Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 1.djvu/422

AMALRICUS time in propogating their errors without being detected by the ecclesiastical authorities. At length, through the efforts of Peter, Bishop of Paris, and the Chevalier Guérin, an adviser of the king, to both of whom secret information of the affair had been given, the inner workings of the sect were laid bare, and the principals and proselytes were arrested. In the year 1210 a council of bishops and doctors of the University of Paris assembled to take measures for the punishment of the offenders. The ignorant converts, including many women, were pardoned. Of the principals, four were condemned to imprisonment for life. Ten others, priests and clerics, who had obstinately refused to retract their errors, after being publicly degraded, were delivered to the secular authority and suffered the penalty of death by fire. Five years later (1215) the writings of Aristotle, which had been distorted by the sectaries in support of their heresy, were forbidden to be read either in public or in private. Regarding the scope of this prohibition, see.

Amaury himself, though dead some years, did not escape the penalty of his heresy. Besides being included in the condemnation of his disciples, in the council of 1210 special sentence of excommunication was pronounced against him, and his bones were exhumed from their resting-place and cast into unconsecrated ground. His doctrine was again condemned by Pope Innocent III in the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) "as insanity rather than heresy", and Pope Honorius III condemned (1225) the work of Scotus Erigena, "De Divisione Naturæ", from which Amaury was supposed to have derived the beginnings of his heresy.

Author:John Joseph A'Becket.

Amalricus Augerii, a church-historian of the fourteenth century, and member of the Augustinian Order. He was a doctor of the University of Montpellier, prior of a monastery of his Order, and chaplain to Urban V, 1362. He was a man of great learning, especially in church history. His chief work is the "Actus Rom. Pontificum", extending in alphabetical order from St. Peter to the year 1321, and edited, chronologically, in Eccard, "Script. medii ævi", II, 1641–1824.

Author:Francis William Grey.

Amandus,, one of the great apostles of Flanders; born near Nantes, in France, about the end of the sixth century. He was, apparently, of noble extraction. When a youth of twenty, he fled from his home and became a monk near Tours, resisting all the efforts of his family to withdraw him from his mode of life. Following what he regarded as divine inspiration, he betook himself to Bourges, where under the direction of St. Austregisile, the bishop of the city, he remained in solitude for fifteen years, living in a cell and subsisting on bread and water. After a pilgrimage to Rome, he was consecrated in France as a missionary bishop at the age of thirty-three. At the request of Clotaire II, he began first to evangelize the inhabitants of Ghent, who were then degraded idolaters, and afterwards extended his work throughout all Flanders, suffering persecution, and undergoing great hardship but achieving nothing, until the miracle of restoring the life of a criminal who had been hanged, changed the feelings of the people to reverence and affection and brought many converts to the faith. Monasteries at Ghent and Mt. Blandin were erected. They were the first monuments to the Faith in Belgium. Returning to France, in 630, he incurred the enmity of King Dagobert, who he had endeavoured to recall from a sinful life, and was expelled from the kingdom. Dagobert afterwards entreated him to return, asked pardon for the wrong done, and requested him to be tutor of the heir of the throne. The danger of living at court prompted the Saint to refuse the honour. His next apostolate was among of the Slavs of the Danube, but it met with no success, and we find him then in Rome, reporting to the pope what results had been achieved.

While returning to France he is said to have calmed a storm at sea. He was made Bishop of Maastricht about the year 649, but unable the repress the disorders of the place, he appealed to the Pope, Martin I, for instructions. The reply traced his plan of action with regard to fractious clerics, and also contained information about the Monothelite heresy, which was then desolating the East. Amandus was also commissioned to convoke councils in Neustria and Austrasia in order to have the decrees which had been passed at Rome read to the bishops of Gaul, who in turn commissioned him to bear the acts of their councils to the Sovereign Pontiff. He availed himself of this occasion to obtain his release from the bishopric of Maastricht, and to resume his work as a missionary. It was at this time that he entered into relations with the family of Pepin of Landen, and helped St. Gertrude and St. Itta to establish their famous monastery of Nivelles. Thirty years before he had gone into the Basque country to preach, but had met with little success. He was now requested by the inhabitants to return, and although seventy years old, he undertook the work of evangelizing them and appears to have banished idolatry from the land. Returning again to his country, he founded several monasteries, on one occasion at the risk of his life. Belgium especially boasts many of his foundations. Dagobert made great concessions to him for his various establishments. He died in his monastery of Elnon, at the age of ninety. His feast is kept 6 February.

Author:Thomas Joseph Campbell.

Amasia, a titular see and metropolis of Pontus in Asia Minor on the river Iris, now Amasiah. Its episcopal list dates from the third century (Gams, I, 442). It was the birthplace of the geographer Strabo, who has left us a striking description of his native city, in a deep and extensive gorge over which rose abruptly a lofty rock, "steep on all sides and descending abruptly to the river". It was famous in antiquity for its rock-cisterns, reached by galleries, of which some traces remain; also for the tombs of the ancient kings of Pontus hewn in the solid rock.



Amastris (now or ), a titular see of Paphlagonia in Asia Minor, on a peninsula jutting into the Black Sea. Its episcopal list dates from the third century (Gams, I, 454). It is mentioned by Homer (Iliad, II, 853), was a flourishing town in the time of Trajan (98–117), and was of some importance until the seventh century of our era.



Amat,, second Bishop of Monterey and Los Angeles, California, U.S., b. 31 December, 1810, at Barcelona, Spain; d. at Los Angeles. California, 12 May, 1878. He joined the Lazarists in early manhood and was ordained a priest at the house of that Congregation in Paris, in 1838. He came to the United States in 1838 and worked in the missions in Louisiana. He was master of novices in the houses of the Lazarists in Missouri and Philadelphia in 1841–47, and on the promotion of Bishop Alemany of Monterey to be Archbishop of San Francisco, Father Amat was named to succeed him. He was consecrated Bishop of the diocese in Rome, 12 March,