Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/1014

 to the emperors Valentinian, Theodosius, and Arcadius (c. 383). They had been supporters of Ursinus, and in the preface to their petition assert that he was elected before Damasus by the people who had been in communion with Liberius in the church of Julius beyond the Tiber, and was ordained by Paul, bp. of Tivoli; and that Damasus had subsequently, with a mob of charioteers and other low fellows, broken into the church of Julius, massacred many persons there, and after seven days had, with his bribed followers, got possession of the Lateran Basilica, and been there ordained. The balance of evidence appears decidedly in favour of Damasus, the only witnesses against him, the two Luciferian presbyters, being partisans whose veracity we have no means of testing. After the two elections all accounts agree that the rival parties disturbed Rome by continual conflicts, in which lives were lost. At length Juventius, the praefectus urbi, and Julianus, the praefectus annonae, concurred in banishing Ursinus, but the disturbances continued. Ammianus Marcellinus, the historian, throws light on the Roman church at this time from the point of view of an intelligent and impartial heathen. "The ardour of Damasus and Ursinus to seize the episcopal seat surpassed the ordinary measure of human ambition. They contended with the rage of party; the quarrel was maintained by the wounds and death of their followers, the prefect . . . being constrained by superior violence to retire into the suburbs. Damasus prevailed: . . . 137 dead bodies were found in the basilica of Sicininus, where the Christians hold their religious assemblies; and it was long before the angry minds of the people resumed their accustomed tranquillity. When I consider the splendour of the capital, I am not astonished that so valuable a prize should inflame the desires of ambitious men and produce the fiercest contests. The successful candidate is secure that he will be enriched by the offerings of matrons; that as soon as his dress is composed with becoming care and elegance, he may proceed in his chariot through the streets of Rome; and that the sumptuousness of the imperial table will not equal the profuse and delicate entertainment provided by the taste and at the expense of the Roman pontiffs. How much more rationally would those pontiffs consult their true happiness if, instead of alleging the greatness of the city as an excuse for their manners, they would imitate the exemplary life of some provincial bishops, whose temperance and sobriety, mean apparel and downcast looks, recommended their pure and modest virtue to the Deity and His true worshippers!" (Ammian. 27, 3, Gibbon's trans. c. xxv.).

In 367 the emperor Valentinian permitted those who had been banished to return, but threatened severe punishment in case of renewed disturbance. (Baronius, ad ann. 368, ii., iii. iv., gives extracts from these rescripts.) Ursinus returned, and is said to have been received by his followers on Sept. 15, 367, with great joy (Lib. Precum), but was again banished by order of the emperor (Nov. 16), with seven of his adherents, into Gaul. Yet peace was not at once restored. His followers continued to assemble in cemeteries, and got possession of the church of St. Agnes without the walls. Thence they were dislodged; Marcellinus and Faustinus say by Damasus himself with his satellites, and with great slaughter. We may doubt the pope's personal complicity. After this the prefect Praetextatus banished more of the party, and the two presbyters allege cruel persecution, having been themselves among the sufferers. Rescripts of the emperors Valentinian, Valens, and Gratian ( 371) again release Ursinus and his friends from their confinement in Gaul, allowing them to live at large, but away from Rome and the suburbicarian regions (Baron. ad ann. 371, i. ii. iii.). A Roman council ( 378) addressed a letter to the emperors Gratian and Valentinian II., representing that Ursinus and his followers continued their machinations secretly (Labbe, t. ii. pp. 1187–1192).

After this we find Ursinus at Milan, where he is said to have joined the Arian party, who promised him their support (Ambrose, Ep. 4). But St. Ambrose, bp. of Milan, having informed the emperor Gratian of what was going on, the latter banished Ursinus from Italy, and confined him to Cologne (Ep. I. Conc. Aquil. u.s.). No more is heard of Ursinus till after the death of Damasus (Dec. 384), when he opposed Siricius, who, having been a supporter of Damasus against him, was elected with the general consent of the Roman people. Ursinus appears not to have then had sufficient support in Rome to cause conflict and disturbance.

[J.B—Y.]

Ursula, a famous British virgin and martyr, celebrated as having suffered with 11,000 other virgins at Cologne. Her notice in the Roman Martyrology is simple: "At Cologne, the natal day of SS. Ursula and her companions, who, being slain by the Huns for their Christianity and their virginal constancy, terminated their life by martyrdom. Very many of their bodies were discovered at Cologne." On this foundation the new Bollandists have raised a prodigious edifice of 230 folio pages, where they discuss (AA. SS. Boll. Oct. t. ix. pp. 73–303) every conceivable fact, topic, or hypothesis concerning these problematical martyrs. Their story, which is purely medieval, is briefly this. Ursula, the daughter of Dionoc, king of Cornwall, was sent by him with her numerous companions to Conan, a British prince, who had followed the tyrant Maximus into Gaul, c. 383. They were somehow carried up the Rhine to Cologne by mistake, where the Huns murdered them all. The enormous number of her companions has been explained as a mistake of the early copyists, who found some such entry as "Ursula et xi. M. V.", which, taking M. for millia, not for martyrs, they read Ursula and 11,000 virgins instead of 11 martyr virgins. Such mistakes frequently occurred in the ancient martyrologies. [ (2).]

[.]

Valens (4), Arian bp. of Mursa in Pannonia, and together with the leading Western opponent of Athanasius. He must have been born c. 300, as we find him a most