PERSECUTION OF VALENS, OF GENNERIC, OF HUNNERIC, AND OTHER ARIAN KINGS
Sack Of Rome
IV.
PERSECUTION OF VALENS, OF GENNERIC, OF HUNNERIC, AND OTHER ARIAN
KINGS.
51. -Julian is made Emperor, and dies. 52.-Jovian Emperor; his Death.
53.-Valentinian and Valens Emperors. 54.-Death of Liberius. 55, 56.-Va-
lens puts eighty Ecclesiastics to Death his other Cruelties. 57. -Lucius
persecutes the Solitaries. 58.-Dreadful Death of Valens. 59 61 .-Perse
cution of Genseric. 62 64. -Persecution of Hunneric. 65.-Persecutioii
of Theodoric. 67, 68. -Persecution of Leovigild.
51. On the death of Constantius, the impious Julian the
Apostate succeeded to the Empire. At first he restored the
Catholic bishops to their sees, but he soon began to persecute
not only the bishops but the faithful in general, not because they
were Catholics, but because they were Christians, for he declared
himself an idolater and an enemy of Christ. He perished in the
Persian war in the year 363. He was engaged in the heat of
battle, when, beholding the Persians flying before his troops, he
raised his arm to cheer on his own soldiers to the pursuit, when
just at the moment, as Fleury relates, a Persian horseman let fly
an arrow, which went through his arm, his ribs, and deep into
the liver ; he tried to pull it out, and even wounded his fingers
in the attempt, but could not succeed, and fell over his horse.
He was borne off the field and some remedies applied, and he
felt himself so much better that he called for his horse and arms
again to renew the fight, but his strength failed him, and he died
on the same night, the 26th of June, being only thirty-one years
and six months old, and having reigned but one year and eight
months after the death of Constantius. Thodoret and Sozymen
relate that when he felt himself wounded he filled his hand with
blood and threw it up towards heaven, exclaiming, " Galilean,
thou hast conquered !" Theodoret likewise relates that St. Julian
Saba the Solitary, while lamenting the threats uttered by Julian
against the Church, suddenly turned to his disciples, with a
serene and smiling countenance, and said to them, The wild boar
which wasted the vineyard of the Lord is dead ! and when the
news of Julian s death afterwards reached them they found that
he died at the very hour the holy sage announced the fact to
them. Cardinal Orsi quotes the authority of the Chronicle of
Alexandria, which says that the horseman who executed the
Divine vengeance on Julian was the martyr St. Mercurius, who,
a hundred years previously suffered in the persecution of Decius,
and that this was revealed in a heavenly vision to St. Basil (1).
(1) Fk ury, t. 2, /. 14 & 15 ; Thcocl. /. 3; Philost. c. 2.
52. On the very day of Julian s death the soldiers assembled
and elected Jovian, the first among the Imperial guards, though
he was not general of the army ; he was much beloved for his fine
appearance and for his great valour, of which he gave frequent
proofs during the war. When Jovian was elected Emperor, he
said, As I am a Christian I cannot command idolaters, for the
army cannot conquer without the assistance of God. Then all
the soldiers cried out, Fear not, Emperor, you command
Christians. Jovian was delighted with this answer. He
accepted the truce for thirty years offered by the Persians,
and was most zealous in favouring the Catholics, opposing
both the Arians and Semi-Arians. He restored peace to the
Church, but it was of but short duration, for he died eight
months after his elevation to the Empire, in the 33rd year
of his age. The generality of authors, following St. Jerome*
attribute his death to want of caution in sleeping in a room in
which a large quantity of charcoal was burned, to dry the walls
which were newly plastered, and thus died one of the greatest
champions of the Church (2).
(2) Orsicit. Theod. Fleury, loc. cit, ; St. Ilicron,Ep. 60.
53. O n the death of Jovian, Valentinian was elected by the
army in 364. He was the son of Gratian, Prefect of the Pre-
torium, and he was banished by Julian, because, being a Christian,
he had struck the minister of the idols, who sprinkled him
with lustral water. He was solicited by the army to elect a
colleague, as the empire was attacked in various points by-
the barbarians, so he chose his brother Yalens, declared him
emperor, and divided the empire with him. Valentinian governed
the West, when the Church enjoyed a profound peace, and Va-
lens governed the East, where he kept up and even increased
the dissensions already too rife there, and treated the Catholics
with the greatest cruelty, as we shall shortly see.
54. Pope Liberius died in the year 366, and before his death
had the consolation of receiving a deputation in Rome of
several Oriental bishops, who were anxious to return to the unity
of the Church. Liberius sat for fourteen years, and notwith
standing the error he fell into by signing the formula of Sirmium,
he is called a pontiff whose memory is in benediction by St. Basil,
St. Epiphanius, and St. Ambrose. Orsi says that his name is
found in some Greek Martyrologies, and that he was venerated
by that Church as a saint, and Sandinus says that his name is
still in the Martyrologies of Bede and of Wandelbert. St.
Damasus, a man of great learning and sanctity, was elected
Pope, at his death, but he was troubled for many years by the
schism of Ursinus, commonly called Ursicinus, who sacri
legiously got himself elected Pope at the same time (3).
(3) Sulpicius, 1. 5 ; Fleury & Orsi,
55. We now come to the reign of Valens, who was even a
greater persecutor of the Church than Constantius. Eudosius,
an Arian bishop, had a great influence over him, and, from his
extraordinary anxiety to protect this bishop, he became a perse
cutor of the Catholics. Before he set out to undertake the war
against the Goths, he was baptized by Eudosius, and, just as he
was receiving the Sacrament, the bishop made him swear that he
would persecute and banish from the country all the defenders
of the Catholic faith ; and Valens fulfilled this impious oath
with dreadful exactness. The Arians, now strong in the Em
peror s favour, began to maltreat the Catholics, and these, not
being able to endure any longer the persecutions they were
subjected to, deputed eighty ecclesiastics of great piety to go to
Nicomedia, and implore Valens to put a stop to the violent
measures of their enemies. Valens was outrageous at this pro
ceeding, and commanded Modestes, Prefect of the Pretorium,
to put them all privately to death. This impious order was
barbarously obeyed by Modestes. He gave out that he was
only sending them into banishment, lest the people should be
incited to break out ; and he had them all put on board a ship,
and the sailors were ordered, when they were a good distance
from the land, so that no one could observe them, to set fire to
the vessel, and leave them to perish. The order, cruel as it was,
was obeyed the vessel was fired ; but the Almighty deranged
all their plans, for a strong wind immediately sprung up, and
blew the vessel on shore while it was still burning, and it was
then finally consumed (4).
(4) Fleury, ibid ; Theod. /. 4, c. 24 ;
cit. ; Sandinus; Vit, Pon. t. 1. Soz. L 6, c. 14; Soc. /. 4, c. 15.
56. Valens next sent many ecclesiastics of the Church of
Edessa into exile. It is well known how he strove to banish St.
Basil ; but the hand of the Lord miraculously prevented it, for
when he was about to sign the sentence, the pen was broken in
his hand, and his arm was paralyzed. He, likewise, persecuted
the Catholic followers of St. Meletius, and banished them from
the churches ; but these faithful Christians used to assemble at
the foot of a mountain, and there, exposed to the winter s snow
and rain, and the summer s sun, they praised God ; but even
then he dispersed them, and few cities in the empire but had to
deplore the tyranny of Valens, and the loss of their pastors.
St. Gregory of Nyssa gives a sad description of the desolation
caused by the tyrant in many provinces. When he came to
Antioch he put a great many to the torture, and ordered a
great many to be drowned, and sent off a very great multitude
into exile, into Palestine, Arabia, Lybia, and many other pro
vinces (5).
(5) Anctor. cit.
57. The holy solitaries of Syria and Egypt, by their lives
and miracles, were the great upholders of the faith of the people,
and were, on that account, particularly odious to Yalens. He,
therefore, issued a decree, directed against those champions of
the faith, obliging them to enrol themselves among his troops,
intending to punish them severely in case of disobedience, and
knowing well that they would not do as he ordained. Full scope
was given by this to the Arians, to gratify their malignity, at
the expense of these innocent men, and especially against the
monks of St. Basil. Phontonius, who usurped the see of Nico-
media, exercised horrible cruelties against the Catholics ; but
even he was surpassed by Lucius, the pretended Bishop of
Alexandria, who obtained possession of that see by cruelty, and
retained it by the same means. When the law of Valens that
the monks should bear arms was promulgated, Lucius left
Alexandria, and, accompanied by the commander of the troops
in Egypt, placed himself at the head of three thousand soldiers,
and went to the deserts of Nitria, where he found the monks,
not, indeed, prepared to fight, but to die for the love of Jesus
Christ, and he put whole companies of them to death, but five
thousand of them escaped his fury, and fled to a place of safety,
and concealed themselves. Wearied out with killing and tor
turing these holy men, Lucius now seized on their chiefs, Isidore,
Heraclides, Macarius of Alexandria, and Macarius of Egypt, and
banished them to a marshy island in Egypt, where all the inha
bitants were idolaters ; but when they arrived at the shore, a
child possessed by the devil was thrown at their feet, and the
devil cried out " O, servants of the true God, why do you come
to drive us from this place, which we have possessed so long."
They prayed over the child, cast forth the devil, and restored
the infant to his parents, and were received with the greatest
joy hy the people, who threw down the old temple of the idols
they previously adored, and hegan to build a church in honour
of the true God. When the news of this transaction was told in
Alexandria, the people all cried out against their impious bishop,
Lucius, who, they said, was warring, not against man, but
against God, and he was so terrified with the popular excitement,
that he gave the solitaries permission to return again to their
deserts (6).
(6) St. Hieron. Chron. ; St. Taulin. Ep. 29; Auetor. antea. cit.
58. Valens was overtaken by the Divine vengeance in 378.
The Goths extended their ravages to the very gates of Constan
tinople, and he was so lost to shame, that he thought of nothing
all the while but enjoying himself in his capital. The people
began to murmur loudly at this state of inaction, and he, at
last, roused himself, and marched against the enemy. Theodoret
relates, that, as he was leaving the city, a holy monk, called
Isaac, who lived in the neighbourhood, thus addressed him :
" Where are you going to, Emperor, after having made war
against God ? Cease to war with the Almighty, and he will
put an end to the war raging against you ; but should you not
do so, mark my words, you will go to battle, but the vengeance
of God will pursue you you will lose your army, and never
return here again." "I will return," said Valens, in a rage,
" and your life shall pay for your audacity ;" and he imme
diately ordered that he should be sent to prison. The hermit s
prophecy turned out too true. When Valens arrived in presence
of the Goths, their king, Fritigern, sent him an embassy, asking
for peace, and leave to establish himself and his people in
Thraee. The Emperor rejected his offer ; and, on the 9th of
August, 378, both armies were drawn up in front of each other,
and Fritigern again made proposals of peace. But while the
Romans were deliberating on their answer, the division of
Bacurius, Prince of the Iberians, was attacked, and the battle
became general ; and never, since the slaughter at Canne, did
the Romans suffer such losses as on that day. When the night
closed, Yalens mixed himself up with some of his soldiers and
fled, thinking thus to conceal himself ; but he was wounded with
an arrow, and fell from his horse, and was brought by his
soldiers into the hut of a peasant by the way-side. He was
scarcely there when a troop of Goths, looking for plunder,
arrived, and, without knowing who was inside, endeavoured to
break open the door ; but when they could not succeed at once
in doing so, they set fire to the hut, and went away, and the
unhappy Valens was burned alive in the fifteenth year of his
reign and the fiftieth of his age. This was, as Orosius writes, a
just judgment of God : the Goths asked Valens for some bishops,
to instruct them in the Christian religion, and he sent them
Arians, to infect the poor people with their impious heresy ; and
so they were justly appointed afterwards, as ministers of the
Divine justice, to punish him. On the death of Yalens, Gratian
became master of the whole empire, and this good prince
gave liberty to the Catholics of the East, and peace to the
Church (7).
(7) Orsi, cit. ; St. Pros, in Chron.
59. We now have to treat of the persecution of the Catholics
of Africa by Genseric, the Arian King of the Vandals. He com
menced persecuting the Catholics in the year 437, with the
intention of making Arianism the religion of all Africa, as St.
Prosper writes. Immediately after conquering Carthage, he
commenced a most cruel war against the Catholics, plundered
the churches, and gave them as habitations to his vassals, after
banishing the priests, and taking away the sacred vessels ; and,
intending to have no religion but Arianism, he drove the bishops,
not alone out of their churches, but out of the cities, and put
many to death. He would not permit the Catholics, on the
death of St. Deogratias, to elect another Bishop of Carthage,
and he prohibited all ordinations in the province of Zeugitania,
and in the Pro-consulate, where there were sixty -four bishoprics ;
the effect of this order was, that, at the end of thirty years,
there were only three bishops in the province, and two of these
were banished, and the third fled to Edessa. Cardinal Orsi,
following the historian of the Vandalic persecution, says that the
number of martyrs was very great. The history of four
brothers, in particular, slaves of one of Genseric s officers, is
very interesting : These martyrs, finding it impossible to serve
God according to their wishes in the house of their Vandal
master, fled, and took refuge in a monastery near the city of
Trabacca ; but their master never ceased till he found them out,
and brought them back to his house, where he loaded them with
chains, put them in prison, and never ceased to torture them.
When Genseric heard of it, instead of blaming the master for
his cruelty, he only encouraged him to continue it, and the
tyrant beat them with branches of the palm tree to that
pitch, that their bones and entrails were laid bare ; but, though
this was done many days in succession, the following days they
were always found miraculously healed. He next shut them
up in a narrow prison, with their feet in stocks made of heavy
timber ; but the beams of the instrument were broken in pieces,
like twigs, the next day. When this was told to Genseric, he
banished them to the territories of a Pagan king, in the deserts
of Africa. The inhabitants of their place of exile were all
Pagans, but these holy brothers became apostles among them,
and converted a great number ; but, as they had no priest, some
of them made their way to Rome, and the Pope yielded to their
wishes, and sent a priest among them, who baptized a great
number. When Genseric heard this, he ordered that each of
the brothers should be tied to a car by the feet, and dragged
through the woods till dead, and the barbarous sentence was
executed. The very barbarians wept when they saw these
innocent men thus torn to pieces, but they expired praying
and praising God in the midst of their torments. They are
commemorated in the Roman Martyrology, on the 14th of
October (8).
(8) Fleury, /. 4; Baron. An. 437 & 456 ; Orsi, cit.
60. Genseric was daily becoming more inimical to the Church,
and he sent a person called Proculus into the province of
Zeugitania, to force the bishops to deliver up the holy Books and
all the sacred vessels, with the intention of more easily under
mining their faith, when deprived, as it were, of their arms. The
bishops refused to give them up, and so the Vandals took every
thing by force, and even stripped the cloths off the altars, and made
shirts of them, but the Divine vengeance soon overtook Proculus,
for he died raving mad, after eating away his own tongue. The
Arians even frequently trampled the Holy Sacrament under their
feet in the Catholic Church. When the Catholics were deprived of
their church they secretly opened another in a retired place, but
the Arians soon heard of it, and collecting a body of armed men
under the leadership of one of their priests, they attacked the
faithful in their church; some rushed in at the door, sword in
hand, others mounted up to the roof with arrows, and killed a
great many before the altar ; a great many took to flight, but they
were afterwards put to death in various ways by order of Genseric.
61. Genseric next issued a decree, that no one should be
admitted into his palace, or that of his son, unless he was an
Arian, and then, as Victor Vitensis informs us, a person called
Armogastes, who was in the court of Theodoric, one of the sons
of Genseric, signalized himself for his constancy in the faith.
Theodoric tried every means to make him apostatize, but in vain ;
he first made him promises of preferment; he next threatened
him, and he then subjected him to the most cruel torments. He
had his head and legs bound with cords twisted with the greatest
possible force; he then was hung up in the air by one leg,
with his head down, and when all this could not shake his
constancy, he ordered him to be beheaded. He knew, however,
that Armogastes would be venerated as a martyr by the Catholics,
if this sentence were carried into execution, so he changed the
sentence, and compelled him to dig the earth, and tend a herd of
cows. While Armogastes was one day engaged in this humble
employment under a tree, he begged a friend, a Christian of
the name of Felix, to bury him after his death at the foot of that
tree ; he died in a few days after ; and when his friend, in
compliance with his request, set about digging his grave, he found
in the spot a marble tomb, beautifully finished, and there he
buried him. The name of St. Armogastes is marked in the
Roman Martyrology on the 29th of March, and Archiminus and
Saturus, who suffered likewise, are commemorated with him.
Genseric used every artifice with Archiminus to cause him to
apostatize, but when he could not shake his faith, he gave orders
that he should be beheaded; but there was a private condition
annexed ; that was, that if he showed any symptoms of fear, the
sentence should be executed ; but if no terror could be remarked
on him at the moment, that his life should be spared, lest he
should be venerated as a martyr by the Catholics. He awaited
death with the greatest intrepidity, and he was, consequently,
spared. Saturus was in thejservice of Hunneric, the king s eldest
son, and he was threatened with confiscation of his entire property,
if he did not become an Arian; he yielded neither to the threats of
the tyrant, or to the tears of his wife, who came to see him one day
with his four children, and threw herself weeping at his feet, and
embracing his knees, besought him to have pity on her and her
poor children; but Saturus, unmoved, said; my "dear wife, if
you loved me you would not tempt me to send myself to hell ; they
may do with me as they please, but I will never forget the words
of my Divine Master, that no one can be his disciple, unless he
leaves all things to follow him. He thus remained firm, and he
was despoiled of every thing. Genseric died at length, in the
year 477, the fiftieth of his reign over the Vandals, 1 ; and forty-
nine years after his landing in Africa. He made Hunneric heir
to his kingdom, and settled the succession so that the oldest
decendant of his, in the male line, should always be king.
62. Hunneric, in the beginning of his reign, reigned with
clemency, but he soon showed the innate cruelty of his disposition,
and he commenced with his own relatives. He put to death his
brother Theodoric, and his young child, and he would likewise
have put his other brother, Genton, out of the way, only he:had
the good fortune to be forewarned, and saved himself. He now
began to persecute the Catholics ; he commanded the holy bishop
Eugenius, that he should not preach any more, and that he should
allow no one, either man or woman, into the church. The saint
answered that the church was open for all, and that he had no
power to prohibit any one from entering. Hunneric then placed
executioners at the door of the church, with clubs stuck over
with spikes, and these tore off not only the hair but even the
scalp of the persons who went in, and such violence was used
that some lost their sight, and even some lost their lives. He
sent away noblemen into the fields to reap the corn ; one of these
had a withered hand, so that he could not work, but he was
still obliged to go, and by the prayers of his companions, the
Almighty restored him the use of it. He published a decree
that no one should be allowed to serve in the palace, or
hold any public employment, if he were not an Arian ; and
those who refused obedience to this iniquitous order, were
despoiled of their properties, and banished into Italy and
Sardinia; he likewise ordered that all the property of the
Catholic bishops should go to the Crown after their death, and
that no successor could be consecrated to any deceased bishop,
until he paid five hundred golden crowns. He had all the nuns
collected together, and caused them to be tormented with burning
plates of iron, and to be be hung up with great weights to their
feet, to force them to accuse the bishops and priests of having
had criminal intercourse with them ; many of them died in these
torments, and those who survived, having their skin burned up,
were crooked all their lives after.
63. He banished to the desert, between bishops, priests,
deacons, and lay people, altogether four thousand nine hundred
and seventy-six Catholics, and many among them were afflicted
with gout, and many blind with age ; Felix, of Abbitirus, a bishop,
was for forty-four years paralyzed, and deprived of all power of
moving, and even speechless. The Catholic bishops, not knowing
how to bring him along with them, begged of the King to allow
him to wear out the few days he had to live, in Carthage ; but the
barbarian answered : if he cannot go on horseback let him be tied
with a rope, and dragged on by oxen ; and they were obliged to
carry him, thrown across a mule, like a log of wood. In the com
mencement of their journey they had some little liberty, but in a
little while they were treated with the greatest cruelty ; they
were shut up together in a very narrow prison, no one allowed
to visit them, crowded together one almost over the other, and
no egress allowed for a moment, so that the state of the prison
soon became horribly infectious; and, as Victor the historian
relates, no torment could equal what they suffered up to their
knees in the most horrible filth, and there alone could they sit
down, sleep, and eat the little quantity of barley given to them
for food, without any preparation, as if they were horses. At
length they were taken out of that prison, or rather sink, and
conveyed to their destination ; the aged, and those who were too
weak to walk, were driven on with blows of stones, and prodded
with lances, and when nature failed them, and they could not move
on any longer, the Moors tied them by the feet, and dragged
them on through stones and briars, as if they were carcases of
beasts, and thus an immense number of them died, leaving the
road covered with their blood.
64. In the year 483, according to Floury and N. Alexander,
Hunneric, wishing to destroy Catholicity altogether in Africa,
commanded that there should be a conference held in Carthage
between the Catholics and the Arians. The bishops, not alone
of Africa, but of the Islands subject to the Vandals, assembled
there, but as Cyril, the Arian Patriarch, dreaded that his sect
would be ruined by the conference, it did not take place. The King
was now highly incensed against the Catholics, and he privately
sent an edict to all the provinces, while he had the bishops in
Carthage, and on one and the same day all the churches of Africa
were closed, and all the property belonging both to the churches
and the Catholic bishops was given over to the Arians,
following in that the decree, laid down for the punishment of
heretics in the laws of the Emperors. This barbarous decree
was put into execution, and the bishops, despoiled of all they
possessed, were driven out of Carthage, and all persons were
ordered to give them neither food nor shelter, under pain of
being burned themselves, and their houses along with them.
Uunneric, at last, in the year 484, after committing so many acts
of tyranny, and killing so many Catholics, closed his reign and
his life by a most horrible death he died rotten, and eaten up
alive by a swarm of worms ; all his entrails fell out, and he tore
his own flesh in a rage with his teeth, so that he was even
buried in pieces. He was not altogether eight years on the
throne when he died, and he had not even the satisfaction to leave
the throne to his son Hilderic, for whom he had committed such
slaughter in his family, because, according to the will of his
father, Genseric, the crown descended to Guntamond, the son of
his brother Genton ; and he was succeeded, in 496, by Trasamond,
who endeavoured to extirpate Catholicity totally in Africa, about
the year 504. Among his other acts, he banished two hundred
and twenty-four bishops, and among them was the glorious
St. Fulgentius. On the death of Trasamond, in 523, he was
succeeded by Hilderic, a prince, as Procopius writes, affable to
his subjects, and of a mild disposition. This good King, Graveson
tells us, was favourable to the Catholic Religion, and he recalled
St. Fulgentius and the other exiled bishops, and granted the free
exercise of their religion to all the Catholics of his kingdom ; but
in the year 530, he was driven out of his kingdom by Glimere, an
Arian, and then it was that the Emperor Justinian, to revenge
his intimate friend, Hilderic, declared war against Glimere ; and his
general, Belisarius, having conquered Carthage and the principal
cities, and subjected all Africa once more to the Roman Emperor,
the Arians were banished, and the churches restored to the
Catholics (10).
(10) Fleury, Orsi, Nal. /. con; Graveson, His. Eccles. t. 3, Procopius, /. 1,
cle Bellow. Vand.
65. There were other persecutions by the Arians, after the
death of Hunneric. Theodoric, King of Italy, and son of Theo-
domire, King of the Ostrogoths, was also an Arian, and persecuted
the Catholics till his death, in the year 526. He ought, however,
to be lauded for always keeping in his employment honest and
learned ministers. One of them was the great Boetius, a man of
profound learning, and a true Christian ; but through the envy of
his calumniators, he was cast into prison by his sovereign, and
after being kept there a long time, was, at last, without being
given an opportunity of defending himself, put to death in
horrible torments, his head being tied round with a cord, and
that twisted till his eyes leaped out of their sockets. Thus died
Boetius, the great prop of the faith in that age, in the year 524,
and the fifty-fifth of his age. Theodoric likewise put to death
Symmachus, a man of the highest character, in a most barbarous
manner ; and his crime was, that he was son-in-law to Boetius, and
the tyrant dreaded that he would conspire against his kingdom.
He also caused the death of the holy Pope John, in prison, by
privations and starvation, and this holy man is venerated
since in the Church as a martyr. Some inculpate this
pontiff, for having induced the pious Emperor, Justin, to restore
the churches to the Arians, but others deny his having done so.
Cardinal Orsi says, that a great deal of obscurity hangs over the
transactions of this age ; but, taking the anonymous commentator
on Valesius as a guide, he does not think that the Pope
obtained the restitution to the Arians of all their churches, but
only of such as they were already in possession of, or such as were
deserted, and not consecrated ; and that he did this only that
Theodoric might rest satisfied with this arrangement, and leave
the Catholics in possession of their churches, and not turn them
out, and give them up to the Arians, as it was feared he would.
But Noel Alexander, Baronius, and Orsi himself and with these
Berti agrees say, with more likelihood, that St. John refused to
solicit the Emperor, at all, for the restitution of the churches to
the Arians, and that this is proved from his second epistle to
the Italian Bishops, in which he tells them, that he consecrated,
and caused to be restored to the Catholics in the East, all the
churches in possession of the Arians ; and, it was on that account
that he was put into prison by Theodoric, on his return to Italy,
and died there on the 27th of May, 526, worn out with sufferings.
66. Theodoric, not satisfied with those acts of tyranny, as the
above-mentioned anonymous writer informs us, published an
edict on the 26th of August, giving to the Arians all the Catholic
churches ; but God, at length, had pity on the faithful, and he
removed him by a sudden death. A dreadful flux brought him
to death s door in three days ; and on the very Sunday in which
his decree was to be put into execution, he lost his power and his
life. A cotemporaneous historian gives a curious account of the
beginning of his sickness. He was going to supper, and the head
of a big fish was placed before him ; he immediately imagined
that he saw the head of Symmachus, whom he had a little before
put to death, and that it threatened him with eyes of fury. He
was dreadfully alarmed ; and, seized with sudden terror, he took
to his bed, and told his physician, Elpidius, what he imagined ;
he then regretted sincerely his cruelty to Boetius and Symmachus,
and between agitation of mind, and the racking of his bowels, he
was soon dead. St. Gregory writes, that a certain hermit, in
the island of Lipari, saw him in a vision after his death, bare
footed, and stripped of all his ornaments, between St. John and
Symmachus, and that they brought him to the neighbouring
Volcano, and cast him into the burning crater.
67. Leovigild, king of the Visigoths, in Spain, was likewise
an Arian ; he had two sons by his first wife, Ilermcngild and
Rcccarede, and he married a second time, Goswind, the widow of
another King of the Visigoths. He married his son Hermengild
to Ingonda, who was a Catholic, and refused to allow herself to
be baptized by the Arians, as her mother-in-law Goswind, herself
an Arian, wished. Not being able to induce her, by fair means, to
consent, Goswind seized her one day by the hair, threw her on
the ground, kicked her, and covered her over with blood, and
then stripped her violently, and threw her into a fountain
of water, to re-baptize her by force ; but nothing could induce
her to change her faith, and she even converted her husband
Hermengild. When Leovigild heard this, he commenced a perse
cution against the Catholics ; many were exiled, and their pro
perties confiscated ; others were beaten, imprisoned, and stoned
to death, or put out of the way by other cruelties. Seven
bishops were also banished, and the churches were deprived of
their possessions. Hermengild was cast into prison by his father,
and, at the festival of Easter, an Arian bishop came to give him
communion, but he refused to receive it from his hand, and
sent him off as a heretic ; his father then sent the executioners to
put him to death, and one of them split open his head with a
hatchet. This took place in the year 586, and this holy prince
has been since venerated as a martyr.
68. The impious Leovigild did not long survive his son ; he
deeply regretted having put him to death ; and, as St. Gregory
tells us, was convinced of the truth of the Catholic religion, but
had not the grace to embrace it, as he dreaded the vengeance of
his people. Fleury, nevertheless, quotes many authorities to
prove that Leovigild spent a week before his death, deploring
the crimes he committed, and that he died a Catholic in the year
587, the eighteenth of his reign. He left the kingdom to his
son Reccarede, who became a Catholic, and received the
sacrament of Confirmation in the Catholic church; and such
was his zeal for the faith, that he induced the Arian bishops,
and the whole nation of the Visigoths, to embrace it, and deposed
from his employment, and cashiered from his army, all heretics.
The beginning of his reign was thus the end of the Arian heresy
in Spain, where it reigned from the conquest of that country
by the barbarians, an hundred and eighty years before, in the
beginning of the fifth century ; and when the Emperor Justinian,
by the victories of Belisarius, became master of Africa, about
the year 535 (chap. 4, No. 64), the Catholic faith was also
re-established. The Burgundians, in Gaul, forsook the Arian
heresy under the reign of Sigismund, the son and successor of
King Gontaband, who died in 516. Sigismund was converted
to the faith in 515, by St. Avitus, Bishop of Vienne. The
Lombards in Italy abandoned Arianism, and embraced the
Catholic faith under their King, Bimbert, in 660, and have
since remained faithful to the Church. Danaeus thus concludes
his essay on the heresy of the Arians : " This dreadful hydra,
the fruitful parent of so many evils, was then extinguished, but
after the lapse of about nine hundred years, in about the year
1530, was again revived in Poland and Transylvania, by modern
Arians and Antitrinitarians, who, falling from bad to worse, have
become far worse than the ancient Arians, and are confounded
with Deists and Socinians "(11).
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