year 483, section 16, asserts from an old book of Anastasius that he was indeed born of a father named Felix, but that the Pope himself had formerly served as a presbyter in the Title of Fasciola; and therefore, adds Ciaconius, he had previously been a Cardinal Presbyter of the holy Martyrs Nereus and Achilleus. The remaining things that St. Felix did in his youth and in the better part of his adult life, whether as a celibate, or joined in marriage, or after having received sacred orders, are unknown to us. From the things, however, that we shall hereafter relate -- that he was created Supreme Pontiff and discharged that office most admirably and holily -- we rightly conclude that he had spent his earlier life with great virtue. Concerning his descendants down to St. Gregory, the aforementioned writers treat, and there may be occasion for us to treat of them elsewhere, especially if we come upon more certain records.

Section II: The Pontificate of St. Felix. Peter Mongus substituted at Alexandria and Peter the Fuller at Antioch after the bishops were expelled. The latter excommunicated by St. Felix.

[7] God preserved St. Felix so that in the most turbulent of times He might raise him to the Chair of St. Peter, one who would preside with the highest authority and freedom over the Churches of the entire world, both Eastern and Western; who would establish timely laws, The times of the Pontificate of St. Felix III were difficult: investigate necessary causes, settle controversies as they arose, bring aid to the oppressed, depose the haughtily exalted, restrain the audacity of Emperors, and resist barbarian Kings; who, finally, would both receive legations from the East and West, and, where he himself could not be present in body, would be at hand through the authority of his own legations and through vicariate prefectures, and would be present to all Churches as the supreme arbiter and judge, with his holy protection. For many years the Emperor Zeno had presided over the East, a man always perfidious, [while Zeno the Emperor and Acacius, Bishop of Constantinople, were disturbing the peace of the Church,] but who, driven on at that time by Acacius, Bishop of Constantinople, a most cunning heretic, had slipped further into evil and promulgated a formula of faith composed by the latter. They called it the Henoticon, that is, the Act of Union, under which lurked a tacit abrogation of the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon. John Talaia, or the Tabennesiote, the Catholic Bishop, legitimately ordained, had been driven from the See of Alexandria, and Peter Mongus -- whom others call Mogus and Moggus -- previously condemned and deposed for heresies by Pope St. Simplicius of Rome, had been restored to that see without consulting the Pope and without any council having been held. Peter Mongus, Bishop of Alexandria, Finally, anathemas were pronounced by these heretics and laymen against the legitimate bishops and other orthodox men. Pope St. Simplicius was about to extend aid to these most entangled affairs, but, forestalled by death, he left the matter intact to his successor. He is said to have died on the sixth before the Nones of March, Peter the Fuller, Bishop of Antioch, on which day he is inscribed in the ancient Martyrologies. The year in which he died was 483. Peter the Fuller, also intruded into the See of Antioch, plainly disturbed the peace of that Church.

[8] Odoacer, King of the Heruli, who originated from remote regions near the Suevian or Baltic Sea, but who, as Theophanes observes, was educated in Italy, was summoned into Italy with an army by the supporters of the Emperor Nepos, in hatred of Orestes, who, having driven out Nepos, had proclaimed his own son Augustulus as Emperor. Having killed Orestes and his brother Paul, and having relegated Augustulus to Campania under Odoacer, King of Italy. and abolished the Western Empire, he himself, now made King of Italy, had been ruling for the eighth year. An Arian by creed, he issued a law concerning the election of the Supreme Pontiff that was repugnant to ecclesiastical liberty, which Pope Symmachus in the year 502 abrogated at the Roman synod called the Palmaris, at which it is said that "Basilius, a man most sublime and most eminent, through the Praetorian Prefect, Praetorian Prefect and acting as the representative of the most excellent King Odoacer, said to the clergy assembled together at the basilica of Blessed Peter the Apostle: 'Although it is in the interest of our zeal and religion that in the election of a bishop the harmony of the Church should be the first concern, who was impeding the freedom of pontifical elections. lest by occasion of sedition the state of *civil order should be called into question; nevertheless, by the admonition of our most blessed lord Pope Simplicius, which we ought always to keep before our eyes, you will recall that this was enjoined upon us under oath: that on account of that tumult and the detriment to the venerable Church, if it should happen that he should pass from this life, no election of any person should be celebrated without our consultation.'" Thus that passage, in which are contained the frauds of both King Odoacer and Basilius the Prefect, who were attempting to intrude themselves into the election of the Supreme Pontiffs. Pope Simplicius may perhaps have sought certain assistance that would be necessary for suppressing disturbances, should any be stirred up by the enemies of the Church; but he did not require consultation, much less that a layman should pronounce anathema upon a priest and, contrary to the Canons, should establish what did not belong to him -- just as by the decree of the Palmaris synod, those things so established are declared to be of no moment, to have been nullified and rendered void.

[9] Whether, however, on account of the unjust edicts of the King, a greater interval of time should be interposed between the death of St. Simplicius and the election of St. Felix, we doubt. Six days of vacancy of the see are commonly assigned; others add twenty days in their codices; still others interpose only three days. Theophanes coordinates the first year of St. Felix with the tenth year of the reign of Zeno -- though he does not reckon the first year of that Emperor from the death of Leo the Elder, whom he states to have died in the month of January, in the twelfth Indiction, in the year of the common era 474. He adds immediately that Zeno was crowned Emperor by his son Leo the Younger in February, and then, beginning from the following September, assigns the first year of Zeno's reign and indicates the death of Leo the Younger, John the Tabennesiote, Bishop of Alexandria, was to be expelled, whom he says ruled the empire with his own father Zeno for only ten months before dying, namely in December of the same year 474 -- with which Baronius, Petavius, and others end Zeno's first year. In the tenth year, therefore, of this reign, from which Theophanes numbers the years of St. Felix, Acacius was entering his thirteenth year in the Pontificate of Constantinople, and John Talaia, or the Tabennesiote, would have been entering his second year in the see of Alexandria, had he not already been expelled for the reason that Theophanes describes: "In this year also, the partisans of Peter Mongus, by bribes and impostures, persuaded Zeno to expel John the Tabennesiote, the Bishop, from Alexandria as if consecrated without his consent, and to recall Peter Mongus from the territory of Euchaita to Alexandria. Then indeed Zeno issued the Henoticon -- that is, the sanction of peace -- dictated, as some affirm, by Acacius of Constantinople, and promulgated it throughout all the provinces. But before Mongus returned to Alexandria, Zeno ordered him to be in communion with Simplicius, the Roman Pontiff, and with Acacius." Thence, that they might receive Mongus and eject John, Acacius wrote to the Alexandrians. John, having learned of Peter's approach -- though the clergy and people were ready to lay down their lives for him and were imploring him not to depart -- pondering the evils that Peter would commit, he is said to have left the city voluntarily: prudently and without tumult slipped away from the city.

[10] Liberatus, in his Breviary of the Nestorian and Eutychian Controversy, chapter 18, asserts that John then set out for Antioch and, having obtained synodical letters of intercession from Calandion, Patriarch of Antioch, appealed to the Roman Pontiff Simplicius. That John, fleeing from Alexandria, hastened to him, Evagrius relates in book 3, chapter 15, in these words: "John, fleeing from Alexandria, hastened to Old Rome, and there stirred up great disturbances. For he said that he had been driven from his episcopal see for the decrees of Leo and the Council of Chalcedon, did he come to Rome to St. Simplicius? and that another, who opposed them, had been put in his place. Wherefore when Simplicius, Bishop of Old Rome, was greatly disturbed and wrote letters on this account to the Emperor Zeno, Zeno wrote back and charged John with the crime of perjury, and said that he had been deprived of the bishopric for that reason and not for any other." Thus Evagrius. Victor of Tunnuna in his Chronicle records the following as done: "In the consulship of Theodoric, vir clarissimus, in the year of Christ 484: Peter Mongus is proscribed by Pope St. Felix in 484 as a heretic to be avoided, Felix, Bishop of the Roman Church, writes to the monks and clergy dwelling throughout the East, Egypt, and Bithynia, that they should avoid Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, a detractor of the Council of Chalcedon, and those in communion with him, as heretics." Theophanes, at the eleventh year of Zeno, begins the first year of Peter Mongus after his return to the Bishopric of Alexandria. For, as the same author says at the third year of Zeno, upon the death of Peter Aelurus, Peter Mongus was introduced in his place -- a wicked man and an adversary of the truth, having formerly been ejected from the See of Alexandria: consecrated by only one bishop, and that one deposed -- whom the monks, moved by zeal for God, overthrew after he had held the honor of the pontificate for only thirty-six days.

[11] Calandion, a Catholic man, Bishop of Antioch, as Evagrius relates in chapter 16, writing to the Emperor Zeno and to Acacius, Bishop of Constantinople, Calandion, Bishop of Antioch, exposes his frauds, not only calls Peter Mongus an adulterer but also asserts that he, while at Alexandria, had pronounced anathema against the Council of Chalcedon. But a pretext for a charge having been found, Calandion was condemned to inhabit the Oasis, on the grounds that he was favoring the party of Illus, Leontius, and for that reason is expelled: and Pamprepius against Zeno. These men were then being pressed in a close siege in the fortress of Papurius; of whom Leontius had entered Antioch as Emperor in June, in the seventh Indiction, in the year 484, as Theophanes narrates in detail. After Calandion was expelled, as Evagrius adds, Peter surnamed the Fuller (who is also called Cnapheus or Gnapheus, Peter the Fuller is substituted, in Greek ho Gnapheus), who had been Bishop there before Calandion and Stephen, recovered his own see. He subscribed to the Henoticon of Zeno and sent synodical letters to Alexandria, to Peter Mongus. Concerning his earlier episcopate, Theophanes has the following at the first year of Zeno's reign: "Julian, Bishop of Antioch, having conceived grief from the things that had occurred, lost his life. Peter the Fuller, however, seizing the throne, turned to stirring up anathemas and riots, formerly Bishop there: from which resulted killings and the pillaging of houses on account of the addition appended to the hymn which they call the Trisagion." Then at the third year of Zeno's reign he records the following about his deposition: "Moreover, Zeno held Peter the Fuller in hatred, as one who had favored Basiliscus the usurper of the Empire; he was accordingly removed from his dignity by a decree of an Eastern synod, after whose removal John had succeeded, and John was ordained in his place. He too was expelled after three months, and finally his successor Stephen, a man remarkable for his piety, was promoted as Bishop of Antioch." This Stephen, however, Stephen, as Theophanes relates at the fourth year of Zeno's reign, Indiction I, having been designated Bishop of Antioch by the common vote of Peter the Fuller's followers, was accused before Zeno as a Nestorian; yet an Eastern synod, assembled at Laodicea by the Emperor's command, restored him to his see as one who was innocent of the charge imputed to him. When he died, at the seventh year of Zeno's reign, another St. Stephen, a Martyr, they ordained another Stephen in his place by order of the Emperor Zeno; but the enemies of the faith, in their partiality for Peter the Fuller, arming their fury to abet their madness, pierced him with sharpened reed pens and killed him in the baptistery of the holy Martyr Barlaam, and cast him into the river Orontes. Calandion. He was inscribed in the tables of the Roman Martyrology on April 25. Calandion then succeeded him, as we have said, and when he was expelled, Peter the Fuller recovered the see in the year 484, whose first year, however, Theophanes joins with the twelfth year of Zeno's reign.

[12] When Peter the Fuller soon afterward added to the Trisagion these words, "Who was crucified for us," again Peter the Fuller, the whole world was horrified, and councils were held against him — both at Rome by Pope Saint Felix and at Constantinople by Bishop Acacius — and various letters were sent from these two and other Bishops to Peter the Fuller, [convicted of heresy at the Synod of Constantinople under Acacius, and at the Roman Synod under Felix,] which are extant in Greek and Latin in volume 10 of the Councils in the Royal edition. The first of these is that of Pope Saint Felix, from page 18, in which he shows that Peter had fallen not only into the heresies of Valentinus, Manichaeus, Arius, Sabellius, and Apollinaris, but also into the errors of paganism, which assert multiple gods. Having refuted each of these blasphemies, he addresses him at the end thus: "These things I have written to you together with the present Synod, summoning you before God and the holy Angels, that you teach these things and agree with us, that our faith may remain inviolate to the glory of God." This is the first Synod convened by Saint Felix. There is extant another letter of his from page 26, who deposes and excommunicates him, by which Peter the Fuller is deposed and struck with anathema. "And not only," he says, "does he depose him from the Church of Antioch, but from every city; and let this your deposition stand firm, issued by me and by those who together with me govern the Apostolic throne, and by Acacius, the Shepherd of the Church of Constantinople, and by the venerable Bishops subject to him, since you did not heed their admonitions." Then follows from page 30 a letter of Saint Felix to the Emperor Zeno, by which he announces to him that Peter the Fuller has been condemned by a synodal judgment with a sentence of anathema, and notifies the Emperor Zeno, and that communion with him must therefore be avoided. He requests that Zeno expel the deposed Peter from the See of Antioch: "Because," he says, "having been admonished many times by us and by our brothers beloved in Christ who are in the East, and by the venerable Acacius, Archbishop of your royal and God-beloved city, he was unwilling to be converted." The letters of others are found from page 47 to page 71, and that of Acacius himself from page 56. Baronius, at the year 483, number 66, believes that another letter, now lost, was written by Saint Felix, because in the last letter to the Fuller, from the edition found in volume 1 of the Letters of the Roman Pontiffs, these words are read: "You were unwilling either to walk in the truth or to lend your ear to our two letters; now therefore I have begun to pronounce sentence against you." These words, omitted by another translator, are also found in the Greek thus: "And you did not hasten toward the truth, nor to give ear to our two letters; now I have begun to pronounce judgment against you." Furthermore, says Evagrius in chapter 17, Peter Mongus was a fraudulent man, crafty and subservient to the times, who by no means persisted in one position, but now condemned the Council of Chalcedon with an anathema, Mongus serves the times, and now recanted, approving the same council with all his votes. This he does especially in the appended letter to Acacius, which is reviewed in the said chapter.

* Variant reading: "city."

Section III. The legates sent by Saint Felix to Acacius, and corrupted by money.

[13] Evagrius, having related the matters pertaining to the See of Antioch and Peter the Fuller, passes in chapter 18 to the Bishopric of Alexandria (which, as we have said, Peter Mongus recovered after the expulsion of John Talaia, or the Tabennesiote) and reports the following: "John, who had fled to Rome, warns Felix, who was Roman Bishop after Simplicius, about the deeds of Peter, and urges him, as Zacharias relates, to send a letter of deposition to Acacius because he had communicated with Peter." Acacius promoting communion with Peter Mongus, Theophanes explains this more precisely under the twelfth year of Zeno and the third of Saint Felix: "This year," he says, "the Bishops of the East complained by letter to Acacius that he had granted Peter Mongus the fellowship of communion. He, spurning their admonitions, compelled all to admit the same Mongus to communion. But the citizens of the imperial city and all the Easterners together the orthodox take refuge with Saint Felix approached Felix, who held the Roman See after the death of Simplicius, as suppliants, and accused Acacius as the author of all evils. Meanwhile John, Bishop of Alexandria, reporting these same things, enters Rome" — or certainly, if he had remained at Rome from the time of Saint Simplicius, now spurred by the embassy of others, he all the more engaged the attention of the Romans. The year then passing was the twelfth of Zeno, the year of Christ 485. Victor of Tunnuna in his Chronicle indicates the same year year 485 and describes the remaining corruption of the East in these words: "After the consulship of Theodoric, the Most Distinguished, the Eastern Bishops, except for a few, being polluted through the Henoticon of Zeno by communion and agreement with Peter of Alexandria, Peter of Antioch, and Acacius, Bishop of Constantinople, renounce the Council of Chalcedon." And Theodore the Reader, in book 2 of his Collectanea, says: "When all other Patriarchs, as is reported, approved the Henoticon of Zeno, Felix of Rome alone did not communicate with him." Evagrius has the Henoticon in Greek in chapter 14, and Liberatus in Latin in chapter 18, and others from those sources.

[14] What Saint Felix then did is narrated thus by Theophanes under the same twelfth year of Zeno: "Felix therefore, having convened a synod in the temple of Peter, chief of the Apostles, he convenes a synod, sends two Bishops and together with them a Defensor to Constantinople, and notifies Zeno and Acacius by letter that they should expel Peter Mongus from Alexandria as a heretic." The same is reported by Anastasius Bibliothecarius and Cedrenus, who also asserts that these things took place in the twelfth year of Zeno. Evagrius in chapter 28 explains the matter thus: "When petitions had been given to Felix by John Talaia against Acacius — because he had communicated with Peter Mongus contrary to the rites of the Church — and concerning other offenses committed by him against the canons, Felix sends to Zeno the Bishops Vitalis and Misenus he sends legates to Constantinople so that by his authority both the Council of Chalcedon might be confirmed, and Peter might be expelled from the episcopate as a heretic, and finally Acacius might be sent to Felix himself to render an account of the charges that John had brought against him." These matters are more fully contained both in the synodal letters of Pope Saint Felix to the Emperor Zeno and Acacius, sent from the Roman Council, and in the writs of citation of Acacius, sent to the same Zeno and Acacius, which are found in the said volume 10 of the Councils, pages 5, 11, 44, and 45. Concerning the Bishops and the Defensor of the Church sent to Constantinople, Saint Felix writes thus in his letter to Zeno: Felix, Defensor of the Church, "It was fitting that I should send to you the necessary embassy of my brothers and fellow Bishops Vitalis and Misenus, and of your servant Felix, Defensor of the Church, who would bring these things not so much in the guise of mere carriers, but rather, acting in my stead, would in a sense make me present to you." In the writ of citation to Acacius he speaks thus of these legates: "For this matter we have dispatched from our college our brothers and fellow Bishops Vitalis and Misenus, the Bishops Misenus of Cumae and Vitalis of Truentum, together with our most faithful Felix, Defensor from our side, by the commission of the holy Roman Church." Baronius notes, from a very brief history by a contemporary author, at the year 483, number 19, that Misenus was Bishop of the Church of Cumae in Campania, and Vitalis was Bishop of Droëntum, or Truentum, in Picenum. The petition of John Talaia that was appended to these documents has been sought in vain up to now.

[15] But what misfortunes befell these legates during their journey, Theophanes narrates under the thirteenth year of Zeno, the year of Christ 486: "This year, when the legates had set out from Rome and were detained at Abydus by the design of Zeno and Acacius, their letters were also taken from them by force, detained in prison at Abydus in the year 486, and they themselves were thrown into prison; Zeno threatens to kill them unless they communicate with Acacius and Peter Mongus."

Abydus is a city of the province of the Hellespont near the strait itself, whose Bishop Hermias subscribed to the Council of Chalcedon. Victor of Tunnuna reports these events under the consulship of Longinus, the Most Distinguished. This is the year 486. "Acacius," he says, "Bishop of Constantinople, having been admonished by letters from Felix, Bishop of the Roman Church, to abstain from communion and association with those condemned by the Council of Chalcedon, commits his legates to custody." Meanwhile, while the orthodox at Constantinople were awaiting the legates with the greatest eagerness, Evagrius writes in chapter 19 that a letter was sent to Saint Felix by Cyril, the Hegumen of the monastery of Saint Dius, which belongs to the Acoemetae: "But before Vitalis and Misenus came to the Emperor, Cyril, the Hegumen of the monks called Acoemetae, sends word to Felix he commands them to deal with the Hegumen of the Acoemetae to reproach him with slowness, since such grave sins had been committed against the true faith. Felix therefore writes to Misenus that he should undertake nothing before he had spoken with Cyril and learned from him what should be done." So Evagrius, whose account is also found in Nicephorus, book 16, chapter 16; just as Cedrenus transcribed the preceding material from Theophanes and also follows his chronological reckoning.

[16] Theophanes then reports that the following occurred in the fourteenth year of Zeno, the year of Christ 487: "Furthermore, Zeno, at the suggestion of Acacius, was compelling the Eastern Bishops to subscribe to the Henoticon, or Decree of Concord, and to communicate with Peter Mongus. These, corrupted by money, consent to Acacius in the year 487. But he also drew the Apocrisiaries of Felix, the Roman Pontiff himself, seduced by flatteries and enticed by money, beyond what was lawful under the mandates imposed upon them, into communion with Peter, while all those of the Catholic party protested and cried out against it. And first they bound a hook with ropes and publicly hung it on one of them; to the second they thrust a book; and on the third they even placed a basket of vegetables." Anastasius and Cedrenus report the same from Theophanes, but Cedrenus, omitting the fourteenth year of the reign of Zeno indicated by Theophanes, says these things occurred in the fifteenth year. Liberatus, however, does not mention the city of Abydus, but assigns both the captivity and the remaining events to Constantinople, in chapter 18, in these words: "Since all the many letters that had been sent either to Acacius from the Pope or to the Emperor had accomplished nothing whatsoever, by deliberation the Bishops Vitalis and Misenus were dispatched on an embassy to present the charges mentioned above, and so that Peter might be expelled from the See of Alexandria as before. They went to Constantinople, and the aforesaid Bishops were placed in custody, their documents having been taken away lest they be delivered to the Catholics to whom they had been addressed. Then Acacius, releasing them from custody, made them process with him, so that they might be dismissed as though Peter's priesthood had been confirmed. The legates eventually returned, but the monks had preceded them, who gravely accused them of betrayal. Heard face to face and convicted from the very letters they had carried, they were removed from their own sees. Felix, the Defensor of the Church, who had been dispatched with the legates, was unable to travel with them on account of illness. But after Vitalis and Misenus had been released from custody at Constantinople, he proceeded to Constantinople with the ecclesiastical documents; and he too suffered, his documents having been taken away, a most severe imprisonment." So Liberatus; and what he narrates about the rebuke of the legates by the monks is explained thus by Evagrius in chapter 19: "Those from the monastery of the Acoemetae who came to Felix, Misenus, and Vitalis they are rebuked by the Acoemetan monks reproached them on this account: that until their arrival at Constantinople, the name of Peter had been accustomed to be read secretly and covertly in the sacred diptychs; but from that time to the present, Misenus and Vitalis had openly and publicly communicated with Peter." And then in chapter 20: "These matters grew," he says, "through the report of Symeon, a monk of the Acoemetan monastery, sent to Rome to Pope Felix by the Hegumen Cyril. For Misenus and Vitalis were rebuked by him and are accused before Saint Felix because they communicated with heretics, and this when the name of Peter, as a heretic, was publicly recited in the sacred diptychs; and because for this reason many simple people were led into error by the heretics, who did not hesitate to affirm that Peter had been received into communion by the Bishop of Rome. Symeon also added that when certain questions were asked, Misenus and his supporters had been unwilling to allow any of the orthodox to come to a conference, or to deliver the letters, or to examine accurately anything admitted against the true and sincere faith. Silvanus the Priest was also brought forward, who, having been at Constantinople together with Misenus and Vitalis, confirmed the words of the monks." So far Evagrius.

Section IV. The legates and Acacius struck with anathema by Saint Felix; the death of Acacius and other Patriarchs. The schism ended.

[17] When the prevarication of the legates had been ascertained through the said orthodox monks, Saint Felix convened a synod to be held at Rome at the Church of Saint Peter the Apostle, to which seventy-seven Bishops came. In the Council of 77 Bishops their case was examined. What sentence was passed in that synod against these legates is reported by Pope Gelasius, the successor of Saint Felix, in the Roman Council held in the year 495, before Misenus was absolved, on page 222 as follows: "The Apostolic See, which, by the delegation of Christ the Lord, holds the primacy of the whole Church, in the exercise of its general administration and care, which it always carries out with necessary circumspection for the Catholic faith and for the paternal canons and rules of the elders, had dispatched Misenus and Vitalis, supported by the authority of its legation, to the East under my predecessor of holy memory, against the followers of the Eutychian plague and against those who had polluted themselves with communion with such persons. Because they, abandoning the Apostolic commands, had in any manner fallen back into the fellowship of those against whom they had been sent, they are deprived of communion, with the investigation of the matter revealed in the synodal proceedings, it justly and by right removed them equally from communion and from their rank." And the seventy-seven Fathers themselves, assembled in this synod under Saint Felix, testify in their letter to the clergy and monks of the East, page 75, that this sentence was passed against the said legates and Acacius: "Therefore," they say, "having ascertained these worse matters, we have suspended Vitalis and Misenus from the priestly college and from holy communion, and we have judged that Acacius also, who more perniciously thirsts for the members of Christ Acacius is struck with anathema and throughout cities and provinces is tearing apart the one Church of the Catholic faith, is not to be counted among the holy Bishops nor among Christians... him now, as a defender and patron of the Eutychian heresy, we anathematize, cut off from the ecclesiastical body as a putrid limb, by the aforesaid sentence."

[18] The edict of the sentence of Pope Saint Felix, which was directed to the East on account of his condemnation, was published from a manuscript codex by Sirmond in his Notes on Facundus's book against Mocianus; and we reproduce it here, since it has not hitherto been printed in the volumes of the Councils. this edict sent by Saint Felix to the East. It reads: "Acacius, who, having been admonished by us a second time, did not cease to be a contemner of salutary decrees, and who believed that I should be imprisoned through his agents — him God, by a sentence pronounced from heaven, has made an exile from the priesthood. Therefore if any Bishop, cleric, monk, or layperson, after this denunciation, shall communicate with him, let him be anathema, the Holy Spirit executing the sentence." Saint Felix then wrote a letter to Acacius, in which, having recounted his crimes, he notifies him at the end in these words that he has been deprived of the priestly office and of communion with the faithful: and a letter to Acacius. "Have therefore, with those whom you willingly embrace, your portion from the present sentence, which we have directed to you through the Defensor of your Church. Know that your name and the office of priestly ministry have been taken from you, segregated from the priestly honor and from Catholic communion, and indeed from the number of the faithful, condemned by the judgment of the Holy Spirit and by Apostolic authority, and never to be freed from the bonds of anathema. I, Caelius Felix, Bishop of the holy Catholic Church of the city of Rome, have subscribed. Given on the fifth day before the Kalends of August, in the consulship of Venantius, the Most Distinguished."

[19] So it reads there. But who was the Consul Venantius at that time, who is found to have held that dignity only with Theodoric was this written in the consulship of Venantius? in the year 484, the eleventh of Zeno? In which year Theophanes writes that Theodoric was summoned from Thrace to Byzantium, proclaimed Consul, and given the prefecture of Thrace; who after various exploits set out for Italy and began to fight with Odoacer, and having finally defeated him, became King of Italy. In the same year the same Theophanes still records Calandio as Bishop of Antioch, in whose place, after his expulsion, Peter the Fuller was intruded — whom Acacius himself also condemned and insisted should be condemned by the Apostolic See, as is also indicated in this very letter of Saint Felix, and as has been reported above from other letters of Saint Felix to Zeno and Peter the Fuller. Baronius at the year 483, number 44, says that the letter of Saint Felix to the Emperor Zeno is rendered obscure in some places by faulty transcription and worm-eaten antiquity. Why then should it not be said that the name of Venantius crept in from a similar cause in place of another Consul? Victor of Tunnuna, after the consulship of Longinus, that is, at the year 487, reports the following: "Acacius of Constantinople, Peter of Alexandria, and Peter of Antioch, Bishops hostile to the Council of Chalcedon, are condemned by Felix, Bishop of the Roman Church, and by a synod held in Italy; and the condemnation itself is delivered to Acacius at Constantinople through monks of the monasteries of the Acoemetae and of Dius, sent as legates." In this and the two preceding years, these Consuls are noted in the Chronicle of Marcellinus: Symmachus alone, Longinus alone, Boethius alone. But Cassiodorus and others assign Decius as a colleague to Longinus. Whether Venantius should also be given as a colleague to Boethius and whether this can be established from this letter of Saint Felix, let others inquire. Below, on account of the name of the Consul Boethius intruded in place of Mavortius, we observe that a letter of Pope Saint Felix IV has been wrongly attributed to Felix III. The said letter is therefore dated the fifth day before the Kalends of August in the year 487.

[20] What happened thereafter, in the fourteenth year of Zeno, Theophanes narrates as follows: "Felix, having learned of the deeds of his legates, cast them down from the dignity of the Church, and wrote a like sentence of deposition against Acacius. The person who carried it, having slipped past those stationed in ambush at Abydus, delivered to Acacius by the monks of Dius, who were therefore put to martyrdom, put in at the monastery of Dius. The monks of Dius handed the letter of Felix to Acacius as he stood in the sanctuary on a Sunday. The partisans of Acacius killed some of the monks who had delivered the letter, and threw others into prison after subjecting them to tortures." So much from that source. The memory of these holy Martyrs is inscribed in the Roman Martyrology under February 8, on which day we treated of the monastery of Saint Dius, its Hegumens or Archimandrites, and their zeal in defending the orthodox religion against Acacius. The Defensor of the Church sent by Saint Felix who delivered the letters to the Acoemetan or Diensian monks was called Totus, or Tutus. Liberatus adds that the letter was attached to the pallium of Acacius by an Acoemetan monk.

[21] "Acacius," says Theophanes, "received the deposition without any emotion of spirit, and expunged the name of Felix." And, as Liberatus reports in chapter 18, with the Emperor as his patron, he remained until his death offering sacrifice. Acacius dies, For, as Facundus, Bishop of Hermiane in Africa, testifies in his booklet against Mocianus, the aforesaid Zeno, despising the decrees of the Apostolic See, communicated with the aforesaid Acacius, and compelled all the churches established within the boundaries of his realm to do the same. But Acacius did not live long; Theophanes places his death in the fifteenth year of Zeno. And Liberatus says: "While the Church was in the midst of these disturbances, Acacius died." Baronius assigns this to the year 488, in the year 488 or 489, Victor of Tunnuna to the following year, since he specifies the consulship of Eusebius.

[22] Under the same fifteenth year of Zeno, Theophanes reports the following about the successors of Acacius: "After the death of Acacius, Phravitas (who by others is also called Flavitas and Flavianus), having held the episcopate for three months, his successor Phravitas, notifies Felix by letter that he has communion with him but none with Peter Mongus. Conversely, Mongus writes that he is joined in communion with him but is utterly estranged from Felix. Felix, having been informed by the orthodox about the letters sent to Mongus, dismissed the legates of Phravitas who had come to him with synodal letters with little honor" — or, as Anastasius translates, "dismissed them with dishonor." In Greek: "he sent them away dishonored." Nicephorus, book 16, chapter 19: "he drove them away with dishonor." But Theophanes continues: "After the death of Phravitas, Euthymius, a Priest and overseer of the poor in the city of Neapolis, obtained the episcopate of Constantinople. He immediately erased the name of Peter Mongus from the sacred diptychs with his own hands Peter Mongus, previously expunged from the diptychs of Constantinople, and restored that of Felix, the Roman Pontiff; and thus he took his seat on the throne." So Theophanes under the said fifteenth year of Zeno; of which the events relating to the succession of Euthymius should, according to Baronius, be assigned to the year 489. Evagrius, chapter 23, says: "When Euphemius had received from Peter Mongus a letter concerning their mutual communion, and noticed that it had pronounced an anathema against the Acts of the Council of Chalcedon, he was greatly agitated in spirit and completely severed himself from communion with Peter... Wherefore, since Euphemius and Peter were going to fight bitterly against each other and convene synods one against the other, Peter departed this life." Theophanes places his death in the sixteenth year of Zeno. "This year," he says, "Peter Mongus died at Alexandria, and Athanasius, surnamed Celites, was promoted in his place." And in the seventeenth year of Zeno: "Peter the Fuller, Bishop of Antioch, perished, and Peter the Fuller previously deposed from his See, and Palladius, a Priest of the Church of Saint Thecla the Protomartyr, which is in Seleucia, was promoted to the episcopate." Meanwhile, in the prefixed table, he links his first year with the sixteenth year of Zeno, and afterward, under the first year of the Emperor Anastasius, Peter the Fuller seeks a return from exile to the See of Antioch — which we believe should be referred to the said sixteenth year of Zeno, and that he died in the following year, where in Greek "he died" is read.

[23] So much for the three Bishops of the Patriarchal Sees, who perished miserably under the sentence of anathema pronounced against them by Saint Felix; yet with their deaths the peace desired by the Eastern Churches had not yet dawned, because Euphemius of Constantinople posed an obstacle. Theophanes explains this under the seventeenth year of Zeno as follows: "This year Felix received the synodal letter of Euphemius, and as a Catholic he granted him the fellowship of communion; [on account of the name of Acacius not being expunged, communion was denied to the Easterners by Saint Felix,] yet he did not acknowledge him as Bishop, because he had not expunged from the ecclesiastical diptychs the name of Acacius and of his successor in the episcopate, Phravitas." Nicephorus writes the same in book 16, chapter 19. Liberatus in chapter 18 asserts that Euphemius received writings from Pope Felix, which Baronius at the year 489, number 1, understands to have been not letters of communion but of admonition — "just as," he says, "the letters which Gelasius, the successor of Saint Felix, wrote to the same Euphemius are also found, in which he admonished him to abolish the name of Acacius if he wished to obtain communion with the Catholic Church." This is the first letter of Gelasius, reported from page 87 in volume 10 of the Councils in the Royal edition. Furthermore, the Emperor Zeno, in the same seventeenth year of his reign according to Theophanes's reckoning, died of the falling sickness in the fourteenth Indiction, and in his place Anastasius the Silentiary was appointed, in the same fourteenth Indiction, in the year 491, on the great Thursday of the Paschal solemnity, or of Holy Week, April 18 — which is erroneously given by Theophanes as April 14. For Easter fell on April 21, with the Solar cycle 24 and Lunar cycle 17, Dominical letter F. This Anastasius, after twenty-eight years of reign, also during Holy Week, was struck by lightning and perished on April 11 of the year 518, when, with Lunar cycle 6 and Solar cycle 23, Dominical letter G, Easter was celebrated on April 15. Justin succeeded, under whom, when an embassy had been sent by Pope Hormisdas, Nestorius, Eutyches, Dioscorus of Alexandria, communion granted by Saint Hormisdas under the Emperor Justin, Timothy Aelurus, Peter Mongus, Acacius of Constantinople were condemned for heresy, and the names of Acacius's successors — Phravitas, Euphemius, Macedonius, and Timothy — were erased from the diptychs, as were also those of the Emperors Zeno and Anastasius. That these things were chiefly accomplished on the Thursday of Holy Week in the year 519 is established from the letter of the legates to Pope Hormisdas, in the year 519, which is found on pages 519 and 520 of the said volume 10 of the Councils. Hence Facundus, in his work against Mocianus, after relating the obstinacy of Zeno, adds: "When Anastasius then succeeded to the empire and to a similar presumption, the whole East, except for very few who lay hidden in that multitude, remained separated from the communion of the Apostolic See for nearly forty years (from the times of Saint Simplicius, when this heresy began to spread) up to the times of Justin. And when certain Bishops of that same party during that period sought communion with the Apostolic See for themselves and their Churches, they did not obtain it until, in the times of Prince Justin, they subscribed to the condemnation of Acacius."

Section V. The remaining deeds of Saint Felix, his death, and burial.

[24] Thus far we have treated of the most grave dissension of the Eastern Bishops under the Empires of Zeno and Anastasius, who were therefore deprived by Pope Saint Felix of holy communion with the Roman Church. Now a few things remain concerning the African Churches, established by the same Saint Felix. In Africa, many suffered martyrdom or were driven into exile by the Vandals. Those Churches had long been groaning under the Vandal Kings, who were infected with the Arian heresy — first under Geiseric the invader, then under his son Huneric, who in the early years of the pontificate of Saint Felix launched a severe persecution against the Catholics, or at least renewed one that had frequently been launched before. Of the illustrious Martyrs then slain and the various Confessors sent into exile, we treat frequently throughout this work. But the savage tyrant did not escape the avenging hands of the Supreme Judge. For, as Victor of Utica, having narrated this Vandal persecution in book 3, reports near the end: "The most wicked Huneric completed the death his merits deserved, so that what appeared to have been buried were not his body but parts of his body, putrefied and seething with worms." Gundabund, his nephew by his brother Gunzo, was appointed in place of Huneric and soon restored peace to the Church, permitting the Catholics to return from exile. Others, having been rebaptized, embraced Arianism; When therefore, by the indulgence of Gundabund, the exiles of the Bishops and other orthodox were relaxed, some who had previously gone over to the Arians and been rebaptized by them, now coming to their senses, sought medicine for their wounds; but because they were shunned by the orthodox Confessors returning from exile, by others, when they desired to return, they were rejected, they took refuge with the Roman Church and its supreme Pastor, Saint Felix, so that he might deign, in the exercise of his office, to extend a helping hand to those who had fallen and desired to rise again. The Pontiff convened a synod of thirty-eight Bishops in the Constantinian basilica, on the third day before the Ides of March, in the consulship of Flavius Boethius, the Most Distinguished, by Saint Felix, having held a synod, they are assisted, in the year 487, in the year of Christ 487, and devised appropriate remedies according to the nature of the offenses, and distinguished them in several chapters, which are read from page 77 in the said volume of the Councils. There, on page 78, after the Bishops were reviewed in a long list: "Felix, Bishop of the Catholic Church of the city of Rome, presiding over the synod, said: 'The grief is common and the groaning is universal, that we have learned that even Bishops, Priests, and Deacons within Africa have been rebaptized. This matter has without doubt come also to the attention of your Holiness. It is fitting that we determine what should be observed regarding this. Therefore, so that our judgment on this matter may be clear, let what has seemed right to us be read.'" Concerning this judgment he had written a letter to all the Bishops established throughout the provinces of Africa, which was read in the assembly of the Fathers and approved by their judgment. That letter is read from page 36 in the said volume 10 of the Councils, dated on the Ides of March, the letter sent in the year 488, in the consulship of Dinamius and Sifidius — that is, detained at Rome until the year 488, when it was sent to Africa. The rest can be read there, and is explained by Baronius in the Annals at the year 487, number 1 and following.

[25] Spain was being oppressed under Gothic servitude, at which time Zeno, counted among the Bishops of Seville, flourished there. Saint Felix, in a letter written to him, calls him a preeminent governor of the Church amid the tumults of the world, another letter of Saint Felix to the Bishop of Seville, and commends to him a certain Terentian. The remaining decrees of Saint Felix concerning the Churches of Spain are unknown. Another letter of Pope Felix, addressed to Bishop Caesarius, long held learned men in suspense, since the consulship of Boethius, after which it was commonly noted as given, agreed with the times of Felix III; hence Baronius also assigned that letter to the year 488, number 7. But the darkness was dispelled by the diligence of our Jacques Sirmond, but not to Caesarius, Bishop of Arles, and the letter was restored to its true author, that is, Felix IV, when from an Arles manuscript he restored the true reading, by which it is read as given after the consulship not of Boethius but of Mavortius, in the year of Christ 527, when both Pope Saint Felix IV and Saint Caesarius, Bishop of Arles, were alive. But in the time of Saint Felix III, Alaric, King of the Visigoths, Gundobad and Godegisel, Kings of the Burgundians — all infected with the Arian heresy — and Clovis I, King of the Franks, not yet converted to the faith of Christ, held dominion in Gaul. What was accomplished by the vigilance of the Supreme Pontiff among the orthodox Bishops of Gaul in these times is also unknown.

[26] In the Deeds of the Supreme Pontiffs as recorded by Anastasius and others, the following few things are observed: that he built the basilica of Saint Agapetus near the basilica of Saint Lawrence the Martyr; he builds the basilica of Saint Agapetus. that he also performed two ordinations in the city of Rome during the month of December, consecrating twenty-eight Priests, five Deacons, he confers Holy Orders, and thirty-one Bishops for various places. Finally, that he was Pontiff in the times of King Odoacer up to the times of King Theodoric, both of whom he saw contending for the rule of Italy; and he died at the very time when Odoacer was being besieged in the city of Ravenna by Theodoric, who was killed a year after the death of Saint Felix. Saint Felix sat for eight years, eleven months, and twenty-three days — or according to other manuscripts, fifteen, or seventeen, he sat for nearly nine years, or eighteen days. He was buried in the basilica of Saint Paul the Apostle. Bucelinus, in his Benedictine Sacrarium, reports that the sacred body of so great a Pontiff rests in the monastery of Saint Paul at Rome. buried in the basilica of Saint Paul. Victor of Tunnuna says: "In the consulship of Anastasius and Rufus, Gelasius succeeds Felix as Bishop of the Roman Church." That is the year 492. Marcellinus in his Chronicle, which is remarkable, greatly errs regarding the length of the pontificate. For under Indiction 5, in the consulship of Trocondus and Severinus, he writes: "Felix, the forty-sixth Bishop of the Roman Church, was ordained and lived twelve years" — which are counted from the year 482 to the year 494, at which, in the consulship of Asterius and Praesidius, he places the ordination of Saint Gelasius, whose feast day is November 21.