Felix of Nola

ON ST. FELIX, CONFESSOR AND PRIEST OF NOLA

Felix, Priest of Nola in Italy (S.)

From Various Sources.

§ I. The publicly venerated memory of St. Felix.

[1] The name of St. Felix the Priest is most illustrious, both because of the innumerable miracles wrought by God at his tomb, and because he obtained Paulinus as his panegyrist, of whom more below. Whether one should call him a Confessor or a Martyr The name of St. Felix in the Martyrologies. is of little consequence, although Ferrarius writes in his Catalogue of the Saints of Italy that he is surprised that some reckon among the Confessors one whom the universal Church celebrates among the Martyrs. The Roman Breviary and Paulinus everywhere call him a Martyr; but the others do not all do so, nor always consistently—as will presently be evident. He indeed endured many torments, but did not die from them; rather, he survived many years in good health. All the Martyrologies mention him; but the more prolix eulogies of some are not without error. We shall give first the older and more reliable ones. Of St. Jerome. The manuscript of St. Jerome: "In the city of Nola in Campania, St. Felix." The Rhinau manuscript: "In Campania, at Nola, Felix the Confessor." The Centula manuscript, bearing the name of Bede: "At Nola in Campania, St. Felix the Confessor." Wandelbert: Of Wandelbert. "The day that is known to be the nineteenth before the Kalends of February, / holy Felix the Confessor honors."

[2] Very many manuscripts of Usuard of proven quality, as well as the Parisian edition and those of Molanus, Of Usuard, of Rabanus. Rabanus, and others marked with the name of Bede: "At Nola in Campania, the feast of St. Felix, Priest and Confessor, of whom the blessed Bishop Paulinus writes that when he was being sent into prison by the persecutors, and lay bound upon snail-shells and potsherds, he was released and led out by an Angel during the night." Both manuscripts of Usuard preserved in the monastery of St. Germain at Paris have the same, except that one calls him Bishop instead of Priest; and it adds another St. Felix, Priest and Confessor, of whom we treat below. Bellinus: "At Nola in Campania, the feast of St. Felix in Pincis, Priest and Martyr, Of Bellinus. of whom St. Paulinus writes," etc., from Usuard. In the same manner, the manuscripts of the Church of St. Gudula at Brussels, the Florarium, and others add: "and he was buried near the city in a place called Pincis, where he shines with miracles." A manuscript Calendar of the monastery of St. John at Capua: "The deposition of St. Felix in Pingis, Priest and Confessor." Of manuscripts. Another manuscript Calendar from Capua in the Sanctuarium of Michael the Monk: "Of the holy Martyr Felix in Pincis, Priest and Martyr, and of Felix of Nola, Bishop and Confessor." But we shall inquire later about "Pincis."

[3] The Roman Martyrology: "At Nola in Campania, the feast of St. Felix the Priest, who (as the Bishop St. Paulinus writes) when he was being sent by persecutors into prison after torments, Of the Roman Martyrology. and lay bound upon snail-shells and potsherds, was released by an Angel during the night and led forth; and afterward, when the persecution had ceased, having converted many to the faith of Christ by the example of his life and his teaching, illustrious for miracles, he rested in peace." Galesinius: "At Nola in Campania, St. Felix, Priest and Confessor. Of Galesinius. He, having inveighed most vehemently against the false gods, was cast into prison by unbelievers, and bound in chains, was released and set free by an Angel during the night."

[4] Peter de Natali, book 7, chapter 138, records this Felix on April 30. Maurolycus likewise, and Ferrarius: His memory celebrated also on other days. "At Nola in Campania, Felix, Priest and Confessor." Ferrarius notes that he is different from the one honored on January 14. He would therefore be the Roman who also died at Nola. But Peter does not confuse the acts of both, as Ferrarius supposed; rather, he treats only of the Nolan. The same Ferrarius testifies that St. Felix, Priest and Confessor, is honored at Venice on August 31, and has a parish church dedicated to him; but he himself believes this to be the same person of whom the Roman Martyrology and Breviary here treat. The same Michael the Monk writes that he was most frequently honored at Capua, "as is evident," he says, "from churches in the district of Castellammare, at Murone, near S. Prisco, in the territory of Capua, in the parts of S. Clemente and Bellona."

§ II. Two Saints Named Felix, Both Priests.

[5] Ambrosius Leo of Nola, in his work on the affairs of Nola, book 2, chapter 13, writes that on account of one St. Felix, Priest and Confessor, Several Saints named Felix. ceremonies and chapels had so multiplied at Nola, both for him and for many others of the same name, that the Saints Felix seem to belong to the Nolans alone, as is believed. But he too errs in thinking that the Roman Priest Felix, brought from Circeii to Nola by the Tribune Probus, and who died there, is the same one praised by St. Paulinus in so many birthday poems; and that none of the Saints Felix was born at Nola. St. Felix the Bishop and Martyr, of whom we treat on November 15, was born there; likewise Felix the Priest, son of the Syrian Hermias, whose praises St. Paulinus chiefly celebrated. However, the Roman Felix also lived and died at Nola; and Felix of Tubzoca (or, as Baronius thinks it should be read, of Tibiris), a Bishop in Africa, is also said to have been slain there, and is honored on October 24 at Venusia in Apulia. I pass over others, whom we shall assert to have been at Nola elsewhere. But the affairs of all of them have been shamefully confused, as they are briefly recorded in the Martyrologies: Their eulogies and memories confused in the Martyrologies. so that the Bishop, the African, and the Roman Martyr buried on the Via Portuensis have all been transferred here. Perhaps because some called the principal Felix, son of Hermias, a Martyr, others a Confessor, and some even a Bishop (as we said in § I), it happened that another Felix the Martyr, another the Confessor, and finally a Bishop were drawn here from elsewhere. Others, deeming the Roman Martyr Felix's brother to be the same as the Nolan Priest Felix, made the latter the brother of the Roman, and confused the deeds performed by each.

[6] Since, then, the Roman Priest is recorded as having died at Nola, in a church, on a Sunday, after completing the sacrifice and giving peace to the people; Of the German and Cologne Martyrologies. the German Martyrology attributes this to the Nolan, son of Hermias. The Cologne Martyrology relates the same, and says he was buried in Pincis: "At Nola in Campania," it says, "the feast of St. Felix, Priest and Confessor, of whom the blessed Bishop Paulinus writes, that when he was being sent by persecutors into prison, and lay bound upon snail-shells and potsherds, he was released by an Angel during the night and led forth. At length, when peace was restored, he returned to his church, and there rested in peace. For on the Lord's Day, the mysteries having been completed, having given the peace, in the sight of all he cast himself upon the pavement to pray; soon the soul of the blessed man departed from the prison of the flesh, and after the grievous torments which he had patiently borne for Christ, he ascended to the blessed kingdom; he was buried near the city in a place called Pincis, where he ever shines with glorious miracles." The manuscript Martyrology of St. Mary at Utrecht records the same with a few words changed, and Ghinius somewhat more fully.

[7] The published text of Bede: "At Nola in Campania, the blessed Felix, Priest. Of Bede. He was distinguished with the honor of the priesthood by Maximianus, Bishop of the city of Nola. When he had suffered much from the faithless for the name of Christ, and all the people of the city wished him to be raised up as Bishop, he did not consent; but choosing another for the honor of the Pontificate, he himself, twelve years later, when the persecution had ceased, on the Lord's Day, the mysteries having been completed, having given peace to all, cast himself upon the pavement to pray; and immediately the soul of the blessed man departed from the prison of the flesh, and he, truly felix happy, ascended to the blessed kingdom; and he was buried near the city by the holy Priest Helpidius, in a place called Pincis, where he shines with glorious miracles."

[8] Notker also records that he was sent into exile, which seems to have happened only to the Roman Felix: Of Notker. "In Campania," he says, "in the city of Nola, of Felix the Priest, whose Bishop Maximus, terrified by the persecution, had fled into the wilderness. The blessed Felix was captured and bound in chains, brought before the Governor, and beaten with rods. Then he was tortured on the rack, and chained in prison, and placed upon snail-shells and potsherds; during the night he was freed by an Angel of the Lord, the chains broken and the beam to which his feet were fastened split, and was commanded to seek out his Bishop. When he had finally, with great difficulty, found him—weighed down by old age, consumed with hunger, stiffened by frost, his eyes closed, his teeth clenched, half-dead and barely breathing—and had nothing to offer the exhausted old man, behold, suddenly he marveled to see a bunch of grapes hanging from a thornbush; he pressed the juice into the Confessor's mouth, and having revived and placed him on his shoulders, he brought him back to the city, and secretly fed him under the shelter of a certain widow. Then he was captured and cast into exile, where by the display of signs he converted many. Later, having returned from there, when he was again being sought for torture but was hidden by divine providence, he was so illustrious with many miracles at Nola that all the people desired him as their Bishop; but he did not consent. Another being ordained in his place, he himself persevered in the service of God for twelve years, and on the Lord's Day, the mysteries having been completed, he passed to Christ; and he was buried not far from the city of Nola, in a place called Pincis."

[9] Francis Maurolycus: "At Nola in Campania, Of Maurolycus. of Felix the Priest, who before the Governor Draco spoke much against the gods of the Gentiles, the younger brother of another Felix, of whom we treat on the 3rd of the Kalends of September; and having revived his Bishop Maximianus, who was lying hidden, afflicted with hunger and frost, after tortures, chains, and exile at the rocky mount of Circeii for quarrying stones, he was illustrious with miracles; and despising the office of Bishop, he passed to Christ. He was buried near the city in Pineis by the Priest Elpidius." He then immediately adds the Roman Martyr Felix, whom he had placed on the 3rd of the Kalends of September.

[10] Of a manuscript. All things are also mixed together in an ancient manuscript from the Professed House of the Society of Jesus at Antwerp: "At Nola in Campania, St. Felix the Priest. He was distinguished with the honor of the priesthood by a certain Bishop of the city of Nola. Then, when a persecution arose, he was seized in the name of Christ and deported into exile, the blessed Martyr, to a mountain called Circeii, where squared stones were quarried, so that he himself, along with the condemned, would likewise be a stone-cutter. There he liberated the daughter of a certain Tribune named Probus from a demon; and cured his wife of the disease of dropsy; and baptized Probus himself with his wife and daughter and many others in Christ. But the blessed Felix himself, after twelve years which he had spent at Nola when the persecution had ceased, on the Lord's Day, the mysteries completed, having given peace to all, cast himself upon the pavement to pray; immediately the soul of the blessed man departed from the prison of the flesh, and after the grievous torments which he had patiently borne for Christ, he himself, truly felix, ascended to the blessed kingdom; and he was buried near the city by the venerable Priest Elpidius, in a place called Pincis, where he ever shines with glorious miracles."

§ III. The Acts of Both Felixes Confused According to Ado.

[11] "At Nola in Campania, the feast of the blessed Felix the Priest. He was distinguished with the honor of the priesthood by Maximus, Bishop of the city of Nola. The two Saints Felix, Priest and Confessor, confused by Ado. When the Imperial decrees had commanded the persecution of Christians, Bishop Maximus, now weighed down by old age, thinking himself unable to bear the tortures, betook himself to the forest wilds. While he was wandering through them in distress because of the persecution, overcome with hunger and stricken by frost, he fell to the ground half-dead. (a) But the blessed Priest Felix was captured and bound in chains, brought before the Governor Draccus, and when he had argued much about the monstrous nature of the gods—that they were nothing—and the Governor urged him to sacrifice, he replied: 'You are enemies of your own gods. For to whatever temples of your gods you lead me, the same thing will happen to them that happened to those to which you led my brother Felix, and which you regretted. But if you wish to test the power of my Lord Jesus Christ, command me to go to the (b) Capitol, and I will make Jupiter himself, the chief of your demons, fall.' Immediately the impious Judge, stopping his ears, ordered him to be beaten with rods, then to be attached to the rack; he was then shut up in prison, where bound in no small chains, he was stretched upon snail-shells and potsherds placed beneath him. And behold, at midnight an Angel of the Lord, having broken the chains and split the beam by which his feet were confined, said to him: 'Rise and go forth, and seek your Bishop, and when you have found him, bring him back to the city, and hide him, lest he perish from want and hunger, until the persecution ceases.' When the blessed Felix had gone out and was seeking his Bishop and Pontiff, he found him lying prostrate on the ground, his eyes closed, his teeth clenched, barely breathing. And when he anxiously sought what food he might offer the exhausted old man, behold, suddenly he marveled to see a bunch of grapes hanging from a thornbush; pressing some of its berries into the mouth of the Confessor of Christ, the old man was somewhat revived and rose up. Felix placed him on his shoulders and carried him to the city, and having commended him to the care of a certain widow under her shelter, he fed him. Then the blessed Martyr was captured and deported into exile on a mountain called (c) Circeii, where stones were quarried, so that he himself, along with the condemned, would likewise be a stone-cutter. There he liberated the daughter of a certain Tribune named Probus from a demon, and cured his wife of the disease of dropsy, and baptized Probus himself with his wife and daughter and many others in Christ. After this, when he had returned and the persecution was growing, a persecutor was again sent from among the officers to seize the blessed Felix. When this one was diligently searching for him and asked Felix himself whether he knew where Felix the Priest was hiding, (d) he said: 'Felix went this way.' When the persecutor had departed, Felix sought a hiding place. But the persecutor immediately followed after him. The Martyr, however, was concealing himself among ruined walls, where at the very entrance of the house, spider-webs hanging there made it credible that no one had recently entered. Deceived by this sight, the enemy departed. Thus the Martyr, moving to another place, was fed by a certain woman for three months, yet he never saw the face of the woman who ministered to him while he lay hidden in the same hideout. Afterward, at Nola, converting the chief of the demons to Christ, he first expelled the demon that gave oracles from the temple of Apollo, then by divine power cast down the temple itself. So illustrious with miracles, when the entire people of Nola wanted him to be raised up as Bishop, he did not consent, but choosing another for the Pontifical See, he himself, after twelve years which he had spent at Nola when the persecution had ceased, on the Lord's Day, the mysteries completed, having given peace to all, cast himself upon the pavement to pray; and immediately the soul of the blessed man departed from the prison of the flesh, and after the grievous torments which he had patiently borne for Christ, he himself, truly felix, ascended to the blessed kingdom. And he was buried near the city, in a place called Pincis, where he ever shines with glorious miracles, by the venerable and holy Priest Helpidius. (e) This most blessed Martyr and Confessor also resisted the heretics most invincibly."

a The Lobbes manuscript and that of St. Lawrence at Liege: "But the blessed Felix was captured and brought before the Governor Draccus, and refusing to sacrifice, after excessive beating and the torment of the rack, was shut up in prison, where at midnight he was freed by an Angel from his chains and the beam by which he was bound, and was told to rise and go seek his Bishop. When he had gone out and was seeking his Bishop and Pontiff," etc. These details, apart from the name of the Governor Draccus, all fit the Nolan St. Felix; whereas what has been published by Rosweyde is taken from the Acts of the other Felix, as are also certain other details in those two manuscripts.

b Hence it is clear that these events took place at Rome, although there were Capitols elsewhere too.

c The manuscript of St. Lawrence: "Circeus."

d Bede below, and others, tell this quite differently. Ado follows the Touraine version.

e The following is absent from both manuscripts, and rightly so: for what heretics were there at that time, in Campania especially? These words seem rather to apply to St. Felix II, Pope, of whom we shall treat on July 29.

§ IV. The Acts of the Nolan St. Felix Celebrated by St. Paulinus.

[12] Our Felix was all the more fortunate in having obtained Paulinus as his panegyrist—a man most illustrious for his family, his attainments in public life, his eloquence, his episcopate, but above all for his Christian humility and devotion, whom the Roman Church itself venerates on June 22. While still in the flower of his age, the miracles he had witnessed at the tomb of Felix had moved him to resolve to lead a quiet and holy life there. When he finally undertook this fifteen years later, he celebrated each year the feast of the same St. Felix on the 19th of the Kalends of February with a new birthday poem. Fifteen birthday poems written by St. Paulinus. Ten of these poems had hitherto been available, and it was generally believed that no more had been written, until quite recently a work by Dungalus, an ancient writer who lived about eight hundred years ago in the time of Louis the Pious and his sons, was brought to light. He, defending the most sacred Cross and holy relics and images against the opinions of Claudius, Bishop of Turin, enumerates fifteen birthday poems sung by Paulinus, and produces fragments from those hitherto unknown.

[13] He prefaces this with a most beautiful encomium of Paulinus himself: "The Bishop Paulinus, a most learned and most holy man, Paulinus praised by Dungalus. as many have testified about him, published a noble book composed of fifteen poems in honor and praise of St. Felix the Martyr; in which the many miracles and wonders that, through his merits and intercessions, with the divine clemency bestowing them, occur daily at his tomb, and especially on the anniversary of his birthday, cannot easily be excerpted or culled by anyone, because all of them are flowers, spices, roses, sweet-smelling lilies, and honey-flowing." Most truly did Dungalus pronounce these words. Anyone who attentively reads Paulinus's own poems will agree, and will marvel at the impudence of George Fabricius of Chemnitz, who censures Paulinus as though he so exaggerates the invocation and merits of the Saints Fabricius of Chemnitz censured. as to obscure the merit of the Son of God. But it is well that he admits Paulinus erred through the fault of his age, a truly heroic one. For what other age was happier, or more flourishing in the learning and devotion of the most learned men?

[14] Nor does this grammarian handle history more successfully than theology; for he says that Paulinus was a Priest under the Bishops Maximus and Quintus of Nola, Censured again. and succeeded them in the pontificate; that he was once exiled for religion and detained in prison, and escaped thence unharmed by the aid of an Angel; and that he himself writes this about himself. And afterward, drawing from the Magdeburg Centuriators, he says Paulinus lived under the Emperor Marcian. Paulinus died nearly twenty years before Marcian's reign, at an advanced age; but what a prodigy of longevity he would have been, if he had already been a Priest in the times of St. Maximus and the tyrant Diocletian! The same Fabricius errs less when he writes that St. Felix was a Bishop, yet he has some Catholics as his guides. If he had soberly read either Paulinus or what he himself had already written, he would have noticed that the earlier matters are related by Paulinus about Felix, not about himself.

[15] In his surviving birthday poems, then, Paulinus relates the deeds, miracles of Felix, the decoration of his church which Paulinus himself had restored, the concourse of peoples, and other remarkable things. He also mentions him in his letters, from which we shall give some passages below. Often he calls him his Dominaedium ("Lord of his house"), as in letter 9 to Severus: Paulinus calls St. Felix his Dominaedium. "You have from me, then, two little books: one in verse, a birthday poem from my customary song to my Dominaedium, to whom in body and spirit daily, and in voice annually, I pay the sweetest tribute of voluntary servitude, offering on the feast day of his consecration a sacrifice of praise to Christ, and rendering my vows to the Most High." And in letter 12 to the same: "That basilica, then, which is celebrated as already dedicated to our common Patron, the Dominaedium, in the name of the Lord Christ, added to his four basilicas, with relics of the Apostles and Martyrs consecrated under the altars within the three-apsed sanctuary, is venerable not only for the honor of the blessed Felix." And in letter 28 to Victricius: "Whom the Lord wished to experience the power in his presence of his most beloved Confessor, St. Felix, our Dominaedium." Whence it is clear that Ambrosius Leo errs when he writes in book 2 on Nola, chapter 11, concerning the cathedral church: "To the Temple of St. Paulinus, the temple's dedication was to the Dominedium: for God was then called Dominedius, a word preserved in the mouths of those who swear and invoke God even to our own times."

§ V. The Acts of St. Felix Described by Various Authors.

[16] The Life of St. Felix written by various authors. From St. Paulinus's birthday poems, St. Gregory of Tours composed a brief life of St. Felix in book 1 on the Glory of the Martyrs, chapter 104, which we have collated with the manuscript of Ripatorio and others. The Venerable Bede wrote a somewhat longer one, which Surius also published. Bede himself says in the index of his works, after the epitome of the history of the English people: "I translated the book of the life and passion of St. Felix the Confessor from the metrical work of Paulinus into prose." The Priest Marcellus wrote another, and dedicated it to Leo, Bishop of Nola, which Baronius mentions in his Notes to the Martyrology, and Molanus in his notes on Usuard. We transcribed this from an ancient manuscript codex of the Church of St. Omer. But the miracles were missing, though the same author testifies that he wrote them. From the letters of Paulinus we shall append certain passages. From these, other writers who have recorded the deeds of Felix drew their material, both Latin and foreign: James of Voragine, Vincent of Beauvais book 18, chapter 39, Francis Haraeus, Zacharias Lippeloo, Henry Fabricius, Matthias Lamberti, Herbert Rosweyde, Peter Ribadeneira, Gabriel Flamma, Alphonsus Villegas, and others. James Dublet mistakenly substituted here the Felix of Thinisa for the Nolan, of whom we shall treat on November 6.

[17] Pope St. Damasus celebrated Felix with these verses: "In body, mind, and soul, equally by name, Felix happy, Consecrated to the number of the Saints by the triumphs of Christ, You who grant all things to those who come to you with care, Saved by his aid, St. Damasus. Nor do you suffer any traveler to return in sorrow. Led by you, saved, because I have broken the bonds of death, By these verses, Damasus, a suppliant, repays his vows to you." Indeed the Romans frequently flocked to the monument of St. Felix, The concourse of Romans to him. so that Paulinus writes in Birthday Poem 3 that on the honor of this day Rome grows thin, as the Porta Capena pours forth many thousands heading for Nola, and the Appian Way itself lies hidden in the press of crowds.

[18] In Africa too the name of this Felix was great, and the fame of his miracles celebrated. St. Augustine compelled the priest Boniface, who had been accused of a grave crime, together with his accuser—since neither could be convicted—to make a pilgrimage to Nola, where, he said, "the more terrible works of God would more readily expose an unsound conscience, and compel confession either by punishment Perjuries detected at his tomb. or by fear." And he soon adds: "For the sanctity of the place where the body of the blessed Felix of Nola is laid is well known to many; and I wished them to go there, because from there we can more easily and faithfully receive a report of whatever may be divinely revealed about either of them." From this it is gathered that it was customary there for falsehood to be exposed, either by terror divinely inspired even in those ready to perjure themselves, or by punishment inflicted after perjury had been committed.

[19] The same Augustine mentions St. Felix in his book On the Care for the Dead, chapter sixteen, writing thus: "Hence also that question is resolved: how the Martyrs themselves, by the very benefits which are given to those who pray, show that they are present to human affairs, if the dead do not know what the living do. For not only by the effects of benefits, but also by the very appearance to human sight, the Confessor Felix appeared to the citizens He appears to various people when Nola is besieged. or residents whom he loved with pious affection, when Nola was being attacked by the Barbarians—as we have heard, not from uncertain rumors but from reliable witnesses." Baronius, in volume 5, at the year 410, number 46, thinks this happened in that year, when after Rome was sacked, Nola too was captured by Alaric the Goth, and St. Paulinus was taken prisoner.

§ VI. Whether the Nolan St. Felix Was Buried in Pincis.

[20] The age of St. Felix is not specified by Paulinus. Christophorus Phreislebius absurdly writes that he lived about the time of Theodosius. His age. Henry Fabricius estimates that he died about the year of Christ 300; but what peace did the Church enjoy then? Haraeus says about 310. Michael the Monk places it not long after the year 312, when peace was given to the Church. This is also the probable opinion of others.

[21] His death. St. Paulinus reports that he died full of years and merits. Several authors already cited have related that on a Sunday, after the sacred rites were completed, having blessed the people, he willingly prostrated himself on the ground and fell asleep—but these details are taken from the Acts of the other Felix.

[22] Whether buried by Elpidius. The published Martyrology of Bede, Ado, and others assert that he was buried by the Priest Elpidius. Gregory of Tours, Marcellus, Bede in the history of his life, and Paulinus do not mention this; indeed Paulinus describes how the entire people took splendid and religious care of his funeral, in Birthday Poem 6. This detail was transferred here from the Acts of St. Felix the Bishop. For they read thus: "Then the Priest Elpidius, a Greek, stole the body of the blessed Felix and placed it in the church of the city of Nola in the region of Campania." Andreas Ferrarius writes that the relics of St. Felix the Bishop were hidden by Elpidius inside a well, and above them a small chapel was built around the year 320, under the Emperor Constantine, and finally the cathedral church.

[23] The question about the place of burial of St. Felix the Priest is somewhat more obscure. Whether in Pincis. Many Martyrologies cited above, and the Roman Breviary as well, state that he was buried near Nola in a place called "in Pincis." But not a few manuscript Martyrologies under the name of Usuard record on this day St. Felix, the Roman Priest and Martyr, Where that place is. brother of St. Felix the Confessor (of whom below), in these words: "At Rome, on the Via Portuensis, at the place called Pincis, St. Felix, Priest and Martyr, who in the time of Diocletian and Maximian was crowned with a glorious death by beheading." The Carthusians of Cologne have the same in their Additions to Usuard, as well as the German Martyrology, though somewhat more fully. Peter de Natali writes the same, book 2, chapter 74. Michael the Monk cites a manuscript Martyrology of Capua and other manuscripts in which "Felix in Pincis" refers not to the one honored at Nola but at Rome. But he adds: "One must stand by the authority of the Roman Breviary. And although no mention of this place called 'in Pincis' is found in Ambrosius, who most diligently described the affairs of Nola, yet since it is certain that there was a Pincian family at Rome, what prevents us from supposing that some villa owned by the Pincii existed at Nola, and the place was commonly called 'of the Pincii,' 'in Pinciis,' or 'Pincis'?" Nevertheless, the Nolans hold that in the village called Coemeterium there was an ancient bishop's residence and the place called "in Pincis"; and there is a well there approached with great devotion, because it is said to have once been full of the blood of Martyrs.

[24] But since St. Paulinus, the Priest Marcellus of Nola, and Ambrosius Leo do not mention it, and we have shown above that the Acts of many Felixes have been confused, what prevents us from supposing that the place where one Felix was buried has been attributed to another? What if there was no such place called "in Pincis"? We put forward a conjecture, which those more expert may establish or reject as they please. Anastasius the Librarian, in his account of Hadrian I, among the temples restored or adorned by that Pontiff, lists the basilica of St. Felix in Pineis, in these words: It seems to be in Rome. "He renewed the basilica of the blessed Felix situated in Pineis, which was in ruins and whose roof was stripped, having had the same roof newly constructed," etc. Baronius, at the year 795, number twenty-nine, writes "in Pinciis," either because his manuscript codex had it so, or because he judged it should be so read. Maurolycus and certain manuscripts have "in Pineis," though they treat of the Nolan. Certainly there is a district of the city of Rome, now the fourteenth, which took its name from a pine tree, and Octavius Panciroli holds that the name arose from some pine. Perhaps the body of the holy Martyr Felix was carried from the Via Portuensis (not far distant) into that district, and a basilica erected for it, which either no longer exists or has changed its name. That there was a basilica of St. Felix at Rome is clear from St. Gregory, who delivered homily 13 on the Gospels there; but what Baronius writes in his Notes to the Martyrology, that it was dedicated to St. Felix the Confessor, is not stated in Gregory.

[25] Concerning the cognomen by which St. Felix is commonly called "in Pincis," James of Voragine offers this explanation: "Felix, surnamed 'in Pincis,' James of Voragine is mistaken. is so called either from the place where he rests, or from the awls by which he is said to have suffered; for pinca means an awl. For they say that when he had been a schoolmaster and had been excessively strict with his pupils, having been seized by the pagans because he freely confessed Christ, he was handed over to the boys whom he himself had taught, and they killed him with their styluses and awls. The Church, however, seems to hold that he was not a Martyr but a Confessor." He then adds other details in which he confuses him with the Roman Martyr St. Felix and the Nolan Priest St. Felix, and makes him a Bishop. But in the sacred calendars, no Felix is recorded as killed by the pens and styluses of boys; only Cassian, of whom we shall treat on August 13. That Felix was thus pierced by styluses, which he also calls pincas, Peter de Natali also relates, book 2, chapter 73, as we noted above in the catalogue of omissions. But in the following chapter, he says St. Felix, Priest and Roman Martyr, suffered at Rome "near the Pincian gate, where he also rests, in the place called 'in Pincis,' and from this he has the surname 'In Pincis.'" Marlianus writes that on the Hill of the Gardens there was the house of Pincius the Senator, The Pincian Hill. who gave his name both to the hill and to the gate; for today it is called the Pincian Hill and the Pinciana Gate. That this was not a new name for that gate you may learn from Procopius, who mentions it in book 1 of the Gothic War. It was formerly the Collatina; and the field that lies across from it is still called "in Collatia," as Panvinio attests. Andreas Fulvius, book 2 of Roman Antiquities, chapter 9, writes that on the very Hill of the Gardens there was a church of St. Felix "in Pincio," which no longer exists.

[26] But whether at Nola "Pincis" or "Pincius" was the name of the place of Felix's burial, or the name was derived from Rome, from the Pincii or the Pinei; St. Paulinus does not reveal the proper name of the place, only writing that Felix was laid to rest where the region, free of walls and roofs, smiled with joyful turf, and more pleasant and in spring-like beauty, as if aware of the honor and benefit bestowed from heaven, it rejoiced with fragrant grasses. But as soon as the public funeral rites were completed, from the bones that were laid there a light shone forth—an omen of the divine beneficence hereafter to be bestowed there upon mortals, and a testimony of his illustrious merit. Light from the tomb of St. Felix. Paulinus seems to place this tomb outside the city, or at least remote from other urban buildings, since in Birthday Poem 9 he writes that the city was far from the precinct of that church, and that from the city a slender channel brought a small supply of water there through a narrow conduit, almost none at all. The Nolans relate that the ancient bishop's residence in the time of St. Paulinus was at the place where the spiders wove their webs over St. Felix—a place which, the city having been reduced to a smaller size, is now a mile distant from it.

§ VII. On the Relics of St. Felix.

[27] Marius Viperanus testifies that certain relics of St. Felix are preserved in the Church of Benevento under the principal altar, and that his feast is celebrated there with a double rite, and outside the city a church was erected for him on a hill, from which the hill and the neighboring region take their name. Octavius Panciroli relates that at Rome some relics of St. Felix, Some relics of his at Benevento. who is called "in Pincis," survive in the basilica (or altar, which now exists only in the church of St. Adrian) of Saints Sergius and Bacchus; but that the rest of the body is at Nola.

[28] Ambrosius Leo speaks so obscurely and ambiguously about the relics of St. Felix, which are kept in the crypt of the Cathedral Church of Nola, At Rome. that is, in the underground chapel, that you cannot tell whether he thought they were those of the Bishop and Martyr, or of the Priest, or rather of another St. Felix whose brother suffered martyrdom at Rome At Nola. and was perhaps buried in Pinciis or Pineis. The Nolans hold that this is the body of the Bishop and Martyr Felix, Likewise of Felix the Bishop. whose feast is celebrated on November 15.

[29] The remains of the holy Bishop exude a health-giving liquid which the Nolans call manna; this must be added because some attribute it to St. Felix the Priest. Ambrosius Leo writes about it thus, book 2, chapter 11: "On the western side of this chapel (underground, as we said) there stands an altar, and above the altar a marble slab, erect and pierced through with a silver channel, Manna flows from these relics. whence a certain liquid flows down drop by drop, especially when the winter frost presses hardest; this liquid they call manna, and it is believed to be the sweat of the Saint, whose body lies in the well—for this opens behind the marble slab and descends to the bottom."

[30] This liquid is especially beneficial for the eyes. From its abundance the Nolans draw an omen of the coming year's fertility. They believe, and not with vain faith, that the year will be fruitful and prosperous if it has flowed abundantly; they fear adversity An omen of prosperity. if it is more scanty. When in the year of Christ 1558 men of our Society first came to Nola to establish a residence there, at the request of Maria Santaseverina, formerly Countess of the city of Nola, a woman of outstanding piety, this divine liquid flowed most abundantly, portending splendid fruits of piety and other virtues. Francis Sacchini records this in volume 2 of the History of the Society, book 2, number 78: "All of these were received most honorably and most courteously, with many of the leading citizens going out a long way to meet them, some on horseback, some on foot. Escorted by their company, while the festive ringing of bells meanwhile celebrated the public joy, they entered the city on the fourth Sunday of sacred Advent. On that very night, from the body of St. Felix, patron of the Nolans, a liquid flowed which is regarded as sacred and health-giving (manna is the popular name for this kind of liquid). Although this did not happen entirely out of the ordinary, nevertheless because the citizens are persuaded that when it flows it portends good fortune, the event was noted, and as though the ancient patron were receiving his new guests with joy and favor, it augmented the congratulations and confirmed the hopes of all."

LIFE OF ST. FELIX

From St. Gregory of Tours, Book 1 on the Glory of the Martyrs, Chapter 104.

Felix, Priest of Nola in Italy (S.) BHL Number: 2872

By St. Gregory of Tours.

[1] Concerning Felix the Nolan Martyr, since the account of his passion is not at hand, it has pleased us to insert a few things into this reading according to what the blessed Paulinus wrote in verse. For he, having been appointed to the honor of the priesthood by (a) Maximus, Bishop of the aforesaid city, how great his wisdom and learning were could not be hidden, not only from Christians The learning of St. Felix. but even from the pagans themselves. When the Imperial decrees had commanded the persecution of Christians, Bishop Maximus, now weighed down by old age, (b) thinking himself unable to bear the tortures, betook himself to the forest wilds; while he was wandering through them in distress because of this persecution, overcome with hunger and stricken by frost, he fell to the ground half-dead. He mocks the gods. But the Priest Felix was captured and, having argued much about the monstrous nature of the gods—that they were nothing—(c) having run the gauntlet of various kinds of punishments, was condemned to prison, He is tortured. in which he was bound with no small chains.

[2] But at midnight the Angel of the Lord came to him, and having broken the chains and split the beam by which his feet were confined, said: "Rise and follow me." Rising, he went out with him through the door of the prison; and the Angel of the Lord said to him: "Go up into the mountains, He is led out of prison by an Angel. and seek your Bishop, and when you have found and revived him, bring him back to the city and hide him in a secret place, lest he perish from want and cold, until the persecution of Christians ceases." Having received this command, Felix went where he knew not; but by God's providence he found his Bishop lying prostrate on the ground, his eyes closed, his teeth clenched, He revives Maximus, who is nearly dead. in whom nothing remained but the faintest breath. Having called to him, he could elicit no word; touching him, he felt his limbs rigid from the winter cold, and dead without any vital warmth. Anxious, since there was no food to offer to the dying man, nor any means of kindling a fire, while he stood stunned, he beheld an Angelic gift, as though dropped from the heavenly seats—as indeed it was. For behold, he marveled to see a bunch of grapes hanging from a nearby thornbush; pressing the berries into the mouth of the Confessor, the old man was somewhat revived and rose up. Placing him on his shoulders, Felix carried him with such speed And carries him home on his shoulders. that he seemed to be carried rather than to carry. So, having commended the Bishop to the shelter of (d) a certain widow, he provided food until the persecution of Christians ceased. When the Bishop departed this life, He refuses the Episcopate. Felix, chosen by the people to be placed upon the Ecclesiastical Chair, refused to consent. Therefore one named Quintus, a Priest, was ordained Bishop.

[3] (e) When a persecution of the Catholics arose, and Felix the Priest was in the public square admonishing the people not to stray from the right path, a persecutor arrived; and being unknown to the Priest Felix, the persecutor himself began to inquire anxiously who Felix might be. The Priest, gesturing with his right hand, said: (f) "He went in that direction." When the persecutor had departed, Felix sought a hiding-place and, having entered through a narrow opening, wanted to conceal himself among ruined walls. Without delay the persecutor followed, A spider's web stretched before his hiding-place, he escapes the persecutors. but God defeated the diligence of the searcher. For at God's command, spiders stretched the threads of their webs across the opening through which the Martyr had entered. But those following his tracks, when they tried to explore the place, saw the beginnings of the web and said to one another: "Do you think a man passed through these threads, which often even the slightest fly breaks through?" And deceived by the providence of God, they departed. The blessed Felix, (g) when night fell, (h) withdrew to another place, where for (i) three months, receiving food from a certain woman, He is nourished by a woman without seeing her. when peace was given, he was restored to his Church and people; yet he never saw the face of the woman who served him, nor was he suspected by her, while he remained in hiding.

[4] And so, resting in peace, he was buried near the city, manifesting himself by many miracles among the people, of which I shall briefly touch upon a few. For there was a certain poor man (k) who had two oxen for working his land, After death he is illustrious with miracles. and he had no other possession except what he could earn by cutting the soil with a ploughshare using these animals. It happened that one day, coming home weary from this work, he turned these loose and retired to his little dwelling. A man recovers his lost oxen through Felix's aid, and his eyesight. Without delay a bold thief arrived, who secretly took them and led them away. The poor man going out the next morning found nothing. Then he searched through the byways, circled through the forests, climbed the mountain heights, but could not even find a track. He returned home, raised his voice in weeping, and with his wife and children lamented, saying: "Woe is me, for with these young oxen (l) gone, this year you will die of hunger." What more? He came weeping to the tomb of the blessed Martyr Felix; he poured out his groaning with tears, and begged that the Saint's power would obtain from the Lord the return of what he had lost. Going out of the church, (m) before the very door of the courtyard he recognized his oxen and said: "O great power of the Martyr, who so swiftly caused what was lost to be returned to me!" Entering again, he prostrated himself on the pavement and, giving thanks, returned home with his goods. And the Martyr's power also restored the sight of one eye of this man, which had been blind.

[5] Another whose eye was pierced by a hook. To the wall of the cell near which the blessed body rests entombed, a portico is attached, in which a lamp hanging from a rope used to provide light to the place. The attendant responsible for its care, having loosened the rope, went away as if to get oil. When everything was wrapped in the darkness of night and the rope with its hooks hung lower in the middle of the portico, (n) one of the bystanders at the Saint's vigil, wearied by the smoky haze of the cell from the burnt papyrus, went outside. As he was passing through that portico, one of the hooks of the rope caught the face of the man as he came, piercing his eye with its sharp point. Feeling the pain, he quickly extended his palms and covered his endangered face and eyes, crying out with no small wailing, and saying: "Come to my aid, I beseech you, holy Priest, and make yourself near to the one who perishes, you who stand nearby. Send your sacred healing hands through hidden remedies, and extract the evil that opposes my sight, lest I depart deprived of light, I who came to behold the light of your miracles." At this lamentable cry, those present brought a light and found the man hanging by his pierced eye from the rope. While the flowing blood prevented anyone from daring to lay hands on extracting it, the immense power of the blessed Martyr was present, which (o) drew out the hook in such a way that it neither pulled out the eye nor penetrated the sight, and stanched the flow of running blood. Thus, when the iron was extracted from the eye Demoniacs cured. and the pain of the eyelids was soothed, the power of the holy Martyr was made manifest among the people. The same author (p) frequently wrote that demoniacs were tested and purged at this sacred shrine of Christ's athlete.

a The Ripatorio manuscript has "Maximianus." We shall treat of him on January 15.

b So also Ado above, and others. Many write that he withdrew in order to preserve himself for his flock.

c But St. Paulinus, Birthday Poem 4: "The first order of punishment is woven from prison."

d St. Paulinus writes that Felix deposited the Bishop under his own roof, which a single old woman kept. Many others conjecture she was a widow.

e From other sources it is clear that this new persecution happened before the death of Maximus. Gregory of Tours is followed by Vincent of Beauvais, book 18, chapter 39.

f St. Paulinus contradicts this, saying he replied: "I do not know the Felix you are seeking."

g The Ripatorio manuscript: "in the clear of night."

h The same St. Paulinus relates that he went out and changed his hiding places.

i So the Roman Breviary, Vincent, Haraeus, and others. But Paulinus writes that he hid there for a full six months.

k The Ripatorio manuscript adds: "By the venerable Priest Elpidius, in the place called Pincis."

l Others read: "lost."

m Paulinus tells this story quite differently in Birthday Poem 6, as does Bede below.

n This was Theridius, who is mentioned as the bearer of Severus's letters to Paulinus in letters 14 and 38, wonderfully praised by Paulinus in poem 13, who also narrates this miracle at length in Birthday Poem 7.

o Theridius himself drew out the hook with his own hand, as Paulinus writes, with Felix strengthening his wavering mind and hand.

p Paulinus. Thus in Birthday Poem 3: "The Martyr's merit is shown when by his rightful power He torments the demons and frees the bodies they have bound. For the pestilent princes confess with sorrowful cry That Felix presses upon them with unseen punishments, Demons are tormented and expelled by St. Felix from possessed bodies. And bear witness with open groaning to hidden tortures, And reveal him, veiled from mortal eyes, yet manifest To the ears, and present with great power. When captive within ensnared bodies, they both cry out and prove That Christ shines in his Saint. Trembling with the shaking of limbs and the rolling of heads, They are tormented by their own torments, yet they do not torment their own bodies; Crying out their own sufferings through others' mouths, Begging for pardon—the avenger is hidden, the punishment seen. Then if a more violent foe has bound some With a heavier affliction, that day frees them by divine gift. Then one may see everywhere, purged by sacred healing, Hearts prostrate on the threshold, already restored in mind, Grateful now with their own voice: the trembling crowd Of gaping people rushes together; amid the joys of all Tears spring forth: God is believed present to all there: Felix is the glory of the immense Christ."

And in Birthday Poem 6: "Whence then does so great a terror surround the threshold? What drives such multitudes here? What hand compels The demons? And drags the unwilling ones, vainly crying out With rebellious voice, and drives them all the way to the tomb Of the Martyr, and halts them, as if nailed to the sacred threshold?"

But especially in Birthday Poem 7: "That day is seen to be watched throughout the whole Viperous brood, when it presses the fierce demons, And with unseen hand beats the common foes. But in this very display of power something marvelous is noted: Though all year long it torments the tormented demons, And commands them to depart from human limbs, It brings forth most of them so that a longer punishment May afflict the evil foes; or so that those who deserved To become vessels of evil may, with healing delayed, More fully expiate every sin in the decreed time; Or it strives to show indulgence to this birthday feast, So that on other days it gives help to few, while the generous Saint Gives more gifts on his birthday. Especially on this day. For when this day approaches As the year wanes, then more frequently and more heavily he presses. Then you may see the sick throngs gathered More thickly, and near the festival a certain cure is sought. Then the demons burn more heavily than usual, And wail more pitifully, and subdued by greater force, They groan at the final torments: nor are they allowed to depart With easy exit, but first driven by wondrous And various cruel punishments, they are lifted on high, Suspended higher than usual, and they suffer In the empty air, and hang by invisible bonds In a punishing delay through the void; though through bodies not their own, Their own punishment wearies the tormented foes. They are freed from their punishments when the bodies seem To bear the punishments, and the souls, immune, behold in their own Limbs the foreign torments: the man, the demon being captured, Acts freely, for it is not the man's cross but the demon's."

And a little further on: "Even greater things than these, yet witnessed, I shall relate. Before all others, that man whose limbs an older foe They marvelously lift bodies feet upward. Besets, I saw dragged from the sick crowd to the sacred threshold Of the blessed Martyr, and before the consecrated Doors of the Saint, with body inverted, Suspended, gazing at the roof with feet turned upward. And what is more marvelous and sacred: nor did the garments fall back Over his face—as if stiff, or sewn to his feet— But the whole sacred body was veiled with modest covering. So that the reverence of the divine work might remain With the bodies covered, and the demon in the very punishment By which it is tormented might not exult by exposing the shame Of naked limbs; tormented more severely with the honor preserved, Though the garments sit properly on the inverted limbs."

Severus records similar things in Dialogue 3 on the life of St. Martin: This happens elsewhere too. whenever St. Martin undertook the care of exorcising demons, it was customary for many to hang suspended with feet lifted in the air, yet their garments did not fall over their faces, nor did the exposed parts of their bodies cause shame.

Finally, in Birthday Poem 8, he narrates that a certain man was freed from a demon of enormous polyphagia (gluttony): "Lastly, of many I shall tell of one, so that from one You may learn that demons have bestial senses. A certain man, not long before, was so distended By a prodigal demon A demoniac of immense voracity is cured. that he consumed not only the familiar Foods of men—even if a great feast were set With heaped-up dishes—in an easy gulp, But also snatched hens from the doorsteps of inhabitants, And as soon as he had seized them, tore them apart with ravenous mouth, And devoured them uncooked, the feathers not choking him. Indeed he thirsted for funeral corruption, and licked bones, Devouring the cast-off carcasses of cattle, A foul table-companion of dogs. This man, now sober, Freed from so great a demon, behold, works a rented field at a distance; And restored to himself by God's care in the sacred hall of Felix, He clearly shows, by evident proof, That Felix, strong in merits and in the name of Christ, Can tame fierce beasts and conquer flames."

And at last in Birthday Poem 15: "I shall seem to praise not the man but rather him By whom Felix, empowered, holds his venerable name And gives healing powers; by which he visits sick Bodies and captive souls, by the force of the dark demon Absolved, God prevailing: nor in this aid alone Is the generous Felix working the gifts of Christ And triumphing most bravely over the serpent foe."

LIFE

BY THE VENERABLE BEDE, PRIEST.

Felix, Priest of Nola in Italy (S.) BHL Number: 2873

By the Venerable Bede.

PROLOGUE.

[1] The most blessed triumph of the blessed Felix, which he merited in Nola, a city of Campania, with the Lord's help, was most beautifully and most fully described by Paulinus, Bishop of the same city, in hexameter verses. Since these are suited more to readers versed in meter than to simple readers, it pleased us, for the benefit of many, to elucidate the same history of the holy Confessor in plainer language, and to imitate the industry of (a) him who translated the martyrdom of the blessed Cassian from the metrical work of Prudentius into common and open speech accessible to all.

a We shall give that Life on August 13; who its author is we have not yet ascertained; that it is ancient we learn from this passage. Surius published it from book 9 of the Peri Stephanon of Prudentius; Mombritius published the prose version cited here.

CHAPTER I.

The priesthood, confession, and piety of St. Felix toward his Bishop.

[2] Felix, then, was born in Nola of Campania, but of a Syrian father named Hermias, who came from the East to Nola Felix's homeland, father, brother. and dwelt there as a native, and begot his son Felix; and dying, he left him the inheritance of a wealthy estate, which Felix nevertheless preferred to the gifts of the promised heavenly inheritance. He also had a brother surnamed after his own father, that is, Hermias, with whom he was to divide his earthly patrimony. This brother, living far from the ways of Felix and therefore unworthy of eternal happiness, devoted himself solely to loving earthly goods and chose to be a soldier of Caesar rather than of Christ.

[3] But Felix, on the contrary, fulfilling the mystery of his name by his deeds, soon from his boyhood subjected himself to the divine service, His piety, reception of Holy Orders. and with the grace of virtues increasing, he first received the office of Reader in the Church, and then, advanced to the rank of Exorcist, he began to cast unclean spirits out of possessed bodies. When he had been illustrious with virtues in this ministry, without delay he rose to the rank of the priesthood, worthy of his merits; nor did he remain less than his rank in mind and deed, as even the coming storm of temptations proved.

[4] For at that same time a persecution of the faithless arose and assailed the Church with a grievous struggle; yet the gates of death could not prevent the gates of the daughter of Zion from proclaiming the praise of their Creator. When the masters and authors of treachery had first directed the onslaught of their madness against the very masters of truth and of the Lord's faith, Bishop Maximus avoids persecution by flight. and had conspired to hand over or compel to deny the faith the chief Bishops and Priests of the Churches, to terrorize the lesser ones, it happened that the ministers of error and hostile fury, arriving even at Nola, sought the Bishop of that city, named (b) Maximus, a man venerable for his learning, piety, and age, to subject him to torments. Perceiving this, he, mindful of the Lord's command which says: "When they persecute you in this city, flee to another" Matthew 10:23, sought for a time the retreat of a remote place, leaving for the protection of the city the Priest Felix, whom he embraced as a son and desired to receive as the heir of his See.

[5] But the persecutors, when they could not find the Bishop, did not hesitate to lay hands on Felix, and strove first to cast him down from the constancy of his renowned virtue, Felix is captured. as the greatest stronghold of the city after the Bishop, either by flattering him with promises or by terrifying him with punishments. Seized, therefore, by his raging adversaries, but himself greatly trusting in the inward consolation of the Holy Spirit, he was thrown into a dark prison, where iron chains bound both his hands and neck, and a stock confined his feet. Fragments of potsherds were also strewn beneath him, so that amid the horror and cold of the long night, constantly pricked by their sharp points, he would not be permitted even to take sleep or any rest while bound.

[6] Maximus is worn down by hardships. Meanwhile the Bishop, who had retreated to mountain hideouts to flee the enemy, was himself enduring no less a martyrdom of suffering than if he had been bound in irons, or stretched upon potsherds, or about to be burned with flames. For the greatest anxiety for his flock burned his soul, and hunger burned his body, together with the rigors of the icy winter. Lying among thorns without roof or food, he continued through the night and the day in wakeful, anxious prayers. Nor was it difficult for such a mass of evils, pressing upon his aged limbs exhausted by long fasts, to drive him even to the point of death.

[7] But to show most clearly how much the man deserved the care of heavenly mercy, an Angel was sent from heaven Felix is led out of prison by an Angel. who commanded the blessed Confessor Felix, freed from his chains, to come quickly to seek, revive, and bring home his Bishop. There were indeed many confined in the same prison; but the Angel, arriving, appeared only to Felix, who was bound for the sake of piety, shining with brilliant light and also filling the very building with the grace of light. Moved by his voice and light together, Felix trembled and at first thought he was being deceived by a dream. The Angel commanded him to rise and follow him out. Stunned at the command, Felix objected that he could not go out because he was held by chains, the prison bars, and the diligence of the guards. But the Angel, repeating his command, ordered him to rise quickly, the chains notwithstanding; and quicker than a word, the chains fell from his hands and neck, and the fetters from his feet. He led him out by a marvelous course of events, the door of the prison being opened for him but closed for the others, so that he passed through the very guards who confined him, all unaware—the Angel, like the Mosaic pillar, providing both guidance and light for Felix by the splendor of his presence, until he escaped the hands of the enemy.

[8] When the blessed Confessor Felix arrived at the desert place to which the Bishop had retreated, he found him drawing feeble sighs with a faint breath. He rejoiced indeed that he found him living, but was greatly saddened that he saw the one he found was near death. And so he embraced and kissed the Father, and began to try whether by the frequent breath of his mouth and the warmth of his own body he might bring some heat to his frozen limbs. But after laboring for a long time, he could neither by calling out nor by touching arouse any vital sensation in his mind or body; nor was there fire or food nearby with which to revive him in his rigidity and wasting. At last, having hit upon a salutary plan, he bent his knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, He revives the nearly lifeless Bishop. humbly beseeching him to help from heaven, so that he might fulfill toward his Father the ministry of piety which he had been commanded to perform. Without delay, his prayer was heard: he saw a bunch of grapes hanging on nearby thornbushes, and recognized it as the gift of him who, as the Creator of nature and Author of all things, both brought water from the dry rock and when he willed turned water into wine. Greatly rejoicing at this gift of divine mercy, he took the cluster and brought it to the mouth of the dying Bishop. But because the Bishop, with his teeth clenched like a dead man, being devoid of all sensation of heart and soul, was utterly unable to receive the taste offered to him, at last the holy Priest Felix, by the blessed wrestling of his hands, opened his parched lips, and thus, having crushed the grape, poured as much healing juice as he could into his mouth. Having tasted this, the Father at once recovered both sensation of soul and body: then his eyes opened, and his tongue, which had clung to his dry palate, was loosed for speaking.

[9] And when, fully reviving, he recognized that it was Felix who had come to seek him, he embraced him with fatherly affection and complained that he had come so late: "Where," he said, "have you delayed so long, my son? For the Lord had already promised me long ago that you would come to me. The Bishop had received a revelation of his coming. But you see that, although overcome by the weakness of the body, I yielded for a time, yet I preserved the firm constancy of a faithful soul, as also the condition of this place to which I withdrew indicates. For I could indeed have entered some village or another city where I would be safe from enemies, if faith had been cheap to me and this life dear. But now, shunning all human refuges, and fleeing instead to the deserts of the mountains, I entrusted myself only to divine grace and protection, so that he himself, by whatever manner or order he wished, would either preserve me in this life or transfer me to the next. Nor indeed has the hope which was in God deceived me, as is clearly proved by your coming, through which I have been recalled, as it were, from the very threshold of death to life. Therefore, my son, hasten to complete the work of piety which you have begun, take care to place me on your shoulders and carry me home."

[10] Having said this, Felix most swiftly carried out what was commanded and, having carried the Bishop on his shoulders, He carries him home. brought him back to his own house, which a single old woman attended. The venerable Bishop was so detached from worldly things that from all the household crowd and the sum of his wealth, only one old woman remained to him. Having knocked at the doors, Felix roused her, and to her as she rose and opened the door he gave and commended the Bishop. (c) Then the Bishop, for the service of piety rendered to him, returned due thanks to the blessed Felix, and placing his right hand on his head, bestowed upon him a fatherly blessing. Going forth from there, Felix himself also lay hidden in his own house for a few days until the storm of persecution should cease. When that happened, he left his hiding place and, to the joy of the citizens at his arrival, gave himself back to them with gladness, and going about everywhere, he comforted and strengthened by the word of exhortation the spirits of each one, He comforts all. who had been not a little disturbed by the bitterness of the preceding storm. And he taught them not only by word but also by his own example to despise both the prosperity and adversity of the world, to seek only the joys of the eternal fatherland, and to fear only the wrath of the heavenly Judge.

a Who, as St. Paulinus writes in Birthday Poem 5, "had lived under Caesar in military service until retirement."

b He is honored on January 15, as we shall say.

c Paulinus, Birthday Poem 4, records that all these things were done in a single night.

CHAPTER II.

Hiding Places During Persecution.

[11] He is not recognized by the persecutors. When persecution was renewed, Felix was sought, and (a) enemies came even to his dwelling, thirsting to seize him swiftly and hand him over to death. (b) He at that time happened to be absent from his house, standing in the middle of the city with friends, and as was his custom, preaching the word of faith to the surrounding crowds. When the adversaries heard that he was in that place, they immediately ran up with drawn swords; but arriving at him, with his face or their hearts changed by divine providence, they were utterly unable to recognize the one they knew very well. When they themselves asked him where Felix was, the most prudent man understood that it was divinely arranged that they should not recognize him, and laughing at those who inquired, he said: "I do not know the Felix you are seeking"—nor did he deceive them at all, for no one knows himself by face.

[12] They immediately left him and turned elsewhere, and asked those they chanced to meet where Felix was. One of them, entirely ignorant of the matter and thinking they were mad, began to rebuke them for their folly, since they could not recognize the very man with whom they were speaking, who stood before them; and at the same time he pointed out to them the direction in which the one they sought was going. They, raging more furiously, immediately pursued the blessed Felix's footsteps. But he, warned by the tumult of the crowd running ahead and the uproar of the people startled by the enemy's approach, withdrew to a more secluded place which had no stronger defense He hides, suddenly screened by a spider's web. than the fragment of a half-ruined wall. But as soon as it received the man of God, the divine hand protected it with a marvelous work. For suddenly a heap of rubble grew up there, blocking that place, and a spider, at divine command (to which every creature is subject), immediately suspended its quivering webs in that very spot. When the enemies arrived there, they were astonished and said to each other in lowered voices: "Is it not foolish for us to enter here looking for a man, when it is perfectly clear that no one has passed this way? For if anyone had entered, the threads of these spider-webs would by no means remain intact, since even tiny flies sometimes break them by passing through. It is therefore certain that whoever said Felix went in here did so craftily, to draw us further from finding him. So let us withdraw, and let us stop searching for the man's hiding-place here, where the very appearance of the place shows that no one has entered." Thus deceived, they departed quickly, gnashing their teeth and raging no less against the one who had led them into such places by his tricks than against Felix himself. Here the great wisdom of our pious Creator and Protector shone forth. Certainly sometimes the highest and most fortified walls of cities betray their citizens to besieging enemies rather than free them; and the humble Christ hid his servant from armed persecutors by the trembling webs of spiders, so that he could not be found or seized. Truly, as the venerable Father Paulinus says of these things: "Wherever Christ is present with us, even a spider's web will become a wall; but where Christ is absent, even a wall will become a spider's web." Birthday Poem 5.

[13] So the enemies departed as evening approached, and Felix, as they went away, more freely sought other hiding-places, rejoicing in the help of divine protection and singing to himself: "For though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me." He hides elsewhere and is fed by a pious woman, unknowing, for six months. When day came, he withdrew to a more secluded spot among the very roofs of buildings, where for six (c) continuous months, separated indeed from the knowledge of all people but enjoying the presence of divine grace, he remained hidden, as the Psalmist says, "in the secret of your face, from the disturbance of men." God also fed him during all that time by a marvelous and extraordinary means. Psalm 31:21. For in the neighboring building there dwelt a certain woman devoted to God, whose unknowing ministry the Lord, the fount and origin of all knowledge, knowingly employed. For the woman baked bread and prepared other foods for the provisions of her household, and in a transport of mind she would bring them to the place where the Confessor Felix lay hidden, and set them there for him to eat, so that she could never know that she had gone in there or returned. Believing she had placed the prepared food in her own house, she would always go away thus—mindful of setting down the food, and immediately forgetful that she had set it down. And so they say that the blessed Felix remained for six months, as I said, in the hiding-places of that dark and narrow shelter, separated indeed from human society but never deserted by the presence of the citizens of heaven; and sustained, to be sure, by a meager diet, but one divinely supplied, he led a happy life. He enjoys divine conversations. During this time he is also said to have been frequently deemed worthy of the gift of divine (d) conversation. In the very habitation where he stayed there was an old cistern from which he drew his poor drink; but when this dried up in the excessive heat of summer, the blessed Confessor was not deprived of what he needed to live. For the pious Creator and Provider of our salvation, He receives drink from heaven. who once, while the rest of the air was dry, drenched a single fleece with heavenly rain, himself ministered to his Confessor, with the air utterly still and calm, (e) the grace of hidden dew by which the thirsty one might be refreshed, as he had need. Judges 6.

a James of Voragine writes that before this new persecution Felix was promoted to the episcopate; many others say he was sought for it. But the testimony of Paulinus is more reliable.

b Peter de Natali, book 7, chapter 138, writes that when the Gentiles surrounded his house, he went out and passed through the midst of them so that those who saw him did not recognize him—which you may refute from this passage.

c The Roman Breviary, Haraeus, and others have only three months; Paulinus has six.

d Ribadeneira, Rosweyde, etc., assert that he was visited by Christ and frequently by Angels; Paulinus says he was often deemed worthy of Christ's conversation, and fed by food provided by his hand.

e Peter de Natali—is it true?—writes: "And when from excessive dryness in the summer the water in his well had failed, at the prayer of the Saint abundant rain descended and copiously refilled the well." But Paulinus: "For the summer, scorched as it happens by excessive suns, / Had dried up even the well that had provided poor / Draughts to the hidden one. But lest the thirst of the flesh should burn him / Drink divinely provided to St. Felix. Who, thirsting for Christ, bore even this / Punishment of the afflicted body, a cloud gathered / In a thin mass and brought down, through the narrow / Opening of the skylight, sweet moisture upon the lips of the thirsty one, / As if squeezed by hand, and from the open sky / Refreshed him with the juice of the ethereal fleece."

CHAPTER III.

Humility, Poverty.

[14] When this time was completed, he was admonished by a divine oracle to come forth from his hiding-places, because the storm of persecution had already passed. When he suddenly appeared in public, he was received most gratefully by all, as though coming from Paradise. He then began to strengthen the faith of all, which the fury of the tempest had considerably shaken. Meanwhile the God-beloved Bishop Maximus, After the death of Maximus, he refuses the Episcopate. advanced to a great age, closed his last day. Without delay Felix was chosen by the judgment of all for the episcopate, being both an invincible Confessor and a most gentle Teacher, who had fulfilled in his own deeds all the good things he taught by word. But Felix, to indicate also what sublimity of humility he held in his heart, excused himself with a modest voice from having to accept this rank, saying that his fellow-priest Quintus could far more worthily undertake the honor of the aforesaid rank, since he had been promoted to the order of the priesthood seven days before Felix himself. This was carried out as he requested: and the same Quintus so administered the office of episcopate he had received that, humbly submissive to the most blessed Confessor, He does not wish to recover his property, confiscated during the persecution. he bade Felix preach to the people in his stead; and he himself governed the flock by office, while Felix governed them by teaching.

[15] Felix, who was distinguished by the constancy of his confession and the power of his humility, was also the highest lover of voluntary poverty. For he had possessed from his father's inheritance many estates, houses, and abundant wealth, but during the time of persecution he had been proscribed and lost everything. But when peace was restored to the Churches, although he could have reclaimed his rights, he was utterly unwilling to do so. (a) When friends urged him to take back what was rightly owed to him—which, once recovered, he could with great interest of reward scatter and give to the poor—he by no means consented, but with a firm resolution repelled their suggestions, saying: "All things are lawful for me, but not all things are expedient" 1 Corinthians 6:12. Far be it from me to reclaim the property I lost for the sake of confession! Far be it from me to demand back the earthly goods I once despised in contemplation of heavenly goods, as though the latter alone were not sufficient! Rather, poor in spirit, I shall follow Jesus, that I may more richly receive the gifts of the kingdom of heaven. Nor should I doubt that he who freed me from the chains and darkness of the dreadful prison, and who fed me in secret for so long, will also nourish me who cast my care upon him for the rest of my life." Holding to this spirit, the blessed Confessor had only three acres of a small field, He tills his field himself. and these rented, and one little garden of his own, by which to live. But he cultivated both (b) with his own hand, without even a single servant to help him; and he always rejoiced to share the produce of his harvest or garden with the poor. The most blessed man also practiced the same frugality in his clothing, so that he was content with only a single garment, one that was never even sufficient for himself; His clothing. and if anything was left over, he gave it to the poor. And if by chance from some other source he happened to have a double garment, he immediately clothed the naked with the better one.

a Among these was especially Archelais, or as the manuscript has it, Arcilais, "of as holy a faith," says Paulinus in Birthday Poem 5, "as she was illustrious in lineage, a wealthy widow of abundant means."

b Ribadeneira and his translators Rosweyde and Canisius therefore err when they write that he also used the labor of another in cultivating that garden. Paulinus states expressly: "Three acres of a lean field, / Not held in his own right, but a tenant / He cultivated with his own hand, without a servant, possessor of a poor garden."

CHAPTER IV.

Miracles After Death.

[16] Living, then, with such piety, the man both by name and by merit Felix, He dies. full of days and good works, departed this life and, following the way of the fathers, was received into eternal glory, He is illustrious with miracles. as the very many signs that have been wrought in the church in which he is buried attest.

[17] (a) For there was a certain rustic, poor in means but upright in faith, who sustained his narrow poverty by the possession of only two oxen, either using them himself or lending them to neighbors for an agreed-upon fee. These he cared for and guarded with great anxious diligence despite his poverty; yet one night they were stolen and he lost them. But in the morning, when he had most certainly discovered they had been stolen, having lost all hope of searching for or finding them, he ran at full speed to the church of St. Felix; and arriving there, A man recovers his lost oxen through St. Felix's aid. he prostrated himself before the doors of the holy building, and with his face fixed to the ground, he implored and besought St. Felix to return to him the oxen he had lost, testifying with many tears that he would never leave there until he had received his oxen back. When he had done this the whole day with a rustic voice indeed, but with a most faithful heart, as evening came on he was driven out by the violence of the crowd and, expelled from the sacred building, he came to his own house, yet did not cease to pass the night sleepless in continual lamentations. But because everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it shall be opened Luke 11:10; and as the Psalmist says, the Lord has heard the desire of the poor Psalm 9:38, at the middle of the night, while all other people were resting and all things were quiet, he alone—his own grief and poverty keeping him awake—lay vigilant. Marvelous to tell: it happened that his oxen suddenly came to his door—by divine command, both snatched from the robbers and recalled to their master's house through trackless places amid the darkness and wanderings of the night—and butting the doors of the hut in which he stayed with their horns, they signaled that they had already arrived. But he, trembling greatly, believing not that his own oxen but that thieves had again come, delayed for a long time to open the doors, until the same oxen, as if understanding the reason for their master's delay, demonstrated by their lowing also that it was they who were knocking at the household doors. Having received back his oxen, the rustic, acting not in a rustic but in a learned and faithful manner, hastened at first light to repay due thanks to his restorer. Taking his oxen with him, he came to the church of St. Felix, recounting and displaying to all who traveled that way and who arrived there the benefits he had received from the Saint, in a joyful voice. And is also freed from eye pain. And because he had greatly wept, either in seeking his oxen or in receiving them back for joy, he had also injured the sight of his eyes not a little; and seeking a remedy for this harm from the blessed Felix, he received it. And so he returned home, gladdened by the double gift of heavenly grace.

[18] A house obstructing the basilica of St. Felix is consumed by fire. When a more magnificent church was being built in honor of the same blessed Confessor, there were near the church two rustic buildings, inconvenient in their location and ugly in appearance, which considerably marred by their shabbiness all the beauty of the church. The venerable and God-beloved Bishop Paulinus, wanting these buildings removed and the places where they stood cleaned, asked their owners to show this reverence to the blessed Felix: that, for the purpose of illuminating and adorning the site of his church, they would allow their private buildings to be taken away. But those men, scorning his prayers with rustic obstinacy, said they would rather lose their lives than give up their possessions. When the Bishop was weary of conquering the rustics by argument, they were conquered by the power of the divine hand. For one night, while all were sleeping, a sudden fire arising from one of those huts began gradually to reach the neighboring buildings, so that growing greater and greater by its own increase, it seemed about to consume all dwellings both near and far. Then roused by such great crashes and balls of fire, the citizens came running, either to extinguish the fire if they could, all pouring water, or to carry away from their individual houses whatever they could snatch from the fire. When they saw they could accomplish nothing, they began to seek divine help where human help failed. St. Paulinus extinguishes the fire with the holy cross. They therefore rushed, led by the Bishop, to the church of St. Felix and bent their knees, imploring the aid of heavenly protection; and they turned from there to the church of the blessed (b) Apostles, which was adjacent to the church of the blessed Felix, from there begging through the intercession of the Apostles the gifts of heavenly aid. When prayer had been offered, the Bishop returned home and, having taken a not-large (c) splinter from the wood of the Lord's cross, (d) cast it into the midst of the raging fire; and immediately those immense volumes of flame, which so great a band of men could not extinguish by pouring water, he himself extinguished by adding wood. For such was the power of the holy cross that nature abandoned itself: the fire, which is accustomed to devour all wood, was itself, as it were, burned up and consumed by the wood of the Lord's Passion. When the great tempest was quenched and, as morning returned, the citizens came to survey the dreadful work of the night, expecting that they had suffered no small losses from such fires, nothing at all was found burned except what was meant to be burned. For of those two houses of which we spoke above, which men also had planned to demolish and remove, they saw one consumed by flames. At this, the rustic who had defended his buildings against the beauty of the sacred edifice with foolish obstinacy was greatly ashamed, seeing that he had unwillingly lost for no compensation what he had not been willing to surrender willingly in favor of the Saints. And immediately he himself began to demolish with his own hand what was left of his buildings from the fire, He builds and adorns the temple of St. Felix. so that the entire area around the church of the blessed Confessor might as quickly as possible be made distinguished with the fitting brightness and light proper to the Saints. Once all the unsightliness and filth of the rubble had been removed, the blessed Bishop Paulinus persevered in bringing the church he had begun to completion: the entire building he finished in three years, and brought it to its proper conclusion in paintings and every ornament. In it the most blessed life and passion of the blessed Felix is celebrated, memorable forever: he who on the fourteenth day of the month of January, having completed the course of his glorious contest, received the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.

Here ends the book on the life and confession of St. Felix, which I, Bede, a servant of Christ, translated from the metrical work of the blessed Bishop Paulinus into simple language.

a Paulinus commemorates this miracle in Birthday Poem 6.

b A church still exists at Nola, either the ancient one itself or rather, as Ambrosius thinks (book 2, chapter 12), one raised from its ruins; but it is no longer called the church of the Apostles, but of the Apostle alone.

c So Paulinus: "The small chip conquered the flame" (Latin: "vicit breuis astula flammam"). This word "astula" is used elsewhere frequently by Paulinus. Isidore, Origines book 17, chapter 6, says it is derived from "tollendo" (taking away), as if "abstula." Other authors call it "assula." Side Note: Astula, or Assula.

d But Paulinus: "I brought forth the wood taken from a fragment of the eternal cross, / And holding it in my hand, I thrust it forth against the hostile flames, / As holding a shield before my breast to cover me / And to repel the enemy, driving him back with the boss I interposed." He therefore did not cast it into the flame, but held it in his hand and opposed it to the fire.

ANOTHER LIFE

BY THE PRIEST MARCELLUS.

From an ancient manuscript of the Church of St. Omer.

Felix, Priest of Nola in Italy (S.) BHL Number: 2874

By Marcellus, from manuscripts.

PROLOGUE.

[1] To the holy lord and most flourishing in Christ, (a) Bishop Leo, the Priest Marcellus. This Life written at the urging of Bishop Leo of Nola. The zeal of your solicitude urges me to explain in prose the praiseworthy life of the holy Priest and Confessor Felix, which was lucidly composed in heroic verse by the most blessed Paulinus, your predecessor or co-Bishop of your Church. But since the dimness of my mind lacks confidence in the face of so great a light of that work, and the barren poverty of my style cannot embrace the richness of the material, I desire to be aided by the prayers of your Holiness, so that the sluggish steps of my understanding may, with Christ as guide, overcome the difficult movements of words—he who dried a moist path for the people crossing through the obedient waves, who softened the hard rocks of mountains with a spring of flowing waters, who in the tender mouths of children loosened the entangled words of babbling infancy. I beseech him to deign to arouse, by the immense light of his goodness, the slumbering night of my heart in the wakefulness of his light, so that we may traverse the way of so great a work in no unworthy language.

a Baronius, volume 7, at the year 535, no. 54, and at the year 536, no. 73, mentions Leo, Bishop of Nola, sent by Pope Agapitus as a legate to Constantinople along with others. Whether this is the same person, we do not know.

CHAPTER I.

The homeland, parents, and labors of St. Felix for the faith.

[2] It pertains to the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ and to the remedy of great salvation to narrate the merits and virtues of the Saints, so that a greater ardor of desire may kindle Christian minds to love the Catholic religion, and a holier hearing may nourish the credulous ears of the faithful concerning the miracles of the blessed Felix. He brought from the East (a) to us the origin of his birth, so that, coming in his father Hermias, he might be born in our regions. The homeland, father, and brother of St. Felix. For it was not fitting that so great an ornament of faith should be born in any other homeland than that which produced the most sacred Patriarchs and the holy-speaking Prophets; (b) * and whence the very lights of the Apostles shone forth throughout the whole world with the light of Evangelical preaching, thence the blessed Felix, long since devoted to God, brought to us the blessings of his piety in his Syrian father, who, out of love for his father's city, loved Nola with every affection. And although he had two sons, Felix and Hermias, dying he left his estate (c) to one alone, the blessed Felix.

[3] But the most just Confessor, despising earthly goods, was already with a fit mind seizing upon the rich treasures of heaven. He divides the inheritance with his brother. In the love of Christ, eager, he divided his father's wealth with his brother, so that he might receive the goods of the Lord alone. An alternating condition of life held the brothers: the world obtained Hermias, Christ obtained Felix. The brother follows military service. The former chose to follow fleeting things, the latter possessed what is firm in merits. The former loved the present, the latter the future. The former is known as heir of his own father, the latter as co-heir of Christ. The former, serving an earthly king, bore a sterile fruit of labor, enduring a hard life under a burden; the latter, loving Christ with his whole mind, served under the arms of faith. He so ordered the beginnings of his boyhood in spiritual disciplines that he both rendered service to God and was proven free by his merits. He devotes himself to letters and piety. In the earliest years of his age he received the office of Reader, then he obtained the rank of Exorcist with higher dignity, so that he might grow gradually in ordination, who had already grown in faith. He becomes a Priest. But while, established in that rank, he displayed very many signs of virtue in Christ, he arrived at the worthy priesthood of the sacerdotal order through the guidance of his service.

[4] And so that a double crown of grace might encircle his most sacred head, a persecution of the Christian law brought this about. Armed with the fury of impiety, it disturbed the rights of piety and judged the faithful as faithless, the saints as sacrilegious; and in order to exercise the hatred of insane fury against the just, it destroyed the innocent with a guilty fate. At about the same time, Bishop Maximus governed the city of Nola with holy laws, who strengthened the people of his Church now with the piety of his mind, now with the solace of his speech; and soothing the venerable old age of his years with the staff of holy Felix, When the Bishop flees, Felix tends the Church. having embraced him with a fatherly mind as his heir, departing in the silent disposition of his counsel, he left him behind and withdrew to the mountain deserts—all this without the blessed Felix's knowledge. The venerable Confessor, seeking him He is seized. out of compassion for the desolate flock, fulfilled the duty of a good Pastor around the precincts of the Church as the old man fled. While he was occupied in these most pious works, a mob of pagans, stirred up by the devil, seized him, and fastening iron chains upon both his holy neck and his hands, they shut up the free light of faith in the injurious night of prison. He is stretched upon fragments of potsherds. And lest cruel invention should fail those devising harm, in that same place of custody they strewed the sharpest fragments of potsherds beneath him, so that the punishing bed would prevent the sleep sought amid torments. But the unheard-of cruelty lost its purpose. He is refreshed by heavenly light. For the Lord granted him both the benefit of light and of rest, because he was suffering compassion in the very one whom he had allowed to undergo punishment for the prize of the crown. He was bound indeed in his limbs, but free in spirit he roamed abroad. He earned as many palms of patience as his flesh, subjected beneath him, endured punishments.

a Hence it is clear that Marcellus himself was a Nolan, as is also evident from what he soon writes: "born in our regions."

b Something is missing.

c The author errs here. For Paulinus, speaking of Felix: "Left in much gold, / He flourished, rich in wealth, although not the sole heir. / With his brother, who bore the name of his own father, / Felix obtained the earthly goods." And shortly after: "The one is heir only of his own father, the other co-heir of Christ."

CHAPTER II.

The Recovery of the Nearly Dead Bishop Maximus.

[5] Meanwhile the blessed Maximus, in the mountain solitude to which he had come fleeing the hands of the executioners, [In order to help Maximus, nearly exhausted, Felix is led out of prison by an Angel.] was leading a sick life amid hardships—not bound by the hard iron of chains, but tormented solely by longing for the flock he had left behind. Now he endured the hideous fast of hunger, now the chill of old age and cold. Continuing day and night in sleepless prayer, prostrate in prayer amid the mountain crags, he begged with tearful supplication for consolation in his tribulation. The stronger pain of heart had excluded the pain of his limbs. But although firm constancy in Christ strengthened the mind of the most faithful old man, nevertheless the frail weakness of the flesh, worn out by cold and hunger, was abandoning the substance of his spirit as the framework gave way. Moved by this heavenly compassion, the Father did not allow the life of his Bishop to pass away in the dark harshness of the mountains, although he could have fed him, like Elijah, by the service of birds—he who also nourished the Prophet among the ministering mouths of lions with spiritual food. Therefore God, looking with serene countenance upon the Priest and Confessor, did not allow the old man to waste away in solitude, but freed the blessed Felix from the custody of prison so that he might visit him with a worthy companion of consolation, so that through him he might recall to the stunned flock a Pastor proven in faith, and placing the sacred burden of the holy one upon his own shoulders, bring him back to the precincts of his own Church. And so, in the nearly silent night, an Angel came; and among the afflicted whom the tight chains of custody held fast, he looked upon Felix alone, whom the cause of piety had made a prisoner. Then, as the Angel spoke to him, the pain of sorrow departed from him, and the wilting darkness of the prison shone with sudden light, together with its guards. Troubled by so great a messenger, yet he captured with faithful ear the words of Angelic power. But at first, believing that all this was happening in dreams, he replied that he could not follow, being held back by chains, both by the prison bar and by the terrors of the guard. When the divine voice rebuked his delay, it dissolved the chains, and while the guard slept, the Angelic power kept watch for the aid of the blessed Felix. By its doing, free opportunity was given to the fugitive, nor could he be held by the prison bar, for Christ stood as a door for him. The way was made through those very guards through whom the confined are usually deprived of freedom. For Christ himself made free from the iron of chains the footsteps of his servant Felix—Christ who freed his Apostle Peter from prison, to snatch a bloody prey from Herod.

[6] When the Angel departed, the blessed Confessor of Christ, keeping his commands, arrived at the mountain desert and the dwelling-place of the exhausted old man—though by an unknown path, yet with the Lord leading him. He finds the Bishop half-dead. He found him pressing out his soul with the last sighs of life, the breath failing. When the blessed Felix recognized the limbs of his dear parent, kissing the familiar face, lying upon the old man's breast, he recalled warmth to his frozen limbs and the ardor of faith by his pious embrace. But there was neither sensation in the chilled body, nor any perceptible pulse. Lying like a dead man, with a faint breath he retained on the extreme threshold of life a trace of hidden salvation. When Felix, the servant of God, saw his mouth failing from hunger, he groaned in sorrow, for he had neither means of warming the one who was cold, He revives him with a divinely provided grape. nor any resource in the desert for refreshing the old man. While he was deliberating, at that very hour Christ set food before him, because he allowed a bunch of grapes to hang from thorny bushes above the head of the just man in the middle of winter. The blessed Felix gathered this with swift obedience, pressed its juice upon the frozen mouth of the old man, and poured the sap of life from the dripping must upon his dying lips. Refreshed suddenly by this pleasant and heavenly remedy, the Bishop opened his eyes, closed almost in death, at the door of salvation. Soon the voice, returning to familiar tones, gave forth an animated sound, and rejoicing in mutual embrace, the old man rebuked the blessed Felix for his tardiness with these words: "Tell me, Felix, precious pledge of grace and faithful remedy in Christ, what delay detained you as you lingered? The Lord announced long ago that you would come to me. For though I withdrew for a time in my frail body, yet I endured with a firm heart, as also the place to which I withdrew teaches, and the conquered frailty of my limbs, in which you see me drawing the last light of life. Therefore complete the work entrusted to you by God: place me upon the shoulders of your piety and carry me, dear son, transported to the common dwelling of the fold." He carries him home on his shoulders. Rejoicing in so great a gift, the blessed Felix, placing the dear burden on his devoted neck, was made so light that he seemed to be carried rather than to carry; for piety had made his feet swift to hasten. He soon brought the Bishop to his own cell, which a single old woman attended and thereby commended the merit of so great a Priest. As the sole attendant, she had sufficed for the servant of Christ in place of the whole crowd of household servants and the display of wealth. The blessed Felix, rousing her by knocking at the doors, commended the dear pledge of his burden to her by the name of Christ, that she might present so great a gem of the faith safe and unharmed at the Lord's judgment.

CHAPTER III.

The Remaining Deeds of St. Felix. His Death.

[7] After he had brought back the blessed Bishop, Felix himself, the terror of the pagans having somewhat subsided, came forth freely from his hidden retreats; and strengthening the fearful flock after the recent persecution with a saving discourse, he forewarned them to resist the temptations of the world with the arms of faith: to mock the swords of the executioners with a resolute heart and ready faith, and to repel intolerable tortures with the patience of virtue. While the Confessor was impressing these things upon those who thirsted for Christ, a mob of the impious, gathered against St. Felix, raged furiously—envious of the piety of the Saints, they rushed with swords and clubs to the house of the blessed Felix. But he, standing in the middle of the city, was pouring the word of charity into Christian minds, urging the rewards of the future life. A foolish crowd of malcontents, searching for him with drawn swords, although they saw him present, could not see him, He is not recognized by the persecutors. since their treachery blinded them both in eyes and in mind. They were so unable to recognize their fellow citizen that, speaking with him, they asked him about the departure of Felix himself. When he denied it, they passed on. And rushing through the spaces of the streets, they inquired about the blessed Felix from each person. When all denied knowledge, a certain man, ignorant of the heavenly cause, rebuked them and pointed out that the man with whom they had been speaking, and whom they could neither recognize nor seize, was Felix himself.

[8] But they, returning with a great crowd, were pursuing the lost prey of their fury by following his tracks. But the blessed Felix, seeking to avoid the approaching blows, arrived by Christ's favor at the hiding-place of a deserted wall. In this place the squalid appearance of the site was such that it seemed fit for no purpose before except now to shelter a servant of God. In it the blessed Confessor hid himself with the enemies pressing upon him. As he entered, Hidden by a spider's web. a spider so wove across the entrance that it renewed the deteriorated condition of the crumbling ruin. When hostile fury approached that place, it denied that any human being had entered there, since the trembling folds of the spider had not been torn, even though at times they could not withstand the impact of a single fly. O wisdom of God, ever full of countless aids, by which you condemn from the weak the mighty things of the world! For without you the lofty towers of walls avail nothing, nor built fortifications. Behold, a light spider covered your Saint and wove a strong wall from a fragile web.

[9] Then the blessed Felix, leaving that hiding-place, using the silence of the quiet night, came to the secret retreat of a certain impluvium. And while he lay hidden there, he was daily fed, at God's command, by an unknowing (a) widow, Fed by an unknowing widow. who believed she was storing the prepared food at home, unaware of the hidden counsels of divinity. But the Lord, granting his favor to every just person, willed both that Felix be fed and that the woman's service not be lost. While he was sustained by her sufficient provisions for a long time, the well from which she had ministered drink to the holy man had nearly dried up in the heat of the summer season. And while a parching thirst pressed upon the blessed Felix, the merciful God directed a cloud gathered in a moist mass through the narrow space of the impluvium, He is given drink from heaven. pouring sweet dew upon the mouth of the thirsty man. Satiated by this spiritual draught, he redoubled his ardor of faith.

[10] But after peace was restored and the wicked weapons of persecution ceased, the holy Confessor, admonished by God, left his hiding-place without hesitation. The crowd of the faithful, seeing him after a long space of time, gave thanks to the Lord for their restored Pastor, that he had saved him, having banished the despair of death. And at about that time the blessed Bishop Maximus, blessing St. Felix in compensation for his service in carrying him on his shoulders, departed this world to the Lord. When he was dead, the entire Church sought Felix as their Pastor. But he, judging himself unworthy, offered the dignity of the priesthood to the blessed elder Quintus, He refuses the Episcopate. because Quintus had preceded him in the rank of ordination by about seven days. He lived under that Bishop as a Priest, praiseworthy in his merits and hidden virtue. The Bishop governed the people by his office alone; Felix governed them by his eloquence.

[11] Recognize also another palm of the pious Confessor. He so despised the greed of the world with the wealth of his virtue that he did not wish to recover the possessions proscribed by the pagans, which were offered to him in time of peace. Nor, He does not reclaim his confiscated estates after the persecution. when the holy (b) Arcula offered him property, did he care to accept it; and with a calm heart, already rich in Christ, he laughed at the gifts of the one who offered, and considering the rewards of the eternal promise, he refused the impoverished riches at the price of faith. He possessed nothing other than three acres of a garden, and these rented from others, which he cultivated with his own hand, sharing the produce gained by his labor with the poor. Nor did he ever have two tunics. And whenever by the Lord's gift he obtained a second one, he immediately clothed the limbs of a needy person with it. Sometimes he exchanged his own garment with a pauper; and he rejoiced to go about in the dress of a beggar, he who, clothed in the white robe of faith, A lover of poverty. retained hidden treasures in the palace of his heart—needy in the world's eyes, rich in his own. For what more precious thing could he do than imitate Christ, who after the kingdoms of heaven took on the form of a servant, so that God, by humbling himself, might raise the condition of our fallen guilt into the light of a new freedom?

[12] Therefore the blessed Felix, admirable in such virtue, departed from this light to the Lord, so that he might appear praiseworthy both as eminent in life and in his precious death. For Christ conferred such miracles upon his ashes that he made even the demons confess and permitted the power of salvation. For the many other innumerable miracles which God deigned to perform, both during his life and after his death, Illustrious with miracles after death. to his glorious memory, no tongue can narrate. Of these we, for the glory of God and his merits, shall narrate a few. After, then, many long and innumerable contests, the blessed Felix departed to the Lord, and was buried on the nineteenth of the Kalends of February, in the reign of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom is honor, glory, and dominion for ever and ever, Amen.

a Paulinus simply calls her "a woman holy and devoted to God."

b Sportula is the term St. Cyprian uses in letter 34: "so that they also may be honored with the sportulae together with the Priests, and may share in equal portions the monthly distributions." The same Cyprian, letter 66, calls those who received the support of their livelihood from the Church sportulantes. Baronius treats of these matters in volume 1, at the year 57, no. 78.

MIRACLES OF ST. FELIX FROM THE WRITINGS OF ST. PAULINUS.

Felix, Priest of Nola in Italy (S.)

From St. Paulinus.

[1] Since we lack the miracles which Marcellus testifies he wrote, we shall give some from St. Paulinus, omitted by Gregory of Tours and Bede. Paulinus was indeed accustomed to attribute to the patronage of St. Felix whatever good fortune befell himself and his friends from heaven—and not without reason, since the Saints secure the favor of the Deity, from whom every good must necessarily be given, for mortals, especially those devoted to them. Therefore in letter 28 to St. Victricius, Bishop of Rouen, A certain man healed by the merits of St. Felix. he writes that Ursus, suffering from a grave illness and the present danger of death, was freed through the merits of St. Felix. In poem 13, addressed to Cytherius, he writes that Martinianus, while being carried by mule from Capua to Nola, Another aided in a fall. was thrown headlong upon rocks and thornbushes in the middle of the journey when the animal was frightened, yet suffered no harm, St. Felix lifting him up with his hand.

[2] In Birthday Poem 8 he narrates that a river, flowing from the neighboring mountains, whenever it happened to swell from sudden rains, was accustomed to rush so violently into the church of St. Felix as to shake the dwellings near it; The violence of a river diverted. but by the power of the Saint himself its force was diverted elsewhere, so that it rolled far from the basilica in an unaccustomed channel. We cannot guess which river this was, since none now flows past Nola—unless perhaps it was a torrent swollen with rainwater. Every day, he writes in the same passage, crowds flocked to Nola from everywhere: both healthy people to fulfill their vows, and the infirm to seek healing. He also writes that many, Shipwrecked persons saved. brought from foreign shores, prostrated themselves before his altar to give thanks and to tell how, when their ship was broken by storms, they were saved by God's mercy and drawn from the deep by the hand of Felix himself.

[3] In letter 36 (to Macarius, who was exercising the vicariate prefecture of Rome, as Rosweyde conjectures—that very Macarius whose feast we recorded on January 2), he recounts at length an illustrious miracle of this kind. Here, with a few passages which Paulinus in his eloquent piety heaps up trimmed away, we thought it good to present it: "It is honorable to proclaim the works of the Lord," he says; "which was my reason for this letter: because the affair of this householder Secundinianus, whom I am commending to your fellowship, cannot, as you will approve, be told without the glory and praise of the Lord. For as he said in the Gospel, 'My Father works until now, An old man marvelously saved on a ship. and I work' John 5:17, so he does even now; nor does the good Lord cease to rouse and truly stimulate our faith by the evident proofs of his truth. And so, appearing to us in various proofs (as it is written), Acts 1:3 the Savior God works for us on land and sea; and what he does in individuals, he provides for the faith and salvation of many. See then how admirable and praiseworthy is the work which the Lord Jesus performed with his holy Angels in one old man. For this is the cause of the aforesaid friend and brother, who is a man faithful in Christ.

[4] "In the preceding winter, compelled in Sardinia (along with the other ship-owners) to take on grain to be shipped to the imperial granaries, not waiting for the customary time (a) of the sailing season, before the summer calm he launched his laden ship under public compulsion. A fleet dispersed by a storm. Immediately (as he told me), in the nearby strait a storm arose, drove back from their intended courses the fleet of many ships rashly loosed from port, and wrecked them on the shore. They tried to anchor his ship at a certain place on that island called Ad Pulvinos ('At the Cushions'), to prevent it from being similarly dashed; but as the violence of the same storm prevailed, the cables breaking, the terrified sailors let down the ship's boat, either to come to the aid of the ship by retrieving and more deeply fixing the anchors, or to save themselves if they could from the peril of the ship. But the storm is said to have immediately dashed them with their fragile little refuge against the rocks and overwhelmed them with the engulfing waves. The one old man of all the crew, assigned to bailing, they left behind, either forgetting him in their fear, or contemptuous of his worthless life."

[5] "Meanwhile the ship, deprived of sailors and anchors, was carried out to sea. The old man, who had not known he was left behind, when he felt the tossing and rolling, emerged from the hold of the ship; he saw everything empty, sea on every side and sky on every side. When solitude compounded both his fear and danger, the wretched man spent six days and nights fasting. The old man, in peril on the ship, is refreshed by Christ. For tears were his bread day and night. Then, when he already desired death more than life, and longed for the end of his sufferings through the departure of his soul, the merciful and compassionate Lord deigned to come near and strengthen him with the food of his word. He himself, still weeping, relates the happiness of his peril, nor can it be heard without tears of heart and joy of spirit: how he was addressed when Christ drew near, how he was strengthened when Christ encouraged him, how he was commanded to cut down the mast—for cutting it down at that time was a remedy for the ship. But what many strong men can hardly do without danger to themselves and the ship, he, alone and feeble, did not dare to attempt; yet, emboldened by the word of God, he dared. With only two strokes, and those light—as though the mast were merely touched rather than struck by an aged hand—it leapt so far from the wound that it fell safely far outside the ship into the waves. Commanded by Christ to perform various tasks to save the ship. Then, with the various duties that the tossing sea and the rigging of a ship demand—when either the foresail needed to be rigged, or the bilge needed to be bailed—he was called by the Lord by the name of Victor and told merely to extend his hand in the appearance of working, for whatever task was commanded. For among the many and varied acts of divine wonders concerning this old man, this gift of God also must not be passed over: that he even received a name by which he is now known both in his rebirth and is written by men and Angels. For by his birth-name he was called Valgius; now he is called Victor by the Lord, and is truly a victor in the Lord, who gave him a name suited to his works: because on the sea he triumphed over storms and shipwreck through the help of Christ, and recently on land he triumphed over sins and the devil through the grace of the same—so that, being entirely renewed in Christ, he might remain neither in the old name nor in the old man.

[6] "Wondrous faith and ineffable mercy of the Lord Savior, who, if the old man, sluggish with sleep, rose too slowly to perform his tasks, first gently stroking him beforehand with soft hands so that he would not be startled awake, roused him by gently tugging his ear. He is helped by Angels. When the old man, pressing lightly, at the very first effort saw the work accomplished by Angelic hands—he had scarcely touched the rope as if to haul it, when he saw the sail already unfurled on its poles; the yard stood, making the ship's sails. Water taken in through the ship's seams had tried to sink it; and after one or two scoops of the small bailer, with the moisture drained and the ship dried, he had nothing left to do—amazed that his labor was anticipated without labor and his task forestalled by an unseen hand. If indeed 'unseen' can be said of a hand that rendered such transparent aid. But the workers themselves were not hidden from the most innocent old man's simple eyes; for he often saw armed men (evidently from the army of heaven) keeping watch over the ship and performing all the duties of a naval service. Nor indeed did any sailors befit that ship other than Angels, whose helmsman was the Governor of the world. For the Lord himself, now gleaming with his own countenance as described in the Apocalypse, his hair radiant, now venerable in the face of his Confessor and friend, our common patron, my Lord Felix, sat in the stern (as is said in naval usage) at the tillers, or rather in place of the tillers—By Christ also and St. Felix. which along with the anchors and sailors the ship had lost on that shipwrecked shore—unhappy in a happy way, so that in place of all the lost men and arms, she might have either the Lord's Martyr or the Lord of the Martyr. Revelation 1:14. The old man relates with tears of joy that he was accustomed to lie at the feet now of the Lord, now of the Martyr who was steering for him; He reclines his head in their lap. and even more familiarly, with the Lord himself inviting him, to have had in their laps and sacred bosoms the blessed pillow of his reclining head, fragrant with divine breath. Should we now doubt that the bosom of the Patriarchs lies open to the faithful servants of Christ, when his immense goodness warmed even this man, then still a catechumen, in his own or his Saint's embrace?"

[7] And somewhat later: "Indeed not only the ship but the man himself, for whose sake he was protecting the ship, did the Lord guide, dispensing the distinct offices of flesh and spirit in him: commanding him to rest securely by night and to be vigilantly alert by day; promising that he would keep watch for the sleeper and cooperate with the watcher. He is sometimes told to rest. You will surely recognize in these words the Lord's way, by which he always so nourishes our hope as not to relax our vigilance, so consults our weak flesh that the spirit does not cease to be prompt. And so he allowed the weary old man to sleep in such a way that even to an old and fatigued man he did not grant security without the business of keeping watch, lest he dissolve into idle sleep and begin to sleep not only in body but also in mind.

[8] And then: "Twenty-three days the man, excluded not only from land but from all people, the sport of every wind, an exile from every shore, a guest of various seas, and deprived of the human race, He is tossed for twenty-three days. amid the waves and beasts of the sea in the wandering hospitality of an errant ship, wasted by fasting, old age, and fear—tell me, did he endure by his own nature? For whom then is it obscure that God was in him? That God, I say, who alone works wonders; who calls things that are not, as though they were; by whose power the ship navigated secretly across the whole sea, and moving itself with invisible helmsman as though empty and with so great a mass of weight, with man and grain shut up within its holds, like that ark of the flood, pregnant with the seeds of the world, it floated—Genesis 17. nor, tossed on more than one sea, did it change its course with the storms. (b) First driven toward the City, it sighted the Pharos of the Roman port. Then it coasted along Campania for long stretches; and, the storms shifting, it flew across to the shores of Africa; and snatched back from there, it raced past Sicily—around which, agitated by the (c) frequent islands and the whirlpools that are said to be violent in the narrow straits, even under a helmsman the courses are perilous for ships amid the twists and obstacles of the islands—the idle old man passed so directly and without harm in his ship, as though the divine ship, wise with a divinely sent spirit, on its own would avoid what must be avoided, seek what must be sought, and be skillfully and expertly steered through the necessary turns, on the twenty-third day at last, at the Lord's mercy, ready to put an end to its wanderings and dangers on the shores of Lucania.

[9] "As the ship approached these shores, the eternal Lord, so that his untiring goodness might work his wonders to the very end of the voyage he had undertaken, by the silent impulse of his inspiration, sent fishermen, driven from the shore in two small boats, to meet it. He puts in at Lucania. These, sighting the ship from afar, were at first terrified and fled: for they appeared to them full of armed men, resembling a (d) Liburnian warship, as they themselves later reported. But eventually, recalled by the great and often-repeated cries of our old man, and having reasoned among themselves, with the Lord so directing, they understood that they had nothing to fear from a ship to which they were being summoned. They drew near the vessel, and could scarcely believe even their own eyes—trusting rather those who told them—that it was empty of soldiers, as the old man kept insisting, until they had finally boarded the ship. There the old man received them with a luncheon which the Lord had commanded him to prepare the day before, and with generous payment from the plentiful bread-stores of the lost sailors, he fed and rewarded them. Glad at this pay, with their small boats serving as attendants, they led the ship—as though a veteran, distinguished from a hard war and crowned from the contest, indeed as a survivor of shipwreck, victrix over winds and waves—to its port, (e) towing it with a boat going ahead."

[10] Shortly after: "Tell me, what harm did his role as a bilge-pumper, the lowest among sailors, do to this old man, or his poor clothing and (f) Sardinian sheepskin? For he was clothed in stitched skins, when the Lord of hosts, the King of glory, both blessed him with his speech, and illuminated him with his countenance, and lulled him to sleep in his lap—surely also delighting in the very fact that he imitated the sheepskin of Elijah and the dress of the forerunner John by his hairy garment? At last: 'You may perhaps ask by what merits this old sailor, always dwelling in the darkness of ignorance, and as alien from the works of justice as from the knowledge of truth, may seem to have obtained what is scarcely granted to very few workers, though they have borne the burden and heat of the whole day from the morning watch until night. He obtained this gratuitously from God, not yet baptized. The Apostle will surely answer you that the graces and gifts of God are without repentance Romans 11:29, and that by works no flesh shall be justified Romans 3:20. It is the time of grace, and faith is counted for righteousness, because sons of Abraham are daily raised up from stones. For now is the acceptable time, now is the day of salvation though not yet baptized, he was otherwise innocent, in which we offer sacrifices of peace and praise, and the sacrifice to God is a contrite spirit; and in man is the temple of God, and in the believing heart are salvation-giving things, and in purified hearts is the holy of holies. Wherefore he who does not despise a contrite and humbled heart, himself received our old man as a pleasing sacrifice, in the fragrance of sweetness, a victim acceptable to him by natural goods. For he is said to have always been of so pure a soul through inborn simplicity that he did not know how to sin. Now in the extreme old age of his years, a child and an infant in malice, he bears the infancy not only of grace but also of mind. For recently (as I said above) he was reborn in Christ and dedicated to the Lord, through whom he escaped the evils of life, through whom he escaped the waters of death.'"

[11] Finally, the reason he wrote that lengthy letter: he asks Macarius the following: "Apply the zeal of your pious devotion, and with all the affection of your faith, stand by the patron of this Secundinianus, to whom Christ Almighty, for this man's salvation, has already restored the ship which he had despaired of recovering, as a gift. For you will be defending a gift of Christ. Do not allow the ship, which God restored to him from the shipwreck, to be snatched from Secundinianus through the malice of the devil by means of a wicked man, or, once snatched, to be denied to him. The agent of a Christian man, our brother Posthumianus, is said to have seized the ship where it ran aground on the shore of the Bruttians, where the Senator's estate borders the sea—more greedy than the sea itself and acting the pirate on land without even a skiff—and having captured it, stripped it bare. The ship afterward unjustly despoiled. For even now it lies empty on that same shore, testifying to the loss of its cargo, preserved in vain on the sea and lost on land. Complaints about this robbery have been frequently lodged with the provincial judge, but our Pharaoh has hardened his heart—perhaps so that wonders might be wrought in his case too. When summoned through the courts, he first resisted by force, then fled to Rome. Necessity has compelled my Secundinianus to journey to the City by the overland route with his sole remaining sailor. I have no doubt that our brother Posthumianus will be moved both by your intervention and by his own faith and justice. Therefore we should intervene with this moderation (which you would surely do even without my urging): that you defend and excuse the offender before the excellent Senator (that is, the Christian man) with equal effort, so that the robber himself may consider the profit of impunity sufficient, while we are content to recover from him the gifts of God."

a Commeatus often means permission to depart, or a provision of supplies; here it is used for the sailing season, the going and coming of the fleet. Commeatus. Thus Suetonius in Nero, chapter 20: "Captivated by the measured praises of the Alexandrians, who had flocked to Naples from a new sailing." Caesar, Gallic War, book 5: "He decided to transport the army back in two sailings."

b The Roman Port is frequently mentioned, also called simply Portus, The Roman Port. the Port of the City, the Port of Augustus. It was near the mouth of the Tiber, on its right bank, by which the Sacred Island, or Libanus of kindly Venus, is encircled. Not only was there a port, and a double one at that, outer and inner, but also a notable town. It is now inhabited by few buildings, but displays the ruins of illustrious edifices and temples. There was an ancient Episcopal See there. In the Port there was a Pharos, or tall tower from which fires were displayed at night, like that tower on the island of Pharos at Alexandria. The Pharos in it. Of this Roman Pharos, Juvenal, Satire 12: "At last it enters the moles set amid the enclosed waters, / And the Tyrrhenian Pharos." And Valerius Flaccus: "Not so does the Tyrrhenian and Ionian captain marvel, / Who, leaving your ports, O Tiber, and the Pharos / Bright on its serene height..." And St. Paulinus himself, poem 13, speaking of Martinianus: "That he might enter the Port of the Pharos." Suetonius writes that it was erected by the Emperor Claudius, book 4, chapter 20.

c He seems to mean the Aeolian or Vulcanian islands, to the north of Sicily, which are frequently mentioned, especially Lipara. Although the Aegades also lie not far from the promontory of Lilybaeum, toward Libya.

d A warship of the type used by the Liburni, an Illyrian people accustomed to piracy, Liburnian ships. and later also used by the Romans themselves in battle, because they excelled in remarkable speed.

e Large ships are said to be towed or hauled by a remulco when, bereft of tide and wind, they are pushed by a preceding boat driven by oars. Remulco.

f A type of Sardinian garment. Hence the mastrucarii (or mastrucati), petty bandits in Sardinia, mentioned by Cicero in his speech On the Consular Provinces.