Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/810

Rh 798 SEVERUS. an insiription preserved by Muratori, Ulpiae. Severinae. Aug. Coiugi. d. n. Invict. Aure- LiANi. Aug. No details regarding her history imve been transmitted to us, but we learn from some Alexandrian coins that she survived her husband. (Eckhel, vol. vii. p. 487.) [W. R.] SEVE'RUS (Sey^pos). Greeks, literary and ec- clesiastical. The name of Severus, though of pure Latin original, passed into the East, and was borne by various writers, whose works, chiefly in Arabic, are still extant in MSS. Only three persons of the name, however, require notice here, the two haeresiarchs (Severus the Encratite and Severus of Antioch) and Severus the rhetorician. For the others the reader is referred to Assemani, Bih- liotheca Orientalis; Cave, Hist. Litt vol. ii. p. 106", ed. Oxford, 1740-43 ; and Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. X. p. 623, &c. 1. ACEPHALORUM PrINCEPS [No. 2.]. 2. Of Antioch. An eminent leader of the Mo- nophysites in the earlier part of the sixth century, whence he is designated Haeresiarcha and AcE- PHALUS (the Acephali, 'AKe</)aAoi, " the headless," were the stricter Monophysites, and were so called because they renounced the communion of Peter Mongus, the trimming head of their party), not to enumerate the other reproachful epithets heaped upon him by the members of the orthodox Greek and Latin churches. As a compensation for all this abuse, it may be observed that he enjoys, to this day, the highest reputation among the Jaco- bites of Syria and other parts of the East. He was born at Sozopolis, a town of Pisidia, in Asia Minor ; and was in early life a pleader at Berytus in Syria, being at that time a heathen. He is charged by his adversaries with having practised magic (Eva- grius, H. E. iii. 33 ; Epistola Orthodoxor. Episcop. Orienialium^ and Libellus Monachor. ad Mennam apud Condi, vol. v. col. 40, 120, 121, ed. Labbe). Having, however, embraced Christianity and been baptized in the church of St. Leontius, the Martyr, at Tripolis in Syria, he quitted the bar and devoted himself to a monastic life, in a monastery of Pales- tine, between Gaza and its portMaiuma. He appears to have embraced the Monophysite doctrine almost immediately after his conversion ; for he is charged (^Libellus Monachor. I. c.) with renouncing, before the days of his baptism were complete, the church into which he had been baptized ; " calling the holy temples of God receptacles of heresy and impiety" (ibid.). It is probable, and indeed Theophanes distinctly asserts it {Chronog. p. 241, ed. Bonn.), that the monastery to which he withdrew, was a monastery of the Monophysites ; and it was there that he met with Peter the Iberian, bishop of Gaza, a strenuous Monophysite and a follower of Timo- theus Aelurus [Timotheus], whose banishment he had shared. Severus was so earnest a Mo- nophysite that he rejected the Henoticon of the emperor Zeno [Zeno], and anathematized Peter Mongus, the more moderate Monophysite patriarch of Alexandria [Petrus, literary and ecclesias- tical. No. 22. J, because he received the Henoticon (Liberat. Breviar. c. 19). Severus ridiculed the emperor's edict in his writings, calling it not the Kenoticon {^k^vwtlk6v, " edict of vanity"), and Diaereticon {piaiperiKou., " edict of disunion "). From his monastery in Palestine, Severus appears to have removed to another monastery in Egypt, of which Nephalius was abbot. Possibly his ultra SEVERUS. opinions had rendered him a dangerous or a dis- agreeable inmate of his Palestinian monastery , and he hoped to find a more cordial welcome or a securer shelter with Nephalius. In this hope he was disappointed : Nephalius embraced the side of Council of Chalcedon, and Severus and others were expelled from the monastery (Evagr. I. c). Hereupon he fled to Constantinople, to plead his own cause and that of his fellow-sufferers ; and in this way became known to the emperor Anastasius, who had (a. d. 491) succeeded Zeno. Severus is charged (Libellus Monachor. I. c.) with exciting troubles in the city of Alexandria, and occasioning the burning of many houses and the slaughter of many citizens, though the city had aflbrded him a shelter " in his adversity : " but it is difficult to fix the time to which these charges refer. If he was in Alexandria after leaving the monastery in Palestine, and before entering that of Nephalius, the expression " in his adversity " intimates that he had been diven from his monastery in Palestine : but it is not unlikely that the disturbances at Alexandria may have been consequent on his ex- pulsion and that of his fellow-monks by Nepha- lius ; and the term " his adversity " may be un- derstood as referring to that expulsion. In what year Severus went to Constantinople, or how long he abode there, is not clear. Tillemont places his arrival in A. d. 510 ; but he probably re- lied on a passage in Theophanes (Chronog. ad a. m. 6002) which is ambiguous. The fellow-monks for whom Severus came to plead, were partisans of Peter Mongus [Petrus, No. 22.] ; and Severus, because he had formerly anathematized Peter, was reproached with inconsistency in taking their part (Liberat. l.c.). He appears to have been at Con- stantinople, A.D. 512; when, in consequence of the disturbances, excited on account of Flavian, patriarch of Antioch [Flavianus, Ecclesiastics, No. 2.], that prelate was deposed and banished to Petra in Idumaea (Evagr. H. E. iii. 32), and Anastasius eagerly seized the opportunity afforded by this vacancy to procure the appointment of Severus to the patriarchate. The appointment was most offensive to the orthodox party. Whe- ther Anastasius or Severus took any steps to abate its offensiveness is not clear. A letter of Epi- phanius, archbishop of Tyre, and some other pre- lates to the synod of Constantinople states it as a matter of common report, yet with a cautious ex- pression of doubt as to its truth, that Severus, before his consecration as patriarch, renounced the ordination to the office of presbyter, which he had received when among the Monophysites. This renunciation, if it really took place, implies that he was re-ordained to the priesthood by some orthodox prelate. Theodore Anagnostes or Lector (Hist. Eccles. ii. 31) states, on the authority of Joannes Diacrinomenus, or John the Dissenter [comp. Joannes, literary and ecclesiastical, No. 2.], that Anastasius obliged Severus to swear that he would not anathematize the Council of Chalcedon (comp. Synodicon^ apud Fabric. Bihlioih. Graec. vol. xii. p. 401, and apud Concilia., vol. iv. col. 1414) ; but that Severus on the very day of his consecration, which appears to have taken place at Antioch, yielded to the urgent solicitations of his Monoph}'- site friends, and, ascending the pulpit, publicly anathematized the Council, and afterwards (a. d. 413) obtained the confirmation of the anathema by a council which he assembled at Antioch {Sy-
 * ' Henoticon " {^vodt uc6v^ " edict of union"), but