Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/912

 nition of the right of the Christians as such to hold property, which is also implied by the life of. Consistently with this, it is in the reign of Alexander that edifices set apart for Christian worship begin to appear—at any rate in some parts of the empire (cf. the letter of Firmilian to Cyprian (in Migne, ''Patr. Lat.'' iii. 1163) with Origen, Hom. 28 on St. Matthew (quoted in contra Celsum, viii. 755, in Migne, ''Patr. Gk.'' xi. 1539)). A form of the golden rule of Christian morality ("Do not do to another what you would not have done to yourself ") was so admired by the emperor that he caused it to be inscribed on the palace and other buildings. A curious anecdote of Lampridius (44) shews the emperor's acquaintance with Christian usages and also the antiquity of the practice of publishing to the congregation the names of those who sought ordination. In imitation of this the emperor caused the names of persons he was about to appoint to be published beforehand, exhorting any who had charges against them to come with proofs.

Strange to say, in later tradition the emperor, whom all writers near his time represent as a friend, nay almost a convert, to Christianity, whose chapel contained an image of Christ and whose household was filled with Christians (Eus. H. E. vi. 28), appears as a cruel persecutor. It is said that pope Callistus with many companions, St. Caecilia and her comrades, pope Urban I., and many others suffered in his reign, and that he personally took part in their martyrdom, On the other hand, no Father of the 3rd, 4th, or 5th cents. knows anything of such a persecution, but on the contrary agree in representing his reign as a period of peace. Firmilian (l.c.) testifies that before the persecution of Maximin the church had enjoyed a long peace, and Sulpicius Severus (ii. 32 in Patr. Lat. xx. 447) includes the reign of Alexander in the long peace lasting from Septimius Severus to Decius, broken only by the persecution of Maximin. Against this can be set only the evidence of late authors, such as Bede, Ado, and Usuard and unauthentic Acts of martyrs. The most famous of the alleged martyrs of this reign, St. Caecilia and her companions, are placed by other accounts in the reigns of M. Aurelius or Diocletian. All are given up by Tillemont except Callistus. His chief ground for considering him a martyr is that in the Depositio Martyrum, written in 354 (in Patr. Lat. cxxvii. 123), a Callistus is mentioned as martyred on Oct. 14, the day on which the pope is commemorated. Lipsius (Chronol. d. röm. Bischöfe, 177) acutely conjectures that this notice refers, not to the martyrdom, but to the confession of Callistus before Fuscianus mentioned by Hippolytus, as up to the Decian persecution the word "martyr" was still used in the wider sense. We may therefore conclude that all these accounts of persecutions and martyrdoms, so inconsistent with the known character of the emperor and passed over in silence by all authors for more than two cents. afterwards, are fictions of a later date.

[F.D.]

Severus (3) and Severians. [.]

Severus (12) Sanctus (Endelechius). Perhaps identical with the rhetorician mentioned in the subscription of the ''Cod. Flor.'' of Apuleius, as teaching at Rome in 395. He is the author of a Christian idyll, in Asclepiad metre, upon the subject of a great cattle-plague; possibly that mentioned by St. Ambrose (Comm. in Luc. x. 10). This plague occurred c. 376, which fact, together with the date assigned for Endelechius's teaching, and the possibility that he was the correspondent of St. Paulinus of Nola (Ep. xxviii. 6), would fix the date of the poem at the end of the 4th or beginning of the 5th cent. The poem is entitled "de Mortibus Boum," and written with some taste and a good deal of vigour. It represents certain herdsmen—apparently Aquitanians—discussing their fortunes in the general affliction. One of them asserts that his herds have been protected by the sign of the Cross and by his own belief in Christ. The others resolve to adopt a religion which, according to his account, is at once profitable and easy. The poem has been often edited: first by Pithoeus (Paris, 1586). It is in Wernsdorf,Poetae Lat. Min. ii.; Migne, xix. Cave, ''Hist. Litt. i. 290; Ebert, Gesch. der Chr.-Lat. Lit.''; Fabric. ''Bibl. Graeca,'' x. 626, 2nd ed.; Teuffel, vol. ii.

[H.A.W.]

Severus (18) Sulpicius, ecclesiastical historian in Gaul, belonging to a noble family of Aquitaine, born after 353. He became an advocate and married a woman of consular rank and wealth, who did not long survive the marriage. While yet in the flower of his age, c. 392, caressed and praised by all and eminent in his profession (Paulinus, Ep. v., Migne, Patr. Lat. lxi. 169–170), he braved his father's anger and the flouts of worldly acquaintances (ib. i. col. 154), and retired from the world. Thenceforth with a few disciples and servants he led a life of ascetic seclusion and literary activity. Where he abode is not quite certain, but probably at Primuliacum, a village between Toulouse and Carcassonne, where he built two churches (ib. Ep. xxxii.). It was probably an estate of his wife or mother-in-law, his father apparently having disinherited him (cf. Ep. ad Bassulam). According to Gennadius he was a priest, but this has been questioned, and his tone towards the bishops and clergy, against whom he constantly inveighs as vain, luxurious, self-seeking, factious foes of Christianity and envious persecutors of his hero St. Martin, lends countenance to the doubt (Hist. Sacr. ii. 32; Vita S Martini, 27; Dial. 1, 2, 9, 21, 24, 26). Later authors have believed him a monk, some of Marmoûtiers, Martin's foundation at Tours, others of Marseilles, whither he may have been driven by the Vandal invasion. This seems probable from c. i. of Dial. 1 (cf. also ii. 8). Gennadius asserts that in his old age he was deceived into Pelagianism, but recognizing the fault of loquacity, remained mute till his death, in order by penitential silence to correct the sin he had committed by much speaking. Others, from a passage in St. Jerome (in Ezech. c. xxxvi., Migne, Patr. Lat. xx. 85), have accused him of Millenarianism. At the Roman council held by pope Gelasius in 494 the Dialogi, under the name of Opuscula Postumiani et Galli, were certainly placed among the libri apocryphi (Mansi, viii. 151). The charge rested on Dial. ii. 14, where a strange theory as to the imminent appearance among