ENNODIUS, BISHOP OF PAVIA.
Rambach says, in his Anthology, that none of the hymns of Ennodius have
been adopted by the Church. “Nor have I,” adds Daniel, “found in any
breviary a verse of Ennodius. Yet,” he continues, “since there are many
of them in the collection of Thomasius, which have been taken from the
Mozarabic Breviary, it seems to me certain that in some countries they
were formerly employed by the Church.” Some corruption has also taken
place in the text. And, in short, these hymns have never appeared either
devout or original enough to secure the suffrages of the faithful.
The reason for their emptiness is not far to seek. Their author was a
man of great celebrity but of little piety. His reputation, too, is that
of an ardent ecclesiast, who managed to climb the heights of saintship
by working in the interest of the Roman pontiff. He labored to maintain
the supremacy of the Pope—upon whom, it is said, on good authority, that
he was the first to bestow the world-wide appellation of Papa (Pope)—and
to effect the union under this one religious head of both Greek and
Roman churches. To this single cause, with its double aspect, Ennodius
gave his talents and his zeal. He was so far successful that he gained
honor and position for himself, however he was prospered in his other
plans.
He was a person of sufficient prominence for Italy and Gaul to contest
the honor of his birth. It would appear, however, that Gaul has the best
title to whatever credit his nationality may give. The works on
hymnology do not mention him, and the only notices of his life and
writings are to be found in out-of-the-way corners of books on Latin
literature and in the controversial pages of Church historians. Those
who attack and those who defend the papal claims, are in the habit of
mentioning the two embassies of Ennodius as notable points in their
argument; but the man is lost from sight in the paramount importance of
his mission. It cannot be so with us, to whom his personal character is
the topic of interest, and who care only for his circumstances as these
develop him to us upon his hymnologic side.
Ennodius has himself informed us that he regarded Arles as his native
place. We also know that he was born in 473, because he died in 521 at
the age of forty-eight. His family was highly respectable, if, indeed,
it was not actually illustrious. Our poet always shows a familiarity
with the affairs of good society; and in those times good society had
only one meaning. It was a society which educated its scions in the
polite learning of Greece and Rome, and which made much of the ability
to speak and write the Latin tongue. It is scarcely to be questioned
that this was the theory on which the early education of Ennodius
proceeded. He was sent to Milan in order to become versed in what was
called humane learning. If he is himself to be believed he acquired both
bad and good in this school. He laments with a mock humility (for so it
would appear by his later literary derelictions) that he had obtained a
great deal of wicked and ungodly information; and really no one can read
some of his nasty epigrams and doubt his assertion. For, whether it was
permissible to a saint or not, it is a fact, that the editors of his
works have not scrupled to print some exceedingly profane and improper
pieces which are undoubtedly the product of his pen.
His aunt, who was bearing the cost of this admirable instruction, died
in 489—that is, when he was sixteen—and he was left without means to
proceed with his studies. He avows that he had come to detest the very
name of liberal education, and this, under the circumstances, cannot
well be regarded as anything very surprising. We soon after find him
married to a lady who is described as of a “most noble” and therefore
highly appropriate family. She was, moreover, “very rich”—another
satisfactory point. With this wealthy and fashionable wife, Ennodius
rapidly obtained a view of earth, and what earth can give, which was so
far limited in that the money did not equal the desires of the married
pair. It ran low and the bitterness of financial perplexities mingled
with the cup of their happiness. Judging the husband by his epigrams he
was pretty fairly exhausted by the speed of their career, and was quite
ready to shake off the encumbrance of a family and devote himself to the
lofty purpose of being supported by somebody else. An unprejudiced mind
fails to see in this any particular “admonition” or “example” to his
age. It is merely the selfish escape of a worldly but embarrassed man.
Divorces were not available then with the ease with which a less
scrupulous and more intellectual generation can now procure them. The
proper, and, indeed, the meritorious way, was to slip into a cloister
and become one of that vast army which was soon to be the tower of
strength of the Pope. He himself ascribes this step to a serious illness
in which he had been healed through the miraculous interposition of St.
Victor, after the doctors had given up his case.
Ennodius now attached himself to the person and fortunes of Epiphanius,
the Bishop of Pavia. He was placed under the tutelage of one Servilio,
who taught him theology according to the methods and opinions then in
vogue. His wife meanwhile had made the best of it after the same
fashion, and had gone into a convent, where all trace of her vanishes in
that monotone of gray walls, chanted services, and ceaseless devotion.
At least no individuality resembling her ever henceforth emerges from
that uniform procession which passes by us, in this and later centuries,
as the long line of hooded figures moves athwart Dante and Virgil in the
“Purgatorio.”
But the career of Ennodius now begins. He is the bishop’s chosen
companion, the associate of his expedition to Briançon in Burgundy in
behalf of certain prisoners; for in those days the spiritual hand was
often laid with a mighty grip on the secular arm. The poet was by this
time a deacon, having been ordained thereto by his kind friend the
bishop. And the duties of this private secretaryship were so pleasant
that it is evident no one would willingly surrender them for a cold cell
and matins early in the morning. The glimpses which we get of Ennodius
do not encourage us to esteem him an ascetic, or to think him lacking in
zeal for personal comfort. He was the literary adjunct of a remarkably
amiable prelate, with whom he was on terms of intimacy which made his
own life no care at all, and his meat and drink no problem whatever!
From 494, then, he continued still to occupy this post of trust and
ease. We are told that the bishop persuaded him to it, but there can be
no reasonable objection to our believing that the bishop had no
unwilling listener.
The literary capacity of Ennodius next attracts attention. His patron
(who must not be confused with the great Bishop of Salamis, the author
of the famous _Heresies_, who belongs to the previous century) died
before 510. Maximus III. had succeeded Epiphanius, and after his death
our Ennodius, in 510 or 511, was selected for the vacant diocese. The
name of this episcopate was Ticinum, or, as we now style it, Pavia. It
is plain that the bestowal of this dignity was hastened by the fact that
our scholar while still a deacon had defended Pope Symmachus before the
Roman synod called “Palmare,” and so effectually that the discourse was
entered on the acts of the council, where it still appears. The Pope had
been charged with crimes, and a synod convoked by the heretical
Theodoric was to decide the case. The date was October, 501. The place
was a portico of the church of St. Peter at Rome to which this name of
Palmare was usually given. And the speech is historic inasmuch as it is
the earliest recorded instance of that assertion of supremacy on the
part of the Roman pontiff which frees him from any responsibility to
earthly rulers. Ennodius thus became the advocate of this dogma, and
upon the broad wings of papal favor he soared to the high station which
his patron Epiphanius had quitted.
This burst of declamatory eloquence did not come without preparatory
training. Ennodius had been exercised in the art of declamation in his
youthful days and, as a deacon, he was able to utilize his knowledge. In
510 or 511, not long after his elevation to the mitre, he wrote the life
of his friend and predecessor. And this he followed with divers
performances of a literary character which were generously applauded. He
became a sort of hero in the world of letters, and whatever he was
pleased to compose was heartily commended.
In 515 it was natural that such an advocate of the absolute domination
of the Roman pontiff should be selected to help in the effort to reunite
the Eastern Church to the Western. The ambassadors were himself, the
Bishop of Pavia; Fortunatus, Bishop of Catania; Venantius, a presbyter;
Vitalis, a deacon, and Hilarius, a notary and scribe. These names
themselves reveal a not infrequent source of confusion to students of
that distressingly barren period, when it was regarded as a very
pleasant compliment to call the son of a nobody by the distinguished
appellation of some great person in the Church. In this manner Hilary
and Fortunatus suffered then, and modern scholars have been often vexed
and perplexed since, especially when dates come near together. It hardly
needs to be added that these wearers of illustrious names have only that
meed of renown, such as it is.
The purpose of the embassy was to obtain from the Byzantine Emperor
Anastasius, at that time a man of great age, the recognition of
Hormisdas, the ruling Pope, as the supreme religious head of both
empires. It was a delicate negotiation, and it demanded a perfectly
incorruptible adherence to the interests of Rome. In this respect
Ennodius stood pre-eminent as what Mosheim styles an “infatuated
adulator of the Roman pontiff,” and as a master of the style then
required in a diplomat. He had (in 503) eulogized Pope Symmachus,
calling him “one who judged in the place of God” (_vice Dei judicare_)
and again (in 507) he had published a panegyric on Theodoric, the Gothic
King of Italy, which had all the absurd flattery of that species of
composition. To crown these he was the obedient occupant of the see of
Pavia. He was therefore just the man to do the work of the relentless
and uncompromising Pope.
Caelius Hormisdas was a man who never yielded, never forgot, and never
relaxed a purpose. Such men, backed by a sufficient power, wring from a
reluctant world about all that they have determined to secure. But to
the obstinate will of the Pope was opposed the no less obstinate will of
the old Emperor—now fully eighty-five years of age—and quite as grim in
his methods as any Hormisdas. It was to be a battle of giants and the
intermediates might look for little favor. The opportunity for the
negotiation itself happened to occur in an unusual way. Vitalianus,
commander of the Imperial Byzantine cavalry, had taken arms against the
Emperor; had defeated and put to death Cyril, the opposing general, and
had then marched to the very gates of Constantinople. The victor was
proposing to color his rebellion by a pleasant pretext of helping the
orthodox; and the old Emperor, therefore, turned the edge of his own
humiliation by agreeing to a correspondence with the Pope.
Anastasius began to carry out his share of this unpleasant business by
appointing a council to meet at Heraclea, in Thrace, on July 15th, 515,
and asking for commissioners to be sent from Rome. The venerable fox
knew perfectly well that he had not allowed time enough for the proper
instruction of these delegates, nor for them to make the long journey.
But Pope Hormisdas appointed them, and they proceeded to the imperial
court, utterly indifferent as to the time of the council, and without
any apologies for their delay which history deigns to record. They went,
indeed, in a very haughty spirit, and did not even commence their
expedition before August 12th.
When they reached the Emperor they asked, or rather demanded, that he
should assent to the letter of Pope Leo, who was the first to claim this
submission from the East. They insisted, furthermore, that this
heterodox monarch should accept the definitions of the famous Council of
Chalcedon, A.D. 451, which relate to the nature and personality of
Christ. The schism between East and West had now lasted for thirty-one
years, and a certain Acacius, Bishop of Constantinople, who had been a
most persistent opponent of the demands of Leo the Great, was still a
thorn in the Roman pontiff’s side.
But Anastasius received the ambassadors with just as proud a spirit as
they had shown to him. He would neither yield to Leo nor to Chalcedon,
nor would he anathematize Acacius. Ennodius and his companions returned
to Rome without accomplishing their mission, and the Emperor sent
letters after them by Theopompus and Severianus, principal men of his
court. When these reached Rome they were badly received by Hormisdas,
and found that nothing would answer except the excommunication of
Acacius. With this _ultimatum_ they got back, somewhat crestfallen; and
poor Acacius (who was not half so bad as his papal foe) was once more
threatened with banishment to eternal fires.
Anastasius, however, was not at all inclined to hand over his bishop to
the mercies of Hormisdas. He stoutly refused and continued to refuse
throughout the ensuing correspondence. About two hundred monks and
archimandrites (heads of monasteries) sent from Syria a letter to the
Pope which was directed against the patriarch of Antioch, Severus by
name, and which gave in their own allegiance to the Western Church.
Nevertheless, the Emperor still maintained the cause of Acacius,
although he must have seen that the Pope was as determined as ever to
carry his point and that there was now a great deal which was working in
favor of the papal plans. When the Syrians addressed their letter to the
“Most holy and blessed Hormisdas, Patriarch of the whole earth, holding
the see of Peter the prince of the apostles,” it spoke volumes for what
the Pope had been able to effect by his agents and representations in
the East. But the Emperor would not yield the point and act upon the
conciliatory policy of the heretical Theodoric of Italy, which was that
they might settle religious matters in their own fashion, provided they
honored absolutely his temporal sway.
A second embassy was set on foot consisting of Ennodius and Peregrinus,
Bishop of Misenum. By these ambassadors letters were sent renewing the
old conditions and avowing that nothing would be satisfactory short of
the complete banishment of that pestilent wretch Acacius. This was too
much for the Emperor to bear. He angrily dismissed the legates, shipping
them off in an old and leaky vessel, and giving a special order to
Demetrius and Heliodorus to see that they did not set foot in his
dominions after they had once sailed for home. Behind the flying
ambassadors followed a document which expressed the royal mind with
force and vigor. After comparing the conduct of the Pope very
unfavorably with that of Jesus Christ, the Emperor proceeds to say: “We
shall give you no further trouble, it being in vain for us to pray or
entreat you, since you are obstinately determined not to hearken to our
prayers and entreaties. We can bear to be despised and affronted, but we
will not be commanded.”
This was dated July 11th, 517, and reveals an unexpected dignity in the
old Emperor, and it makes us glad to record that, while he lived, the
Bishop of Constantinople was at least preserved in a salvable state.
But when Anastasius died, then Hormisdas began again upon Justin, his
successor, and never stopped until Acacius was struck from the roll of
bishops and until the East acknowledged the spiritual supremacy of the
West. That the victory was of no long continuance or of any enormous
value, does not prevent us from noticing that it gave to Magnus Felix
Ennodius his permanent place in the Roman calendar, and did everything
for his literary and ecclesiastical comfort. He was well rewarded for
his devotion to the cause.
Anastasius reigned 491-518, and Hormisdas, who had once been married and
had a son, who also became Pope, ruled in his sphere from 514 to 523.
Thus he had nearly five years wherein to rejoice over his obstinate dead
enemy. And Ennodius possessed his soul in peace and turned his attention
once more to polite literature.
Of the writings which he has left to us, the principal are the life of
Epiphanius; another of Antonius of Pannonia, a hermit at Lake Como and
then a monk at Lerins; together with a _Eucharisticum de Vita sua_ and
the apology and panegyric mentioned above. Add to these nine books of
letters, “weighed down with emptiness,” and various itineraries,
declamations, and poetical pieces, and you have all he did. The letters
are most unsatisfactory when we remember that he was the friend, and
perhaps the relative, of men like Boethius, Faustus, Avienus, Caesar of
Arles, Aurelian, and of bishops and other prelates without number, and
lived in Italy under the great Theodoric. He is utterly lacking in
contemporary portraits, and his accounts of his three journeys give us
nothing valuable. All is stilted, unnatural, and dull. He was not much
of a traveller at best. A trip into Burgundy, another across the Po to
see his sister, and one from Rome by sea, make up the list of which he
kept any trace in his writings. He is in no haste to detail the sayings
and doings at Constantinople! But it should be said that these
performances with the pen were previous to his elevation to the mitre.
Afterward he doubtless composed only hymns and epigrams—the hymns being
decent and the epigrams very much the reverse. The German scholar
Teuffel looks upon his productions as an “important source of history”
for some enigmatic reason of his own, but Simcox very justly scouts
them; and the Romanist Berington asserts that he rises “with weariness”
from their perusal. I must personally declare that they exhibit neither
skill, taste, nor information. They are jejune and empty to a marvellous
degree; and for complication of sentences and unclassical phraseology,
they are equal to the stupidest books of a later day. And nothing worse
than this can be said by any critic.
The _Eucharisticum_ is an insincere sort of thanksgiving for his
restoration to health, and very far behind the style of Augustine which
it copies. It gives us a few particulars of his personal history, but it
is prosaic and Pharisaic, and full of a mock humble glorification of the
blessed Victor the Martyr, by whose intercession he is now convalescent.
The hymns are a trifle more hopeful, and really merit our notice. They
are by no means the “dozen tame hymns” of which Simcox speaks so
contemptuously. There are sixteen of them and three are quite good.
Here, for instance, is the _Christe lumen perpetuum_:
“O Christ, the eternal light
Of every sun and sphere,
Illumine thou our mortal night
And keep our spirits clear.
“Let nothing evil smite,
Nor enemy invade;
And let us stainless be, and white,
By nothing base betrayed.
“Guard thou the hearts of all,
But chiefly of thine own;
And hold us, that we may not fall,
Through thy great might alone.
“That so our souls may sing,
When favoring light they see;
And every vow and tribute bring
To God in Trinity.”
The _Christe precamur_ is quite as good:
“To thee O Christ we ever pray
And blend our prayer with tears;
Thou pure and holy One, alway
Protect our night of years!
“Our hearts shall be at rest in thee;
In sleep they dream thy praise,
And to thy glory, faithfully,
They hail the coming days.
“Give us a life that shall not fail;
Refresh our spirits then;
Let blackest night before thee pale,
And bring thy light to men!
“Our vows in song we pay thee still,
And, at the evening hour,
May all that we have purposed ill
Be right through sovereign power!”
There is yet one more hymn which seems worthy of a place in our regard.
It is the _Christe salvator omnium_:
“O Christ, the Saviour of all,
Thou Lord of the heavens above;
We ask thy glorious aid
Before the day shall remove.
“The sun is hastening down;
His light is sunk in the west;
He hideth the world in gloom,
According to God’s behest.
“Do thou, most excellent Lord,
As we thy followers pray,
To us, all weary with toil,
Grant quiet night on our way.
“That day, from our darkening hearts,
May never withdraw her light;
But, safe in thy guardian grace,
Thy love illumine our night.”
The poetical and spiritual range of these lyrics is not extensive, of
course, but it is a vast improvement on those “uncleanly imitations of
Martial,” or such involved and heartless tricks of verse as he sometimes
essays. But he became a saint, and that must suffice! His life has been
written by Sirmond; and his times and life together have occupied the
attention of Fertig (Passau, 1855). He died at Padua, as we are credibly
informed, on July 17th (XVI. Kal. Aug.), 521, and this date is assigned
to him in the Roman Catholic calendar of saints. His epitaph, according
to Despont, who wrote in 1677, was still to be found in the church of
St. Michael, and testimonies to his services are among the acts of the
Fifth Synod of Rome, and are included in the public papers of Hormisdas.
When you break open the important historical facts with which he was
identified, then like the toad from the stone, comes forth Ennodius. And
like that toad, though “ugly and venomous,” he yet “wears a precious
jewel in his head.”