Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 6.djvu/476

 GENNINGS

418

GENNIN6S

(P. L., LVIII, 979-1054), that is now universally at- tributed to Gennadius. The only question is with which of the works he speaks of havuig written the last-mentioned should be identified. It has often been thought to be the letter to Gelasius. Caspar! (op. cit. infra), Bardenliewer, Czapla, and others have pointed out that the treatise has nothing of the nature of a letter or of a personal profession of faith. Only once, in chap, xxiii, does the author write in the first person {laudo, vitupero, etc.). They think there- fore that it is more probably a fragment of Genna- dius's eight books "against ail heresies", apparently the last part, in which, having confuted the heretics, he builds up a positive system.

There are many indications that the author was a Semipelagian in Gennadius's chapters "De Viris illustribus". Semipeiagians are warmly praised (Fastidiosus, Ivi, p. 80; Cassian, Ixi, 81; Faustus, Ixxxv, 89); full Pelagians (Pelagius himself, xUi, 77; Julian of Eclanum, xlv, 77) are heretics; Catho- lics are treated shabbily (Augustine, xxxviii, 75; Prosper of Aquitania, Lxxxiv, 89); even popes are called heretics (Julius I, in i, 61). The same tend- ency is confirmed liy the treatise " De eccles. dogmati- bus", which is full of Semipelagianism, either open or implied (original sin carefully evaded, great insistence on free will and denial of predestination, grace as an adjulorium in the mildest form, etc.; cf. Wiggers, op. cit. infra, 35.3 sqq.). Perhaps the most reprehensi- ble effect of Gennadius's opinions on this point is his sneering remark about St. Augustine's prolific genius: " He wrote so much that it cannot all be found. For who shall boast of possessing all his works, or who shall read with as much care as he used in writing?" And at the end he tempers his faint praise by saying that Augustine " caused doubts about the question of unborn children to the simple" and that he "re- mained a Catholic" (xxxviii, 75). To say of Augus- tine merely that he remained a Catholic, shows prej- udice, if anything can.

We have said that Gennadius's chief, if not his only, title to fame is his continuation of St. Jerome's " De Viris illustribus". In that work Jerome had for the first time drawn up a series of one hundred and thirty- five short biographies of famous Christians, with lists of their chief works. It was the first patrology and dictionary of Christian biography. So useful a book of reference naturally became popular, and whUe no one thought of controlling or correcting it, many peo- ple wrote continuations after the same method. We hear of such a continuation by one Paterius, a disciple of Jerome, and of a Greek translation by Sophronius. But it was Gennadius's continuation that won most favour, that was accepted everywhere as a second part of the same work, and was always written (eventually printed) together with St. Jerome's work. Genna- dius's part contains about one hundred lives (vari- ously numbered: by Bernoulli, i to xcvii, with some marked as xciib, etc., originally cxxxvi-ccxxxii), modelled strictly on those of Jerome. In xc, 92, he says (in one version) that Theodore of Ccelesyria (Theodulus) "died three years ago, in the reign of Zeno". From this Czapla deduces that Gen- nadius wrote between 491 and 494. The series is arranged more or less in chronological order, but there are frequent exceptions. The text is in a bad state. Other people have modified it and added to it without noting the fact — as is usual among medieval writers. Ricliardson (op. cit. infra) and Czapla consider, ap- parently with reason, that chapters xxx (John of Jerusalem), Ixxxvii (Victorinus), xciii (Caerealis of Africa), and all the end portion (xcv-ci), are not authentic. There is doubt about parts of the others. Gennadius was on the whole an honourable and scrupulous writer. In one place (Ixxxv, 90) he says: "There are other works liy him (Faustus) which I will not name becau.se I have not yet read them." He

uses the name "Schola.sticus" as an honourable epi- thet repeatedly (bdii, 82, btvii, 84, bcxix, 87, lxxxiv, 89). It is generally, and very justly, given to him by others.

De Viris illustribus, ed. Andreas (.Terome and Gennadius together, as nearly always; Rome, 146,S). This is the editio princeps: the worit had a long history in manuscript before (cf. Bernoulli, op. cit.. xvi-lvi), and has been reprinted con- stantly since. Fabricius, Bihliolheca ecclesiasiica (Hamburg, 171S), II, 1-43; this is the edition reproduced in P. L., LVIII, 1059-1120; the most practical modern ed. is Bernoulli, Hier- oni/mws und Gennadius De Viris illustribus (Freiburg im Br., 1895, vol. II of Krijger, Sammlung ausgewiihlter Kirchen und dogmengeschichtlichen Quellenschriften), with apparatus and notes. All references above are to this edition. The work De ecclesiasticis dogmatibus was published by Elmenhorst (Ham- burg, 1614), reprinted in P. L., LVIII, 979-1054: Cz.apla. Gennadius als Litterarhistoriker (Munster, 1898). Richardson edited Gennadius in the Teite und Vntersuchungen, XIV (1895); JuNGMANN, QuCEStiones Gennadinnte (Leipzig, 1881); Caspari, Kirchenhistorische Anecdola (Christiania, 1883); Diekamp, Wann hat Gennadius seinen Hchriftstellerkatalog verfasstf in Eiimische QuartaUchrift (1898), 411-420; Bardenheweh, Patrologie. tr. Shahan (Freiburg im Br., 1908), 608; Wiggers, Versuch einer pragm. Darstellung des Aiigustinismus und Pela- gianismus (Hamburg, 1833), 350-356.

Adrian Fortescue.

Gennings, Edmund and John, the first, a martjT for the Catholic Faith, and the second, the restorer of the English province of Franciscan friars, were brothers anfl converts to the Church. Edmund Gen- nings was born at Lichfield in 1567; died in London, 10 Dec, 1591. John was b. about 1570; d. at Douai, 12 Nov., 1660.

Edmund, even in his boyhood, exhibited an unusual gravity of manners and a mystical turn of mind; when about sixteen years of age, he was converted to the Catholic Faith, and immediately afterwards en- tered the English College at Reims. He was ordained priest in 1590, being then only twenty-three years of age, and at once returned to England under the assumed name of Ironmonger. But his missionary career was of short duration, for he was seized whilst saying Mass in London on 7 Nov., 1591, and executed at Gray's Inn Fields on 10 Dec. His martyrdom was the occasion of several remarkable incidents, chief of which was the conversion of his younger brother John. On his return to England, Edmund tiennings had at once gone to Lichfield to seek out his kindred in the hope of bringing them to the true faith, but he found that all his relatives were dead except this one brother, who had, however, left his native city and gone to London. Thither Edmund proceeded and for a whole month searched the city, visiting every place where he thought his brother might be found. Event- ually, when he was about to give up the search, he achieved his purpose, but the younger brother, far from being won over to Edmund's faith, only be- sought him to go away, lest he himself should become suspect; antl when after awhile Edmund was seized and condemned John "rejoiced rather than bewailed the untimely and bloody end of his nearest kinsman, hoping thereby to be rid of all persuasions which he suspected he should receive from him touching the Catholic Religion". So wrote John Gennings in his life of his brother, published in 1614 at St-Omer.

Undoubtedly at this time John Gennings was bent on pleasure, but one must make allowances for the spirit of remorse with which he looked back on those days in after years, and not accept his own estimate of his youth too readily. However, aljout ten days after his brother's execution, a change came over him. He began one night to think of his brother's death and contempt of the world, and to compare his own life with that of the martyr. He was struck with remorse and wept liitterly, and next prayed for light. In- stantly he felt an exceeding great reverence for the saints and, above all, our Blessed Lady, and it seemed to him that he saw his brother in glory. He thereupon made a vow to forsake friends and country and seek a true knowledge of his brother's faith. Being received