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[German Version] (469/470, Chalon-sur-Saône – Aug 24, 542, Arles). At the age of 20, Caesarius entered the famous island monastery of Lérins in southern Gaul, where he was noted for his particularly ascetic life. Sent to Arles to recover his health, which had suffered from his asceticism, he was ordained priest by Aeonius, the bishop of Arles, made abbot of the monastery of Trinquetaille on an island in the Rhone, and designated as Aeonius's successor. For 40 yea…

[German Version] (5th cent.). This was the title given to an anonymous work by its first editor, J. Sirmond, in 1643. The work, in three books, was written in Rome during the pontificate of Sixtus III (432–440). The first book is a catalogue of 90 heresies, essentially based on Augustine of Hippo’s De haeresibus, with a few added groups like the Tertullianists and Nestorians (Syria), and ending with the Predestinarians. The second, falsely ascribed to Augustine, presents a radical doctrine of predestination by one of the adherents of this theology…

[German Version] (feast day Jun 19). The relics of the martyrs Gervasius and Protasius were discovered by Bishop Ambrose of Milan in the basilica of the martyrs Felix and Nabor in Milan through a vision on Jun 17, 386. On Jun 19 he had them brought to the Basilica Ambrosiana (modern San Ambrogio) and interred under the high altar, where they can still be seen alongside the relics of Ambrose himself. The circumstances of their discovery and the miraculous healings that accompanied their translation are described by Ambrose in the last of his collected letters ( Epist. 77) and his hymn devot…

[German Version] (1st half of 5th cent.; place uncertain) Anianus defended Pelagius at the Synod of Diosopolis (415) and wrote (before 419) a no longer extant polemic against Jerome (cf. Jer. Ep. 143, 2 [to Augustine and Alypius]: Pseudodiaconus celedensis). He is to be identified with the only 5th-century translator of John Chrysostom mentioned by name, although the extent of his contribution (presumably large) to the Latin Chrysostomica remains unclear, in the absence of a critical edition; besides the 25 Homiliae in Matthaeum (translated 419/420) and the 7 Homiliae de laudibus S…

[German Version] (4th/5th cent.). Paulinus was a deacon and secretary of Ambrose before he went to North Africa as administrator of church property. There he wrote a Vita Sancti Ambrosi in 422 (or earlier, in 412/413) at the suggestion of Augustine, taking as his model the lives of the famous monks Anthony, Paul, and Martin. In line with hagiographical conventions, he gave much space to miraculous episodes, but as an eye-witness at least of Ambrose’s last years, and supported by documents from the Milan archive and reports …

[German Version] Gaudentius of Brescia, bishop of Brescia (from before 397 until after 406). Chosen to succeed bishop Philastrius during a trip to the East, Gaudentius assumed this office only under pressure from his friend Ambrose of Milan and worked there for 14 years. In 405, along with two other bishops, he was sent on an official mission to Constantinople to intervene, albeit unsuccessfully, for John Chrysostom. Rufinus (Rufinus, Tyrannius) dedicated his translation of the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitiones to Gaudentius. At the wish of the imperial official Benvolus,…

[German Version] (4th cent. ce). The earliest mention of the patron saint of Verona (church of San Zeno Maggiore), according to local tradition its eighth bishop, is in a letter of uncertain date from Ambrose, bishop of Milan, to Zeno’s successor Syagrius ( Ep. 56[=5].1). There are no further references to his life. His polemic against Arianism (Arius) and paganism suggest a floruit in the second half of the 4th century. An African background deduced from his language and veneration of a Mauritanian saint is disputed. A collection of ser…

[German Version] (473/474, Arles – 521, Pavia). Born into a prominent household in Arles and raised in Pavia, Ennodius began serving the bishop of Milan, Laurentius, after his ordination to the diaconate c. 496. As bishop of Pavia from 513, he twice led a papal delegation to Constantinople (515 and 517) to seek a reconciliation in the so-called Acacian Schism (Acacius of Constantinople), though without …