Baring-Gould’s sources: No mention in any ancient Martyrology. But inserted in the modern Roman Martyrology. Authority His own writings.] This saint was of illustrious family in Gaul; whether he was born at Arles or at Pavia is not certain. He was educated at Milan, where he studied elocution and poetry, living in the house of his aunt till her death, when he married a lady of wealth. He lived a careless life at first, but was struck with compunction, and with the consent of his wife lived thenceforth as a celibate, and took on him deacon’s orders, which were conferred on him by S. Epiphanius of Pavia.
In the furious contest between the rivals Symmachus and Laurence for the papal throne, S. Ennodius took part with the former, and after the Palmary Council, which acquitted Symmachus, had been impeached by the partisans of Laurence, S. Ennodius took up his pen to vindicate its decisions in an Apology, as he thought, eloquent, and therefore in parts altogether unintelligible.
In the East the formidable Scythian Vitalianus had raised the standard of rebellion and of orthodoxy against the aged Emperor Anastasius, suspected of Eutychian [followers of Eutyches, who said Christ had only a divine nature; condemned at Chalcedon in 451] leanings, but certainly striving to maintain religious peace on the basis of the Henoticon. Some account of this emperor has already been given in this jaiy * volume. 1 He was married to Ariadne, daughter of one emperor, widow of another. His one green, the other blue eye, was taken as a sign that his faith was not orthodox, his favour of the blue faction in the racecourse threw the green faction which had been favoured by Zeno, into hostility.
Anastasius wrote to pope Hormisdas, who, on the death of Symmachus in 514, had succeeded him on the papal throne, and proposed the summoning of a council at Heraclea. The project of the council dropped, but Hormisdas sent a deputation to Constantinople, consisting of four ambassadors, of whom Ennodius, now bishop of Pavia (a.d. 515), formed one. The instructions wherewith they were furnished are extant, a remarkable manual of ecclesiastical diplomacy in a nice and difficult affair. The great question which divided the East and the West at this time related to the dead patriarch [the title of the bishops of the great ancient sees: Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem] Acacius, the recognition by the emperor that he had been justly anathematized, and frank acceptance of the Tome of S. Leo and the decrees of Chalcedon. The legates were to demand of the emperor five things, without which the schism between the East and West could not be healed; 1st, his unequivocal assent to the Council of Chalcedon, and to the letters of S. Leo. If he yielded this point, they were to express their gratitude and to kiss the emperoris breast. Then, 2ndly, they were to require him to demand the same assent from all the clergy of the East; and to compel all to union with Rome. 3rdly, he was to anathematize Nestorius [Nestorius (d. c. 451), whose teaching split Christ into two persons; condemned at Ephesus in 431], Eutyches, Dioscorus, and all maintained of the Henoticon, Timothy the Weasel, patriarch of Alexandria, Peter the Stammerer, of Alexandria, Acacius, formerly bishop of Constantinople, and Peter 1 See Life of S. Flavian of Antioch, July 4. the Fuller of Antioch. 4th, the immediate recall from exile of all ecclesiastics who had refused the Henoticon, and were therefore in union with Rome; and lastly, that all who had ill-treated and wronged these latter should be tried and judged by the Apostolic See. On the full acceptance of these terms, Hormisdas consented to honour the future Council at Heraclea with his personal presence, not to deliberate, but to ratify his own solemn determination.
But Anastasius was not reduced to such extremities as to submit to such conditions as these. The memory of the gentle, peace-loving Acacius, was dear to the people of Constantinople. Anastasius expressed his entire acceptance of the decrees of Chalcedon, but refused to condemn Acacius. Why, he asked, should the living be kept excommunicated on account of the dead? The terms of Hormisdas could not be enforced without much bloodshed.
The embassy returned to Rome. Anastasius promised to send after it a deputation of bishops to the pope. Next year the deputation arrived, but it consisted of laymen, accredited to the Senate as well as to the Pope. Hormisdas treated these lay ambassadors, who presumed to interfere in ecclesiastical affairs, with contempt. The Senate made answer that no agreement could be come to, no hope of the establishment of peace be entertained, till the name of Acacius was struck out of the diptychs.
The Pope sent Ennodius with another legate [an official representative sent by the pope], Peregrinus of Misenum, on a second embassy to Constantinople, insisting sternly on the memory of Acacius being blotted out of public record in the prayers of the Church. That name on the diptychs barred union between the East and West. To pray for Acacius was 5. Ennodius.
a token that he was regarded as within the reach of the mercy of God, that his damnation was not an established fact. But Anastasius was now more secure upon his throne, the power of his rebellious antagonist, Vitalianus, had failed. He refused to abandon, to reprobate, the memory of Acacius, whom he had loved and revered. “We may submit to insult,” said the emperor, “ we may endure that our decrees be annulled, but we will not be commanded. Hormisdas must await the accession of a new emperor, before the churches of Rome and Byzantium are re-united by the sacrifice of him who, besides his communion with the Eutychians, dared to equal himself with the successor of S. Peter.” Then he drove the legates from his presence. They were dismissed through a back door, and embarked under the charge of the magistrini, and two prefects, Heliodonus and Demetrius, who were given strict orders not to suffer them to enter any city. But Ennodius and his companions found means to circulate their protests and send them to the bishops, who, however, sent them to the emperor.
The legates returned to Italy, and the strife shortly after ended with the death of Anastasius in the midst of a thunderstorm. * S. Ennodius resumed his pastoral work at Pavia; and showed great zeal in the conversion of souls, in succouring the needy, and in the building and adorning of churches. He composed poems on the Blessed Virgin, S. Cyprian, S. Stephen, S. Dionysius of Milan, S. Ambrose [bishop of Milan (d. 397)], S. Euphemia, S. Nazarius, S. Martin [St. Martin of Tours (d. 397), soldier turned bishop], on the Mysteries of Pentecost and the Ascension, on a baptistry he had adorned with pictures of martyrs whose relics [the bodily remains of a saint, or objects they used, kept with honor] were laid in it. He wrote two new forms of benediction for the Paschal candle, and an Eucharisticon, or Thanksgiving, in which he gives a short account of his life, especially of his conversion, and how, through the intercession of S. Victor, to whom he bore great devotion, he had obtained his wife’s consent to his taking the vow of celibacy.
He died on August 1st, 521, at the age of forty-eight.
