Felix

ON ST. FELIX, POPE THE SECOND AND MARTYR,

AT ROME.

In the year 359.

CRITICAL COMMENTARY. ON HIS CULT, PONTIFICATE, AND DEATH.

Felix II, Pope and Martyr, at Rome (St.)

BY J. B. S.

§ I. Introduction to the questions.

Here there is no treatment of the Acts of St. Felix to be previously illustrated; for although many Legends of him are found, both published in the older Vincent of Beauvais, St. Antoninus, Peter de Natalibus, Mombritius,

and however many others you may count as wont to be cited everywhere, There is no treatment here of the Legends and also various manuscripts exist among us; we are compelled ingenuously to confess that there is absolutely none which we would dare undertake to defend or to explain sufficiently aptly. Others, shorter, I find transcribed from various codices, whose beginning is most well known—"There was in the times…"—which you could scarcely mark by any other name than interpolations of the text of Anastasius, difficult enough of itself; unless you prefer to say that the very text of Anastasius, from stuffing of this kind, scraped together perhaps by the Luciferians, proceeded for the greater part. Still less tolerable is a long and tedious, nay, insipid history, two copies of which I found among our papers under this title: "Here begin the Acts and passion of blessed Felix, martyr and Pontiff, published by Blessed Boniface, martyr and Pontiff. His birthday, the fourth day before the Kalends of August." To the inept and false title correspond almost all the rest, with verses intermixed here and there, so that it is enough to have named here a pious drama of this sort.

[2] Equally diffuse is the more recent other Life of the holy Pontiff, whether the ancient or the more recent; I shall say, or rather a studious apology, composed at Rome in the century just past, by I know not whom, to which a long series of writers, in appearance, is prefixed, from whom, namely, it ought to be reckoned compiled, and which is certainly divided into the following five chapters. 1. On the Election of Felix. 2. What Felix was before he obtained the Pontifical dignity. 3. On the things done in his pontificate. 4. On the death of Felix and those things which followed his death. 5. What is to be seen (he would say, may be seen) to agree more with the truth in the present controversy. I confess that the endeavor of that writer is in some measure to be praised; but one in which so many false and doubtful things are indiscriminately mixed with true, so many testimonies of very little moment alleged, that if you should subtract all the digressions, the whole dissertation could easily be contracted to a few little pages. Rightly, I suppose, would one conjecture that a more verbose commentary, not supported by sufficiently solid props, did not please at Rome, which I too have no mind here to ventilate; other authorities are to be adduced, whence the things which pertain to the cult, pontificate, and death of St. Felix may be established a little more solidly.

[3] To this, therefore, tends this our little preface, namely to unravel the questions other things must first be unraveled, which now for almost two centuries have exercised the wits of the learned in a wonderful manner, Baronius confessing that in the time of Gregory XIII he had conceived in his mind the opinion that St. Felix II, set forth here in the title, was not only not to be endowed with the title of Martyr, but not even to be honored with the appellation of Saint, and so was altogether to be erased from the sacred Calendars, although now for so many centuries he had held a place in the Martyrologies. Most well known is the history to be seen in his Annals at the year 357, to be recited by us below, in which he explains at length what compelled him, his opinion being wholly changed, to acknowledge Felix both as a Saint and as a Martyr, not doubting certainly that a place among the Roman Pontiffs is due to him, however he be not reckoned by some of the Catalogues of the holy Fathers, Optatus, Jerome, and Augustine: which certainly is not peculiar to this our Felix, as Henschen long ago showed. You have in few words the chief heads of a most intricate controversy, which we shall attempt to distribute in that order, that to each of its own paragraphs its own matter may be proposed, and be weighed with that accuracy which it can.

[4] And first indeed we designate and approach the chief source whence the arguments most odious against St. Felix are drawn, and the notorious preface to be torn down into which, besides his usual modesty, Tillemont did not neglect to pour venom—Tillemont to be dealt with by us below—nowhere dissembling those things which the other most well-known writers of those times hurled against this holy Pontiff, perhaps a little too sharply and from the relations of his adversaries here and there. Here we shall especially attempt to turn aside and break those darts which were wont to be drawn from the most notorious book of prayers of the Luciferian presbyters Marcellinus and Faustinus, let us say rather from the supposititious and wrongly sewn-on virulent preface, which it is altogether to be wondered at was so easily admitted by those who undertook to defend the cause of St. Felix, whose fame is there so basely torn. I have unrolled the book often, and weighed both it and the preface most attentively, not without grave disgust, that most bold schismatics should, even before the Augusti themselves, most freely inveigh against the fame of bishops and others, and rashly forge those things which it is wonderful that those Caesars, Valentinian, Theodosius, and Arcadius, could tolerate, if their rescript, appended at the end of prayers of this kind, be genuine.

[5] most ineptly added But let us dismiss for a while that petition or prayers, in which, with their names expressly and in the nominative, as we say, the two orators address the emperors already mentioned—not at Rome but at Constantinople, not in the time of Felix or Liberius or Damasus, but while these reigned together, which certainly does not seem could have happened except about the year 390, when those illustrious patrons of the Luciferians could by no means complain of those three Pontiffs; who therefore, throughout all that book of prayers, do not salute even from afar any of those Pontiffs, so that I altogether do not understand who prefixed to their little work the infamous head, which is shown to be distant from its matter by six hundred parasangs; that I may now be silent that it seems ridiculous to add a preface to a petition to be offered to such great princes, even if it pertained to the matter most nearly; it was enough to pour forth prayers, wonderfully insolent and harsh, that they should not need to be adorned with a crude and harsh satire; besides that the absurd preface was not composed by them; which appears most manifestly from the end, when the impious narrator speaks of Marcellinus and Faustinus in the third person, as also Valentinian himself is introduced, whom they would only most ineptly address with such a preface; so that, whole centuries after them, to a human head, so to speak, a horse's neck—nay, a monstrous one—could be attached. Let us look into the matter.

[6] to an equally inept book of prayers To begin from the title, it seems most certain that it was not at all composed by Marcellinus and Faustinus. What, I pray, has a preface concerning the same schism of Ursinus to do with a book of prayers, to which not one word from the whole book can be wrested? What, then, is the beginning of the oration fetched from afar, "in the times of the emperor Constantius, son of Constantine"? No otherwise would one speak of a matter now past for many centuries. Who, then, would think that those two orators so prattled about deeds at which they themselves indeed were present? Who would not at once perceive that Damasus is here alone attacked, whom, whoever was the author of the satire, he at once pronounces corrupted by ambition; and then so monstrously tears to pieces, that he traduces not the schism of Ursinus, whom he asserts holy, venerable, without crime, and ordained Pontiff first, but Damasus, stained with impiety, conscious of crimes and their author, as one plundering, a devastator, and a homicide? Could these things, I pray, be forged by any other than a most impious sycophant, who under the name of those presbyters vomited forth all his gall against St. Damasus, afterward collected by a no less wicked enemy of the Catholic Church, and thrust into that adversaria, with which Onuphrio Panvinio nicely adorned his notes on Platina?

[7] of Marcellinus and Faustinus Let whoever will oppose it, I shall never bring myself to believe that those presbyters Marcellinus and Faustinus, however bold otherwise, prefixed to their book of prayers so shameless, so impudent, so mendacious a narration, much less that they dared to offer it to emperors so orthodox. Let me be allowed to say what I feel: that preface seems to me to be the offspring of some wicked heretical night-lurker, who through the side of those three Pontiffs strove to besmirch the face of the Roman Church, always splendid and immaculate, so that therefore it deserves no credit at all; no greater certainly in those things which it most manifestly lied concerning SS. Felix and Liberius than in those which it lied concerning St. Damasus; so that the oftener I read it, the less I understand what can safely be admitted from a pure, plain medley of calumnies. And yet from that most impure sink all those drew their turbid waters who so unmercifully, with so great, so to speak, a fury, opposed St. Felix: why then shall we so greatly fear to remove hence the fetid sewer—I shall say more openly, to exclude that whole pretended preface entirely from this controversy, and to attend only to those things which are drawn from much more certain foundations?

[8] These things being premised, as asserted, or at least postulated, which we wish removed far from here. the ordered series of our dissertation shall be that in the first part, or the following paragraph, we may recount those things which pertain to the constant cult of St. Felix in the Catholic Church from the Martyrologies and other ecclesiastical monuments, which are deservedly called the seats of our arguments, or commonplaces, and which are such that, if nevertheless the holy Pontiff Felix ought to be excluded from the sacred Calendars, the same danger threatens innumerable others, hitherto undoubtedly honored. In the second part, or the other paragraph, will be related those things which are wont to be objected against him from other ecclesiastical writers everywhere admitted, namely Rufinus, Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret; but especially from SS. Athanasius and Jerome, to whose solution the third part shall serve. Then at last there will be dispute concerning the exile and lapse of Liberius and the pontificate of our Felix; thence concerning the repentance of Liberius, and his abdication, and lastly concerning the martyrdom: from all which it would not be so difficult to emerge, if the Catalogues of the Pontiffs had reached us sincere and entire, which you will manifestly perceive from what is to be said to have been studiously corrupted, or at least interpolated. Let there be, therefore,

§ II. The cult of St. Felix, most received in the Church.

That the Saint of whose cult we here begin to treat labored under an adverse fame is confessed, especially from the sixteenth century, Under how adverse a fame St. Felix labored in which the heretics, most hostile enemies of the Catholic Church, scrutinized every hidden corner of history, that they, the apostate sons, might brand every spot, wrinkle, and reproach; Catholic writers too being led into deception: so that Onuphrio Panvinio, seduced by his Avellana codex, which he cites in his notes on Platina, and Ciaccone following him, and others, roundly and in express words dared to admit Felix not, I do not say as a Saint, but not even as a Pope: whom nevertheless Victorelli, Oldoini, and all the rest of the Catholic writers everywhere meet, if you except a few hypercritics often noted by us, to whom this is especially familiar, that into whatever ulcers of the Church, whether true or supposititious, they fix a dog's nail, wont most greedily to gnaw at whatever smells even a little, as will appear more evidently below. But how far the present controversy was carried, even in the city of Rome itself, in the said century, Baronius will teach you, at the year 357 cited above, no. 50, whose words we here premise to those which we attempt to say for establishing the cult of St. Felix.

[10] "Since the entrance of Felix was without controversy esteemed by our forefathers unjust, and concerning his end

the very writings, contradictory among themselves, waver; Baronius abundantly teaches, hence it happened that in the times of the pontificate of Gregory XIII, while frequent meetings were held by learned men, chosen for this purpose, concerning the emendation of the Roman Martyrology, and no light controversy had arisen concerning Felix—whether he ought to be expunged on account of his vicious entrance, or to be left without the title of martyrdom—and when there had been long and much altercation about these things, and I went over in feet to the opinion that the name of Felix ought to be expunged, and on that subject had written a volume not brief, which several learned men then existing in the City favored and supported; it happened plainly, as by a divine miracle, that when, in the deaconry of the holy Martyrs Cosmas and Damian, placed in the forum at the temple of peace, certain ill-advised men, but not without divine providence, secretly dug beneath one altar placed on the right, that they might find a treasure which they had heard, I know not who revealing it, to be laid up there; they lit upon a marble ark, on one side of which, separated from the other by a partition of a stone slab, were found laid up the relics of the holy martyrs Marcus and Marcellianus and Tranquillinus; but on the other side of the ark the body of St. Felix, of whom we treat, together with a stone tablet placed there within, engraved with these letters: 'The body of Felix, Pope and martyr, who condemned Constantius'; which happened on the day before that day on which the birthday of the same St. Felix is wont to be kept in the Church, the fourth day before the Kalends of August, in the year of the Lord 1582, when there was a great dispute concerning his merits, and now, on account of innumerable contrary assertions, the cause seemed almost to fall: when opportunely Felix himself was seen, to the admiration of all, to have appeared, come to life again, to plead his own cause by himself, when it was now greatly oppressed by the pen of the gainsayers."

[11] whom the Marlys ought to have consulted, Either I am much mistaken, or, if it had been ready for the most eminent Annalist to inspect all those documents which are here to be subjoined, he would not so easily have suffered himself to be led on by the adversaries, nor with so great zeal have sharpened his pen to expunge St. Felix from the Roman Martyrology: for although I confess it doubtful whether in the Hieronymian codices it is expressly enough related, and I long ago indicated in my observations on Usuard that the opposite rather seemed to me, whatever the codex of Menard in Florentini may favor him, no one indeed will snatch from us the authority of the Little Roman Martyrology, published by Rosweyde, in which are read most expressly these words: "At Rome, of Felix, Pope and martyr, under Constantius." Further, the antiquity and sincerity of that Martyrology, which the editor Rosweyde called the old Roman, have been abundantly vindicated in their places, which the mitred Martyrologist of Vienne closely followed, this one Usuard and Notker, those all the rest, of whom a cloud of witnesses of the same matter could be brought: and lest anyone coldly retort that all these Martyrologists are to be held as one, add Rabanus, and without doubt Wandelbert; to which also Bede or Florus can seem to be adduced. Add finally the Sacramentaries cited by Fronto, of whose antiquity the more immoderate critics will cavil in vain; to which will be added others to be subjoined below.

[12] As we have determined to weigh each thing here candidly and sincerely, so we do not previously and freely deny from which one could be taught concerning the ancient cult. that the elogia composed by some of our Martyrologists, to be cited here, especially by Ado, Rabanus, and Notker, are such that they can bring forth nothing more certain than are the very sources whence they are found to have drawn their own: so that it is greatly to be lamented that the Pontifical Catalogues, of which Henschen treats before volume 1 of April, have not reached us purer, corrupted, as it may be suspected, by the malice of some copyists, or dislocated and interpolated by their inexperience; which same is to be said of the so various codices and editions of Anastasius, both manuscript and printed, all of which, if they had been preserved in their first integrity, would without doubt free us from many difficulties, from which nevertheless we shall attempt to extricate St. Felix, that chief scourge being disarmed with which our critics were especially wont to batter the received opinion of the Church: I mean that pretended preface of Marcellinus and Faustinus, of which we shall have no account here at all, as we already noted above. Behold, then, the battle-line of our Martyrologists, by which you will acknowledge and perceive with us, if I am not mistaken, not without pleasure, that the cavils and vain litigations of the adversaries are of no weight against the most ancient opinion of the Church. Hear now the encomiast Ado:

[13] "At Rome on the Aurelian Way, of blessed Felix the pontiff, under Constantius, son of Constantine. You have Ado and the rest, The same Constantius Augustus, approving the council of the heretics and of Valens and Ursacius the Arians, because he too was an Arian, rebaptized by Eusebius of Nicomedia, cast St. Felix, bishop of the City, from the seat of his episcopate; and a great persecution was made in the clergy, so that many presbyters and clerics were slain and crowned with martyrdom. The holy and most blessed Pope Felix, being deposed, dwelt in his little estate, which is on the Portuensian Way: and afterward, the heretics acting, being thence taken up, he was led to the city and, beheaded, is crowned with martyrdom on the fourth day before the Ides of November. Thence his body, snatched away by presbyters and clerics, and buried in the basilica which he himself built on the Aurelian Way, on the fifteenth day before the Kalends of December, at the second milestone: whose birthday is celebrated on the fourth day before the Kalends of August. And he sat in the episcopate one year, three months, two days." More briefly but in almost the same sense Rabanus, who certainly did not see Ado: "At Rome on the same day, the passion of Felix, Pope and martyr. This Felix declared Constantius, son of Constantine, to be a heretic, when he was rebaptized a second time by Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia, and, according to the precepts of the same Constantius Augustus, is crowned with martyrdom and beheaded."

[14] There is no need to transcribe the announcement of Notker, you have the place of the martyrdom inasmuch as it is received from Ado: yet it is pleasant to hear Usuard, whose text is so aptly contracted that nothing occurs in it which cannot be conveniently defended. Thus it has: "At Rome on the Aurelian Way, the birthday of blessed Felix the Pope, who, by Constantius Augustus, for the defense of the Catholic faith, being cast from his seat and slain by the sword, most gloriously fell asleep." Here the right and just cause of the martyrdom is assigned, but the place is cut off, in which is the chief difficulty. This further Baronius explained in volume 9 of the Annals, page 867, among those things which in the earlier volumes he recounts as to be added or emended; where he also at once confirms the cult which persevered in the very place of the martyrdom. Thus he there speaks: "That this was done, it is said, in the city of Caere—that it must be thus restored, for Cora, we have learned from the ancient monuments of the church of Caere. Caere is a city in the Falisci, placed on the Aurelian Way, at the seventeenth milestone from the City; where the same Felix is venerated as patron, whose memory, being that of a Pontiff, having been made illustrious, an episcopal seat was once established there. One may find frequently among the other bishops in public assemblies, the bishop of Caere." Behold now the very text of the Roman Martyrology:

[15] "At Rome on the Aurelian Way, of St. Felix the Second, Pope and martyr, in the present-day Roman. who, by the Arian emperor Constantius, for the defense of the Catholic faith cast from his Seat, and secretly slain by the sword at Caere in Tuscany, gloriously fell asleep. His body, thence snatched by clerics, was buried on the same way: but afterward, being brought to the church of the holy Cosmas and Damian, was there found under the altar, under Gregory XIII the supreme Pontiff, together with the relics of the holy martyrs Marcus, Marcellianus, and Tranquillinus, and in the same place, on the day before the Kalends of August, was laid up again together with them." And these so distinct and express testimonies of the chief ancient Martyrologies so place the cult of St. Felix beyond all controversy, that they would declare any other whatsoever, however malevolent men clamor in vain, most truly a Saint, by the common consent of the lovers of the saints as well as of the writers of the saints. Add both Florus and Wandelbert, that they too treat of our St. Felix will not obscurely appear from the Calendars soon to be cited. Nor indeed is there need to summon hither Maurolycus, the Platina Bede, Felici, Galesinius, or others more recent, who would be adduced in vain for augmenting the number, not likewise for conciliating greater authority. Of the ancient Calendars or Sacramentaries the reasoning is not the same.

[16] There is added the Calendar of Fronto These things Fronto suggests to us in his Roman Calendar, reading at this day thus: "On the 29th (namely of July), the birthday of SS. Felix the Pope, Simplicius, Faustinus, and Beatrix, on the Portuensian Way," alleging besides the Sacramentaries in which also Felix is commemorated with the same companions, although not in all is the title of Pope added. But the difficulty which is here moved concerning the Portuensian Way is easily solved from this, that the body was deposited successively in several places, and at last, after several centuries, was found at SS. Cosmas and Damian at Rome. Further, that his memory was famous, Adrian and Nicholas, Roman Pontiffs, show, who in Anastasius are said to have honored the body of St. Felix, and to have restored his church and cemetery. Of these the first, whom it is established sat in the eighth century, in the most recent edition, page 262, among various bodies of Saints is read also to have honored the body of St. Felix, in a like manner as of a martyr or Pontiff. But of the church of the same Saint it is had, page 266: "And also the church of St. Felix, placed outside the Portuensian gate, he restored anew." Then of Nicholas, the ninth-century Pontiff, Anastasius equally expressly testifies, page 418: "He also, the benign Pastor, renewed the cemetery of blessed Felix the martyr, and the confession, on the Portuensian Way." The doubt of Fronto concerning the cult of St. Felix I you have solved in our Acts of the 30th of May: but Marcellinus and Faustinus, who caused him trouble, we have already compelled to withdraw from the arena.

[17] The Toulouse Sacramentary, Let there follow now another notable argument, from a Sacramentary, no longer Roman but of Toulouse, for the sanctity of St. Felix acknowledged from every age, where there, in the most ancient Litanies, among other holy Pontiffs Felix is thus invoked, so that it can by no means be doubted that he himself is designated, Fronto evidently demonstrating it: "St. Felix the Apostolic, pray" (understand, for us). It would indeed be a wonder if anyone should say that these things were studiously composed even in Gaul itself, that there too he might be feigned a Saint, whom our more severe critics presume to imagine to themselves as almost intruded into the sacred Calendars of the Church scarcely in the seventh or eighth century, and with an altogether blind zeal attempt to persuade others, holding all things topsy-turvy, provided that, carried crosswise by prejudices, they may unmercifully despoil St. Felix both of his dignity, and of his ecclesiastical cult, and of the laurel of martyrdom. But that he is called not more expressly a martyr, but only a confessor, that this in no way hinders his martyrdom, is sufficiently understood from elsewhere, as those skilled in these matters know, and likewise you will find explained in Fronto. In vain does Tillemont, with some of his fellow-mystagogues, with his usual modesty, carp at this testimony, as also at that which follows, drawn from the Acts of St. Eusebius the presbyter, not therefore to be rejected.

[18] Those Acts, or the Life of St. Eusebius, a Roman presbyter (who is venerated on the 14th of August), the illustrious man Étienne Baluze last published, in volume 2 of the Miscellanea, page 141, and also the Acts of St. Eusebius in which, after his manner, Tillemont did not neglect to scrutinize what he might carp at, doubting everywhere, and daring at last to draw them back to the later centuries themselves, against the open credit of Orosius, who testifies in express words that he, being a disciple of St. Eusebius himself, wrote these deeds: which nevertheless we freely confess did not escape the hands of the falsifiers. Here let it suffice that the most illustrious man Eusebius is presented, Catholic, a Saint, and adhering there to holy Felix against Liberius, who, before him and the emperor—I should rather say by the emperor's command—being interrogated on many points, intrepidly defended his faith and integrity; of whom, when it was asked, "What was between faith and faith?" he is said to have answered thus: "As far as concerns us sinners, we hold entire. As far as concerns you, the madness of the devil and the envy of your superstition (perhaps "has made" is to be added), that Felix the Bishop, whom you have not been silent about as Catholic, and invoking the Lord Jesus Christ, declared by all a pure Priest, into the cause of damnation you have directed into exile, who nevertheless in his little estate gives himself to prayers." How long he was permitted to be at leisure is not so easy to define; but that he survived a short time, you will understand below. For the rest, that his cult is irrefragable, either is established from what has been said, or of what Saint it could be sufficiently proved I indeed do not sufficiently perceive.

[19] Among the scruples of our critic this is the chief and crowning one, volume 6 of the Monuments, page 777, aptly explained. that in those Acts it is supposed that at one and the same time Liberius the Pope and Constantius Augustus were at Rome, which to that critic seemed altogether "impossible to stand together," on that hypothesis that the exile of Liberius lasted so long that he himself could not find Constantius engaged at Rome in the months of April and May of the year 357. I would not indeed defend this, and will gladly confess that the sincere and original Acts of St. Eusebius have not reached us, in which, namely, there are not lacking other things which by right and deservedly are to be corrected. Nor indeed does the adduced dialogue altogether please me, which was so formed, by the ignorance or wickedness of the interpolator, that both those, Liberius and Constantius, are feigned to have been at Rome together with St. Eusebius, and this latter indeed, by the command of the present Caesar, endured many things, against the credit of history, from which we have that Constantius, however Arian, did not so openly, certainly not to the shedding of blood, rage against the Catholics. I have already sufficiently hinted that whatever both Eusebius and Felix himself and others are said to have endured for the faith is to be cast back upon his perfidious ministers. To our purpose it makes only that the Acts of St. Eusebius are such that, whoever that interrogator was, they bear undoubted testimony to the sanctity of Felix the Pope. What besides is opposed to him, the following paragraph will teach and solve.

* Should it not be "you have directed"?

§ III. The things which are wont to be opposed against St. Felix are solved.

Just as in doubtful and turbulent times it is wont to happen that even innocuous matters are related in a most diverse manner according to the zeal of the parties, that you will perceive plainly to have happened in those things which surround Felix, whom just now, boldly, from the sense of the Church, we declared a Saint, Although many involved things occur here, where the testimonies of the ancient writers are so uncertain and various that what certainty you may establish from them can scarcely be understood. And these things pertain not only to his entrance, or substitution in the place of Liberius, which some pronounce innocent, others crafty, sacrilegious, and perjured; but also to the time of his rule, his ejection, his martyrdom and its cause: so that wherever you turn, you would scarcely find anywhere a place where you could safely fix your foot. Nor indeed is it obvious enough to distinguish how far these things extend; I, lest here I seem to wish to leap out of the chorus with long digressions, undertake to defend the cult of the Saint, his holy morals, his martyrdom; concerning the rest of the controversy of the pontificate, being about to assign those authors with whom that matter has long ago been so explained that, if Tillemont and his fellows had deigned to consult them, they would not so lightly, as I at least think, have burst forth to his complete condemnation.

[21] the censure of Tillemont is harsher than is just, Most harsh indeed is that censure which, in volume 6 of the Monuments, page 781, beyond his usual modesty, he dared to bring forth thus: "Why then are we entangled in solving so many difficulties for the defense of a man whom all antiquity deserts? whom it is necessary to confess to have been, for a whole biennium at least, the horror of the Church, and whom you cannot defend except by leaning on ruinous foundations, and on authorities of little moment, which destroy themselves, inasmuch as they are overthrown by authentic writings." How rashly these things are belched forth, I think our predecessors and others have long ago demonstrated. Let those things be seen which, concerning the Pontifical Catalogues, Henschen once touched in few words before volume 1 of April; and then, in volume 3 of that month, page 1002, his dissertation concerning Marcellinus and Felix, where he solidly attempted to soften those things which are brought from SS. Athanasius and Jerome. Known too are the dissertations of Papebroch praised by Pagi, in which, since he attributed somewhat too much to the preface supposititiously ascribed to Marcellinus and Faustinus, he would not take it ill, if he were still living, that in that part he is deserted by us. Let us not do over what has been done; what they rightly disputed in favor of St. Felix, that indeed we wish here adopted; but since our censor did not rest content with those things, we are compelled again to refute those which he more recently obtruded. Behold, then, the texts of the ancient historians here in order, which being explained, nothing, I think, will remain by which the critics may greatly terrify us.

[22] nor from Rufinus We begin from Rufinus, who, among the various confusions heaped up in book 10, chapter 22, relates this of the Roman Church, which cannot greatly hinder St. Felix, when indeed his simulated communion with the Arians is censured, but the integrity of his faith is asserted; thus it there has: "Therefore Liberius … who … at that same time was discharging the priesthood in the city of Rome, is thrust into exile; and in his place Felix, his deacon, is substituted by the heretics: and is stained not so much by diversity of sect as by the agreement of communion and ordination." Nor indeed do I see what Tillemont could so greatly draw from Socrates, book 2, chapter 37, with his own, unless it be certain, with an obstinate mind, to suck poison from everywhere. Thus he speaks: "And first indeed Liberius, bishop of the city of Rome, when he had refused to accommodate his consent to that faith, is sent into exile, Felix being substituted in his place by the Ursacians. Who, since he was a deacon of the Roman Church, then embracing the Arian perfidy, was promoted to the honor of the episcopate. Some, however, affirm that he by no means embraced the Arian opinion, but, compelled by force and necessity, received the ordination." What is invidious here Tillemont most greedily seizes; I esteem true those things which at the end are benign. Which of us shall prevail?

[23] But neither does Sozomen, book 4, chapter 15 of the Valesian edition, relate anything which stands in the way of the fame or sanctity of St. Felix: nor from Sozomen but this he most expressly asserts, that he survived not long after the return of Liberius, whereby the whole machine of Tillemont concerning the impossibility of the martyrdom under Constantius falls to ruin. See, if you please, what against the Saint can be carved out of Sozomen. "The emperor," he says, "granted Liberius power to return to Rome. The bishops also who had convened at Sirmium wrote to Felix, who then presided over the Roman Church, and to the clergy of the same city, that they should receive Liberius, and that both should govern the Apostolic See, and at the same time discharge the priesthood without any dissension, and that whatever trouble had happened on account of the ordination of Felix and the absence of Liberius, they should consign to oblivion. For Liberius, as a man in every respect excellent, and who had bravely resisted the emperor for religion, the Roman people loved exceedingly: so that for his cause they excited a most grievous sedition, and broke forth even to slaughters. But after these things, when Felix had survived a short time, Liberius alone administered the Church. Which indeed divine providence so dispensed, lest the See of Peter should be dishonored by being governed by two Prelates at once: which is a sign of discord, and foreign to the ecclesiastical laws."

[24] Let Tillemont, if he can, reconcile these things with the most foul calumnies scraped together from the infamous preface, confirmed in any way: repudiated by us. Let him likewise reconcile those things which the same Sozomen has in chapter 11 of the same book, in these words: "Liberius was despoiled of the Roman episcopate, and its administration was committed to a certain Felix, a deacon of that clergy. Whom indeed they say to have adhered perpetually to the faith of the Council of Nicaea, and, as concerns religion, to have lacked all reprehension whatever. But this one thing was reprehended in him, that even before his ordination he had been associated in communion with the heretics." And these are the most ancient testimonies concerning St. Felix, which, how they cohere with the bold epiphonema of Tillemont lately adduced, where he is depicted as deserted by all antiquity, as a horror of the Church, whom you cannot defend except by ruinous foundations, etc., I ask who may sufficiently explain. Certainly the writings related hitherto are those very authentic ones, if I know any, boasted of by our critic, from which the epiphonema is by no means drawn. I will add also another writer, namely Theodoret, from whom in favor of his absurd censure they will hammer out just as much, unless they bend him with the rest to their prejudices by the twisted neck. Let us hear, then, Theodoret himself.

[25] He, in book 2, throughout chapter 17, speaks only of the exile and return of Blessed Liberius, nor likewise from Theodoret and, having premised the supplication of some Roman women before Constantius, thus proceeds concerning St. Felix: "For after the great Liberius there had been ordained a certain one of his deacons, Felix by name: who kept indeed entire and inviolate the formula of the faith set forth by the Nicene fathers, but yet freely communicated with those who were undermining it. And for this cause no one of the Roman citizens entered into the church while he was within; and this too those women suggested to the emperor. The emperor, therefore, being moved, ordered that excellent man, and most worthy of all praise, to return from exile: and that both should administer the Church in common. When this letter of the emperor had been recited in the Circus, the people cried out that the emperor's sentence was fair. For the spectators are divided into two factions, surnamed from their colors. That one bishop, therefore, ought to preside over this faction, another over that. On this ground, when they had rejected the emperor's letter, all with one voice acclaimed: 'One God, one Christ, one bishop.' For their very words I have thought it fair here to set down. After these acclamations of the most Christian people, full of piety and justice, that admirable Liberius returned; but Felix, withdrawing, betook himself to another city."

[26] whose words are easily explained: That this narration of Theodoret is somewhat affected,

and adorned in favor of Liberius, no one would fail at once to say who had read the history of his unhappy lapse in others; from which, namely, he would believe could be refuted the things which are recorded of his so peaceful and triumphant return, where in others it is read that force had to be brought by Constantius upon the Romans, that he might be received into the City, and still greater, that he might be acknowledged as Pontiff, the Clergy and people adhering to St. Felix, always Catholic, and then most of all approved, who at last, force being in some manner even applied, had to be expelled. And this is another history of Liberius's return, whose See, from which he had defected by his subscription, St. Felix at that time certainly legitimately held, until Liberius, repenting, after other difficulties, obtained it again. In this manner can the words of Theodoret be expounded; although, in order to our purpose, there is nothing in his text that harms St. Felix in the least, unless that crudely said, that "no one of the Roman citizens entered the church while he was within"; one would say that many at Rome remained devoted to Liberius, as long as his constancy in the faith could not be doubted: for what are "spectators divided into factions"?

[27] as also the things in Athanasius. Lest I seem to have wished to dissemble anything in a doubtful cause, I will relate those things from St. Athanasius which are certainly not honorable to our Saint, but which you would not find so expressed in the rest of the writers, not even in the mendacious preface. Thus I read in the epistle to the solitaries, or, as it is in the most recent edition of his works, in the Arian History to the monks, which is extant in volume 1, page 389: "Constantius, therefore, using this minister (namely Epictetus, a bold neophyte youth), perpetrated at Rome a matter plainly stupendous, which really carries the malignity of Antichrist before it. For, a palace being adorned in place of a church, when he had ordered three eunuchs to be present with him in the room of the peoples, at last he compelled three wicked spies, that is, scouts (for they are not to be called bishops), to ordain a certain Felix, a man worthy of their morals, bishop in the palace. For the peoples, having perceived the prevarication of the heretics, did not permit them to enter the churches, but withdrew far from them."

[28] and Jerome are harsher. By what reasoning these are to be softened, and Henschen long ago softened them, we shall say in the following paragraph; let there be heard here now also those things which, in the Chronicle of Eusebius, St. Jerome, at the twelfth year of Constantius, which was of Christ 352, wrote of St. Felix not exactly enough as to chronology: "As the thirty-fourth of the Roman Church, Liberius is ordained; who being thrust into exile, all the clergy swore that they would receive no other. But when Felix had been substituted into the priesthood by the Arians, very many forswore themselves, and after a year were ejected with Felix, because Liberius, overcome by the weariness of exile, and subscribing to the heretical depravity, had entered Rome as a conqueror." It is truly a wonder that, concerning the pontificate of the Saint and its duration, things so diverse could be handed down even by contemporary writers. Here Felix is said to have been ejected after a year, whom to have filled up a biennium and more seems to be confessed. And then that in the Chronicle of Prosper these things are related so that the exile of Liberius is fixed in the ninth year of his episcopate, cannot at all be admitted. The rest, with the words of St. Athanasius and the difficulties that remain, we shall now attempt to explain, as far as it can be done.

§ IV. SS. Athanasius and Jerome, and the other difficulties pertaining hither, are explained.

And concerning St. Athanasius indeed Henschen seems to have judged rightly, that in that confusion of the Roman Church, the Arians prevailing everywhere, These things long ago and deservedly some things easily flowed through into Egypt which did not exhibit an exact enough series of the deeds: certainly no one depicted the circumstances of the election of St. Felix in darker colors: in which, although we should not deny that he preached true things; he would at last say what we have already freely admitted, that the entrance of the Saint into the Roman See was not legitimate enough. For as to what the other Catalogue of the Pontiffs, ill begun from almost this article, insinuates, as though "the priests being gathered, and with their counsel Liberius, ordained in his (Liberius's) place Felix the presbyter as bishop, a venerable man"; we do not see that it rests on that authority which is plainly required to be opposed to so open a testimony of St. Athanasius; since we have already noted that both the said Catalogue and the words of the Pontifical book are in that place so mixed with other things, both doubtful and false, that what can safely be drawn from them, one may not easily define. For the rest, that St. Felix was Venerable and remained most constantly orthodox, and received ordination only compelled by necessity, that he might succor a Church in some manner widowed, that indeed we consider sufficiently clear from what has been said.

[30] Let us nonetheless grant, with Henschen, that Felix was really elected by the Arians, Henschen softened. either because they believed him to be opposed to Liberius, and therefore of their party; or because they hoped that, bound by so great a benefit, he would easily be brought over to the same, or at least would act more dissemblingly; were not the Arians deceived in him, as clearly appeared from his after-deeds and his death undergone for the faith? In what manner the same were deceived in SS. Meletius and Cyril, this elected for the See of Jerusalem, that for Antioch, by the faction of the Arians, and whom they had hoped for as favorers, they suffered as most bitter adversaries, we saw on the 12th of February and the 18th of March. The same certainly happened here to them, Felix, as Sozomen above testified, adhering perpetually to the faith of the Council of Nicaea, and, as concerns religion, lacking all reprehension whatever, nay, presently so hostile to the Arians that only by their envy, hatred, and arts was he at last removed from their midst, not in the consulship of Valentinian and Valens, or in the year 365, as the notorious preface lies, but a short time after the restitution of Liberius. And these things being rightly expounded, we consider sufficiently softened what we received as somewhat harshly said by the cited holy Fathers.

[31] Nevertheless not a few perplexities remain in distinguishing those troubled times of Liberius and Felix, and in determining the years, Many other perplexities months, and days in which the latter sat, now illegitimately, now afterward legitimately, concerning which matter we produced in the preceding paragraph testimonies not at all agreeing, some writers of the same time extending the exile of Liberius to only a year, others to a biennium, others to a triennium. That I may not here presume to assert anything as certain, this at least I think is to be said most probably—that Liberius was absent from Rome a triennium and perhaps more, namely from the year 355, when, summoned by Constantius to Milan, he bore himself so intrepidly and bravely that, thence driven into Thrace, for at least two years he endured a fatal exile, by the weariness of which, being overcome, he at last suffered humanly what we abundantly related above. From which time it could perhaps not incongruously be said that St. Felix legitimately sat, and thence began to flow the whole year, three months, and two days, which in the Catalogues are constantly attributed to him; but these can more rightly be explained otherwise, as will presently appear more manifestly.

[32] Concerning the times of SS. Liberius and Felix Not small indeed is that difficulty, that the true limits of the pontificate be circumscribed, since not long after his lapse Liberius is supposed to have returned to the City in the year 358—nay, as some will have it, he entered as a conqueror. But that all these things were not so peaceful, we noted above: but, what has been unobserved by most, the matter must have come to this—that Liberius, however desired by the Romans, did not find all things so plain on his return, but that, affairs alternating, he was again compelled to yield, again driven into exile, as is read in express words in the Chronicle of St. Jerome at the year 359: "Liberius, bishop of Rome, is driven into exile": unless perhaps this rather regards the very year of his return, 358. But in whatever manner you have explained these things, we certainly seem to prove what is sought, namely that throughout all that time St. Felix supplied the place of Liberius, whether by a new election, or otherwise legitimately; who, the affairs of Liberius being at last fully settled, of his own accord yielded, and a short time after was crowned with martyrdom by the hostile Arians, whom he had before deceived, perhaps also with others.

[33] by Blanchini And from this manner of explaining, the most illustrious Blanchini, the recent editor of Anastasius the Librarian with very ample notes and dissertations, does not seem to have shrunk, in volume 3, page 15, where, citing the words by which Liberius is said to have made two years in exile, he thus subjoins: "If to this biennium be added the one year, with three months and two days, attributed to Felix, the sum of 3 years, 3 months, and 2 days is gathered. But these, subtracted from the 14 years, 4 months, 2 days, numbered from the pontificate begun by Liberius to his death, from the documents of the fourth century" —here follows a chronological calculation: "The pictures of St. Paul and several Catalogues, with the Librarian, attribute to the pontificate of Liberius 10 years, 7 months, 3 days. Wherefore 5 months and 27 days above two solid years are to be assigned to his exile. But then, from these years of exile, 2 years, 5 months, 27 days, and from the legitimate pontificate of Felix, 1 – 3 – 2, with the 10 – 7 – 3 assigned to the See of Liberius, is gathered the sum of 14 years, 4 months, 2 days, corresponding to the interval of time intercepted from the 22nd of May 352 to the 24th of September 366, on which he was taken from human affairs."

[34] probably enough Then, adducing more documents on this matter, which may be seen in him, he thus at last concludes to our purpose: "The chronology, therefore, of the two Pontiffs Liberius and Felix, from the adduced documents, is thus to be disposed."

[35] Thus Blanchini, whose every jot though I would not undertake to defend, are composed. I confess certainly a most probable reasoning, by which a knot otherwise indissoluble may be unraveled, for distinguishing the times of Liberius and Felix, as though hitherto studiously involved: which being ordered in that manner, there will be no need of a long dissertation to vindicate the true Roman pontificate for St. Felix, concerning which matter the Cardinals Perron and Bellarmine, praised by Henschen, Gretser, and so many others, once treated more fully, to whom we have already above referred those whom these things shall not have satisfied, being here, according to our design, to be elucidated only so far. Nor indeed do we delay over those things which Christian Lupus in Henschen, and a few other Catholics, seduced by the supposititious preface of Marcellinus and Faustinus repudiated above, only rashly heaped up for excluding our St. Felix from the series of the Roman Pontiffs, inasmuch as him irrefragable witnesses, related in great number by Schelstrate, Antiquitatis Ecclesiae Illustratae, volume 1, dissertation 2, chapter 9, §11, as a most true Pontiff, by constant and unanimous suffrage both once admitted and today admit, only the hypercritics, noted by us above, daring to gape against it.

[36] Nor also concerning the martyrdom of St. Felix and its

cause do I think we must dispute at length: The things objected against the martyrdom those who strive with so great an effort to tear that little laurel from him assail us especially with this dart—that, from the so often rejected preface of the falsifiers, our Saint survived Constantius a long time, whom we have shown to have been snatched from the living a short time after his abdication. And on that argument too Papebroch did not dare to ascribe to him the true palm of martyrdom, although in another sense he always venerated him both as a martyr and as a saint and true Pontiff. Otherwise had Henschen once determined, in the dissertation cited more than once; nor do we think that from the most received opinion of Baronius and of the whole Catholic Church we must recede even by a nail's breadth, since, as the most eminent Annalist said above, "opportunely Felix himself was seen, to the admiration of all, to have appeared, come to life again, to plead his own cause by himself, when it was now greatly oppressed by the pen of the gainsayers." Whatever Tillemont with his own may struggle against here, the found inscription proves the cause: "The body of Felix, Pope and martyr, who condemned Constantius."

[37] no less easily In vain will you here interrogate me, whether from the Pontifical Catalogues or the Pontifical books I fetch the cause of that martyrdom of St. Felix, which is there everywhere expressed, where indeed is read: "This one declared Constantius, son of Constantine, a heretic, and rebaptized a second time by Eusebius of Nicomedia near Nicomedia in the villa Aquilo, etc." I answer in few words: By no means: nor can this be asked except by the unskilled, since it manifestly appears, and is even commonly known and admitted, that those words were wrongly thrust into that place by an ignorant person, and eagerly rejected by all the defenders of St. Felix. But even if that cause be falsely alleged there, and that clause could be absent, the construction remaining most entire, or be explained even in another sense, as the praised Blanchini notes; it is enough and more than enough for us that, either by the precept of Constantius, though we think this must be granted with difficulty, or he being conscious of the whole matter (because he understood himself deceived by St. Felix, and held even as a heretic), certainly for the defense of the Catholic faith, by which he had abundantly condemned Constantius, he was crowned with martyrdom by the perfidious Arians and beheaded.

[38] can be dissolved. What concerning the place of the martyrdom, also noted diversely, one could move, that we think abundantly set forth by Baronius, in the words adduced above at no. 14. Further, what is to be thought concerning the true birthday; I prefer to confess ignorance than to involve the matter in many words: for although in one or another codex it is referred to the 27th of February, that it is venerated on this day is certain, whether that be reckoned of his death, or of his translation, or of his abdication: we have long enough been entangled in thorny perplexities, to which at last that colophon fits which Baronius set upon them, in the said year 357, no. 52, in these words: "But as concerns the whole series of the deeds between Liberius and Felix; behold with me, and admire likewise, reader, the supreme providence of God, by which He has always guided the Roman Church itself. For, Liberius being weakened from the communion of the Arians, though not from participation in the heresy, He raises up, from the opposite side, Felix, before joined to their communication, and at once erects him against those very Arians, by whose aid indeed he had obtained the Roman Chair, and confirms him with a great protection against the adversaries; and thus strengthens him for the fight, that, harassing all the Arians, and striking their prince Constantius with anathema, he was for a reward marked with the crown of martyrdom."