Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/380

 in various parts of Italy and the adjacent islands, and joined Pammachius in the institution of a hospital (νοσοκομεῖον), where she gathered in the sick and outcasts, and tended them with her own hands. In 395 she suddenly appeared at Bethlehem, making the journey with her kinsman Oceanus. Several causes prevented Bethlehem from becoming her home. The Origenistic strife divided Jerome and his friends from Rufinus and Melania, and the new-comers did not escape the discord. Oceanus warmly espoused the side of Jerome; Fabiola seems to have stood aloof. But efforts were made, if we may believe Jerome (cont. Ruf. iii. 14), to draw them into the camp of the adversary. Letters in which Rufinus was praised, fraudulently taken from the cell of Jerome's friend Eusebius, were found in the rooms of Fabiola and Oceanus. But this proceeding failed to cause a breach between Fabiola and Jerome. Jerome bears witness to the earnestness with which she attached herself to his teaching. The two treatises above mentioned are the results of her importunity (Ep. xiv. ed. Vall.).

Jerome was seeking a suitable dwelling-place for her, and engaged in writing his treatise on the mystical meaning of the high priest's garments, when the inroad of the Huns caused a panic in Palestine. Jerome and his friends hurried to the sea-coast at Joppa, and had hired vessels for flight, when the Huns abandoned their purpose and turned back. Jerome, with Paula and Eustochium, returned to Bethlehem; but Fabiola went on to Rome.

The last three years of her life were occupied with incessant activity in good works. In conjunction with Pammachius she instituted at Portus a hospice (xenodochium), perhaps taking her model from that established by Jerome at Bethlehem; and it was so successful that, as Jerome says, in one year it become known from Parthia to Britain. But to the last her disposition was restless. She found Rome and Italy too small for her charities, and was purposing some long journey or change of habitation when death overtook her 399. Her funeral was celebrated as a Christian triumph. The streets were crowded, the hallelujahs reached the golden roof of the temples. Jerome's book on the 42 stations (mansiones) of the Israelites in the desert was dedicated to her memory.

[W.H.F.]

Faustus (11), sometimes called "the Breton," from having been born in Brittany, or (as Tillemont thinks) in Britain, but more generally known as Faustus of Riez from the name of his see. Born towards the close of the 4th cent., he may have lost his father while he was young, for we only hear of his mother, whose fervid piety made a great impression on all who saw her. Faustus studied Greek philosophy, but in a Christian spirit; mastered the principles of rhetoric, and may have pleaded for a time at the bar.

While still youthful (probably c. 426 or a little later) he entered the famous monastery of Lerins, then presided over by St. Maximus. Here he became a thorough ascetic and a great student of Holy Scripture, without, however, giving up his philosophic pursuits. Here he probably acquired the reputation, assigned to him by Gennadius, of an illustrious extempore preacher. He became a presbyter, and c. 432 or 433 succeeded Maximus as abbat of Lerins. His tenure was marked by a dispute with his diocesan Theodore, bp. of Fréjus, concerning their respective rights. The third council of Arles was convened by Ravennius, bp. of Arles, for the sole purpose of settling this controversy. The decision left considerable ecclesiastical power in the hands of the abbat. The epistle of Faustus to a deacon named Gratus (al. Gratius or Gregorius), who was heretical on the union of the two natures in the Person of Christ, belongs also to this period.

Faustus next succeeded St. Maximus in the episcopate of Riez in Provence. Baronius places this as late as 472, but Tillemont (Mém. vi. p. 775) as early as 462 or even 456. Faustus continued as bishop the stern self-discipline which he had practised as monk and abbat. He often retired to Lerins, becoming known throughout and beyond his diocese as one who gave succour to those sick whether in body or mind. He seems to have taken a stern view of late repentances, like those so prevalent at an earlier period in the church of N. Africa. In the councils of Arles and of Lyons a presbyter named Lucidus, accused of having taught fatalism through misunderstanding Augustine, was induced to retract; and Leontius, bp. of Arles, invited Faustus to compose a treatise on grace and free choice.

Faustus appears from Sidonius to have had some share in the treaty of 475 between the emperor Nepos and Euric king of the Visigoths, which Tillemont and Gibbon agree in regarding as discreditable to the Roman empire. It wrested Auvergne and subsequently Provence from an orthodox sovereign, and gave them to an Arian. This was unfortunate for Faustus, who c. 481 was banished, probably because of his writings against Arianism. His banishment is naturally attributed to king Euric, on whose death in 483 he returned to Riez. His life was prolonged until at least 492, possibly for some years later.

His writings have not come down to us in a complete and satisfactory condition. The following are still accessible:—

(1) Professio Fidei.—He opens with a severe attack on the teaching of Pelagius as heretical, but expresses a fear of the opposite extreme, of such a denial of man's power as a free agent as would virtually amount to fatalism.

(2) Epistola ad Lucidum Presbyterum.—Here, too, he anathematizes the error of Pelagius; but also any who shall have declared that Christ did not die for all men, or willeth not that all should be saved.

(3) De Gratia Dei et Humanae Mentis libero Arbitrio.—After again censuring Pelagius, the writer argues strongly on behalf of the need of human endeavour and co-operation with the Divine aid. In his interpretation of passages of Holy Scripture (e.g. Ex. iv. 21; vii. 13; Rom. ix. 11-26) which favour most Augustinianism, he is most extreme and least successful. Many passages might almost have come from the pen of some Arminian controversialist at the synod of Dort. In cap. x. of bk. ii., which is entitled Gentes Deum Naturaliter Sapuisse, Faustus calls attention to the lan-