Magnus Felix Ennodius was descended of an illustrious family, settled
in Gaul, and was a kinsman to the greatest lords of his time; as, to
Faustus, Boëtius, Avienus, Olybrius, &c. He seems to call Arles the
place of his birth;[192] but he passed his first years in Italy, and
had his education at Milan under the care of an aunt, after whose
death he took to wife a rich and noble lady. Eloquence and poetry
were the favorite studies of his youth, and he had the misfortune to
be drawn astray into the wide path of the world. But he was struck
with remorse, and listening to the voice of divine grace, changed
his life and wept bitterly for his past disorders. Out of gratitude
to the divine mercy for his call, he entered into orders with the
consent of his wife, who at the same time devoted herself to God in
a state of perpetual continency. Having a particular confidence in
the powerful intercession of St. Victor, the martyr at Milan, he
earnestly implored through it the grace to lead a holy life as he
informs us.[193]
Being ordained deacon, yet young, by St. Epiphanius of Pavia, he
from that time despised profane studies, to give himself up entirely
to those that are sacred. He wrote an apology for pope Symmachus
and his council against the schism formed in favor of Laurence. He
was pitched upon to make a panegyric upon Theodoric, king of Italy,
whom he commends only for his victories and temporal success. He
wrote the life of St. Epiphanius of Pavia, who died in 497, and was
succeeded by Maximus; likewise that of St. Antony of Lerins, who is
mentioned in the Roman Martyrology on the 26th of December, besides
several letters and other works, both in prose and verse. He assures
us, that under a violent fever, in which he was given over by the
physicians, he had recourse to the heavenly physician through the
intercession of his patron St. Victor, and that in a moment he found
himself restored to perfect health.[194] To perpetuate his gratitude
for this benefit, he wrote a work which he called Eucharisticon,
or Thanksgiving; in which he gives a short account of his life,
especially of his conversion from the world, and how, through the
intercession of St. Victor, he obtained the grace for his wife that
she freely entered into his views in their making, by joint consent,
mutual vows of perpetual continency. After the death of Maximus he
was advanced to the episcopal see of Pavia about the year 510, not
in 490, as Labbe mistakes; for, in his Eucharisticon, he says he was
only sixteen years old when Theodoric came into Italy in 489. He
governed his church with a zeal and authority worthy a true disciple
of St. Epiphanius.
Ennodius was made choice of by pope Hormisdas to endeavor the
reunion of the Eastern to the Western Church. The emperor Anastasius
fomented the division by favoring the Eutychian heresy, by banishing
many orthodox prelates, and by protecting schismatical bishops of
Constantinople; and in dissembling (the basest character of a prince)
he was a second Herod or Tiberius, whose artifices could not leave
them even in things where their interest was not concerned. Upon this
errand Ennodius made two journeys to Constantinople, the first in
the year 515, with Fortunatus, bishop of Catana, and the second in
517, with Peregrinus, bishop of Misenum. The points upon which he was
ordered to insist were, that the faith of the council of Chalcedon
and the letters of pope Leo against Nestorius, Eutyches, Dioscorus,
and their followers, Timothy Elurus and Peter the Fuller, should be
received; the anathema, pronounced against Acacius of Constantinople
and Peter of Antioch, subscribed; and that the emperor should recall
the bishops whom he had banished for adhering to the orthodox
faith and communion. The emperor, whose conduct in all he did was
equivocal, sent back the legates with a letter, wherein he declared
that he condemned Nestorius and Eutyches, and received the council
of Chalcedon. Other things he promised to conclude by ambassadors
whom he would send to Rome; but his only aim was to gain time, and
even whilst Ennodius was at Constantinople he condemned to banishment
four bishops of Illyricum for the Catholic cause, namely, Laurence
of Lignida, Alcyson of Nicopolis, Gaianus of Naïssum, and Evangelus
of Paulitala. He deferred sending his ambassadors till the middle of
the next year, and then, instead of bishops as he had promised, sent
only two laymen, Theopompus, Comes Domesticorum or captain of his
guards, and Severianus, Comes Consistorii or counsellor of state, and
their instructions were confined to general protestations of laboring
for the peace of the Church. The pope answered that, far from having
any need of being entreated on that head, he threw himself at the
emperor’s feet to implore his protection for the peace and welfare of
God’s Church.
Ennodius’s second legation into the East proved as unsuccessful as
the former; for Anastasius rejected the formulary which the pope had
drawn up for the union, and endeavored to bribe the legates with
money. But finding them proof against all temptations, he caused them
to be sent out of his palace through a back door, and put on board a
ship with two prefects and several Magisterians,[195] who had orders
not to suffer them to enter into any city. Notwithstanding this, the
legates found an opportunity of dispersing their protestations in
all cities; but the bishops who received them, from the dread they
were under of being accused, sent them all to Constantinople. Upon
this, Anastasius being very much exasperated, dismissed about two
hundred bishops who were already come to a council which was to have
been held at Heraclea to compose the distracted state of the Oriental
church. Such was the conclusion of the promise this emperor had given
of concurring to restore union between the churches. The people and
the senate reproached him with the breach of the oath he had made
to that purpose; but he impiously said that there was a law which
commanded an emperor to forswear himself and to tell a lie in cases
of necessity. This confirmed the people in their general suspicion,
that he had imbibed the opinions of the Manichees.
St. Ennodius was obliged to put to sea in an old rotten vessel,
and all persons were forbidden to suffer him to land in any port
of the eastern empire, whereby he was exposed to manifest danger.
Nevertheless, he arrived safe in Italy and returned to Pavia. The
glory of suffering for the faith, which his zeal and constancy had
procured him, far from serving to make him slothful or remiss in
the discharge of his pastoral duties, was on the contrary a spur to
him in the more earnest pursuit of virtue, lest by sluggishness he
should deprive himself of the advantages which he might seem to have
begun to attain. He exerted his zeal in the conversion of souls,
his liberality in relieving the poor, and in building and adorning
churches, and his piety and devotion in composing sacred poems on the
Blessed Virgin, St. Cyprian, St. Stephen, St. Dionysius of Milan,
St. Ambrose, St. Euphemia, St. Nazarius, St. Martin, &c., on the
mysteries of Pentecost and on the Ascension, on a baptistery adorned
with the pictures of several martyrs whose relics were deposited
in it. He wrote two new forms of blessing the paschal candle, in
which the divine protection on the faithful is implored against
winds, storms, and all dangers through the malice of our invisible
enemies.[196] St. Ennodius died on the 1st of August, 521, being only
forty-eight years old. He is styled a great and glorious confessor
by the popes Nicholas I. and John VIII., and is honored in the Roman
Martyrology on the 17th of July. His works were published by two
Jesuits, F. Andrew Scot at Tournay in 1610, and by F. James Sirmond,
with notes, at Paris, in 1611, and most completely among the works
of F. Sirmond, at Paris in 1696, t. 1. See his works, the letters of
pope Hormisdas, the Pontifical and F. Sirmond’s collections. Also
Solier the Bollandist, t. 4, Julij, p. 271.