Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 6.djvu/130

 FLATHERS

98

FLAVIAN

O'COKNOR, T?ie Flathead Indians in Records of The Am. Calh. Hist. Sac. (Philadelphia 18S8), III, 85-110; Post, Worship Among the Flatheads and Kaliopels in Th£ Messenger (New York, 1894J, 528-29.

James Mooney.

Flathers (alias Major), Matthew, Venerable, English priest and martyr; b. probably c. 1580 at Weston, Yorkshire, England; d. at York, 21 March, 1607. He w.as educated at Douai, and ordained at Arras, 25 March, 1000. Tliree months later he was sent to the English mission, but was discovered almost immediately by the emissaries of the Government, who, after the Gunpowder Plot, had redoubled their vigilance in hunting down the priests of the pro- scribed religion. He was brought to trial, under the statute of 27 Elizabeth, on the charge of receiving orders abroad, and condemned to death. By an act of unusual clemency, this sentence was commuted to banishment for life; but after a brief exile, the un- daunted priest returned to England in order to fulfil his mission, and, after ministermg for a short time to his oppressed coreligionists in Y'orkshire, was again apprehended. Brought to trial at Y'ork on the charge of being ordained abroad and exercising priestly functions in England, Flathers was offered his life on condition that he take the recently enacted Oath of Allegiance. On his refusal, he was con- demned to death and taken to the common place of execution outside Micklegate Bar, York. The usual punishment of hanging, drawing, and quartering seems to have been carried out in a peculiarly] brutal manner, and eyewitnesses relate how the tragic spec- tacle excited the commiseration of the crowds of Protestant spectators.

GiLLOw, Bibl. Diet. Eng. Calh., s. v.; Challoner, Memoirs, 11; Morris, Troubles, third series; Douay Diaries.

H. G. WiNTERSGlLL.

Flavia Domitilla, a Christian Roman matron of the imperial family who lived towards the close of the first century. She was the third of three persons (mother, daughter, and grand-daughter) who bore the same name. The first of these was the wife of the Emperor Vespasian ; the second was his daughter and sister to the Emperors Titus and Domitian; her daughter, the third Domitilla, married her mother's first cousin, Titus Flavins Clemens, a nephew of the Emperor Vespasian and first cousin to Titus and Domitian. From this imion there were born two sons who, while children, were adopted as his successors by Domitian and commanded to assume the names Ves- pasianus and Domitianus. It is quite probable that these two lads had been brought up as Christians by their pious mother, and the possibility thus presents itself that two Christian boys at the end of the first century were designated for the imperial purple in Rome. Their later fate is not known, as the Flavian line ended with Domitian. Clement, their father, was the emperor's colleague in the consular dignity, but had no sooner laid down his office than he was tried on charges of the most trivial character {ex temiissimA suspicione — Suetonius, Vita Domit.). Dio Cassius (Ixvii, 14) says that husband and wife alike were guilty of atheism and the practice of Jewish rites and customs. Such accusations, as is clear from the works of the Christian apologists, could have meant nothing else than that both had become Christians. Though doubts have been expressed, because of the silence of Christian tradition on the subject, as to whether Cle- ment was a Christian, the affirmative view is consider- ably strengthened by the further accusation of Sue- tonius that he was a man of the most contemptible inactivity (rnntemplissimceinerliae). Such a charge is easily explained on the ground that Clement found most of the duties of his office as consul so incom- patible with Christian faith and practice as to render total abstention from public life almost an absolute necessity. In the case of Domitilla no doubt can re-

main, since De Rossi showed that the "Ccemeterium DomitillEe" (see Cemeteries, Early Christian) was situated on ground belonging to the Flavia Domitilla who was banished for her faith, and that it was used as a Christian burial place as early as the first century. As a result of the accusations made against them Cle- ment was put to death, and Flavia Domitilla was ban- ished to the island of Pandataria in the Tyrrhenian Sea. Eusebius (H. E., Ill, 18; Chron. ad an. Abraham! 2110), the spurious acts of Nereus and Achilles, and St. Jerome (Ep., CVIII, 7) represent Flavia Domitilla as the niece, not the wife, of tlie consul Flavins Cle- mens, and say that her place of exile was Pontia, an island also situated in the Tyrrhenian Sea. These state- ments have given rise to the opinion that there were two Domitillas (aunt and niece) who were Christians, the latter generally referred to as Flavia Domitilla the Younger. Lightfoot has shown that this opinion, adopted by Tillemont and De Rossi and still main- tained by many writers (among them Allard and Duchesne), is derived entirely from Eusebius, who was led into this error by mistakes in transcription, or ambiguity of expression, in the sources which he used. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers, Pt. I; St. Clement of Rome, I, the best discussion of all subjects connected with the name Domitilla; Allard, Hist, des persecutions pendant les deux premiers siecles, p. 96 sq.; Neumann. Der rbmische Staat und die allgemeine Kirche bis auf Diocletian (Leipzig, 1890), I; Ramsay, The Church in the Roman Empire before A.D.. 170 (New York, 1893); Ddchesne, Hisioire ancienne de I'eglise (Paris. 1906).

P. J. Healy.

Flavian, Saint, Bishop of Constantinople, date of birth unknown; d. at Hypa?pa in Lydia, August, 449. Nothing is known of him before his elevation to the episcopate save that he was a presbyter and <7Kevo(pi\a^, or sacristan, of the Church of Constantinople, and noted for the holiness of his life. His succession to St. Proclus as bishop was in opposition to the wishes of the eunuch Chrysaphius, minister of Emperor Theo- dosius, who sought to bring him into imperial dis- favour. He persuaded the emperor to require of the new bishop certain eulogice on the occasion of his ap- pointment, but scornfully rejected the proffered blessed bread on the plea that the emperor desired gifts of gold. Flavian's intrepid refusal, on the ground of the impropriety of thus disposing of church treas- ures, roused considerable enmity against him. Pul- cheria, the emperor's sister, being Flavian's stanch advocate, Chrysaphius secured the support of the Em- press Eudocia. Although their first efforts to involve St. Flavian in disgrace miscarried, an opportunity soon presented itself. At a council of bishops con- vened at Constantinople by Flavian, 8 Nov., 448, to settle a dispute which had arisen among his clergy, the archimandrite Eutyches, who was a relation of Chry- saphius, was accused of heresy by Eusebius of Dory- Iseum. (For the proceedings of the council see Euse- bius of Doryl.'eum; Eutyches.) Flavian exercised clemency and urged moderation, but in the end the refusal of Eutyches to make an orthodox declaration on the two natures of Christ forced Flavian to pro- nounce the sentence of degradation and excommuni- cation. He forwarded a full report of the council to Pope Leo I, who in turn gave his approval to Flavian's decision (21 May, 449), and the following month (13 June) sent him his famous "Dogmatic Letter". Eutyches' complaint that justice had been violated in the council and that the Acts had been tampered with resulted in an imperial order for the revision of the Acts, executed (8 and 27 April, 449). No material error could be established, and Flavian was justified.

The long-standing rivalry between Alexandria and Constantinople now became a strong factor in the dis- sensions. It had been none the less keen since the See of Constantinople had been officially declared next in dignity to Rome, and Dioscurus, Bishop of Alexan- dria, was quite ready to join forces with Eutyches