Magnus Felix Ennodius

Saint Magnus Felix Ennodius
Born	473 or 474 Arles, Western Roman Empire
Died	17 July 521
Venerated in	Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church
Feast	17 July

Magnus Felix Ennodius (473 or 474 – 17 July 521 AD) was Bishop of Pavia in 514, and a Latin rhetorician and poet.

He was one of four Gallo-Roman aristocrats of the fifth to sixth-century whose letters survive in quantity: the others are Sidonius Apollinaris, prefect of Rome in 468 and bishop of Clermont (died 485), Ruricius, bishop of Limoges (died 507) and Alcimus Ecdicius Avitus, bishop of Vienne (died 518). All of them were linked in the tightly bound aristocratic Gallo-Roman network that provided the bishops of Catholic Gaul. He is regarded as a saint, with a feast day of 17 July.

Life

Ennodius was born at Arelate (Arles) and belonged to a distinguished but impecunious family. As Mommaerts and Kelley observe, "Ennodius claimed in his letters to them to be related to a large number of individuals. Unfortunately, he seldom specified the nature of the relationship." Because his sister Euprepia (born 465 or 470) is known to have had a son named Flavius Licerius Firminus Lupicinus, who was named for his grandfather, Vogel argued that Ennodius's father was named Firminus. Jacques Sirmond suggested that Ennodius was the son of one Camillus of Arles, whose father was a proconsular and the brother of Magnus, the consul of 460; but Mommaerts and Kelley dismiss Sirmond's identification as untenable.

Having lost his parents at an early age, Ennodius was brought up by an aunt at Ticinum (Pavia); according to some, at Mediolanum (Milan). After her death he was received into the family of a pious and wealthy young lady, to whom he was betrothed. It is not certain whether he actually married this lady; she seems to have lost her money and retired to a convent, whereupon Ennodius entered the Church, and was ordained deacon (about 493) by Epiphanius, bishop of Pavia.

From Pavia he went to Milan, which Ennodius made his home until his elevation to the see of Pavia about 515. During his stay at Milan he visited Rome and other places, where he gained a reputation as a teacher of rhetoric. As bishop of Pavia he played a considerable part in ecclesiastical affairs. On two occasions (in 515 and 517) he was sent to Constantinople on an embassy to the emperor Anastasius, to endeavour to bring about a reconciliation over the Acacian schism that divided the Eastern and Western churches. Ennodius's epitaph still exists in the basilica of San Michele Maggiore, Pavia.

Writings

Ennodius is one of the best representatives of the two-fold (pagan and Christian) tendency of 5th century literature, and of the Gallo-Roman clergy who upheld the cause of civilization and classical literature against the inroads of barbarism. But his anxiety not to fall behind his classical models—the chief of whom was Virgil—his striving after elegance and grammatical correctness, and a desire to avoid the commonplace have produced a turgid and affected style, which, aggravated by rhetorical exaggerations and popular barbarisms, makes his works difficult to understand. It has been remarked that his poetry is less unintelligible than his prose.

The numerous writings of this ecclesiastic may be grouped into four types: letters, miscellanies, discourses, and poems. His letters on a variety of subjects, addressed to high church and state officials, are valuable for the religious and political history of the period. Of the miscellanies, the most important are:

• The Panegyric of Theodoric, written to thank the Arian king for his tolerance of Catholicism and support of Pope Symmachus (probably delivered before the king on the occasion of his entry into Ravenna or Milan); like all similar works, it is full of flattery and exaggeration, but if used with caution is a valuable authority.
• The Life of St Epiphanius, bishop of Pavia, the best written and perhaps the most important of all his writings, an interesting picture of the political activity and influence of the church
• Eucharisticon de Vita Sua, a sort of confessions, after the manner of Augustine of Hippo
• the description of the enfranchisement of a slave with religious formalities in the presence of a bishop
• Paraenesis didascalica, an educational guide, in which the claims of grammar as a preparation for the study of rhetoric, the mother of all the sciences, are strongly insisted on.

The discourses (Dictiones) are on sacred, scholastic, controversial and ethical subjects. The discourse on the anniversary of Laurentius, bishop of Milan, is the chief authority for the life of that prelate; the scholastic discourses, rhetorical exercises for the schools, contain eulogies of classical learning, distinguished professors and pupils; the controversial deal with imaginary charges, the subjects being chiefly borrowed from the Controversiae of Seneca the Elder; the ethical harangues are put into the mouth of mythological personages (e.g. the speech of Thetis over the body of Achilles).

His poems include:

• two Itineraria, descriptions of a journey from Milan to Brigantium (Briançon) and of a trip on the Po River
• a defense of the study of secular literature
• an epithalamium, in which Love is introduced as execrating Christianity
• a dozen hymns, after the manner of Ambrose, probably intended for church use
• epigrams on various subjects, some being epigrams proper (inscriptions for tombs, basilicas, baptisteries) and others imitations of Martial, satiric pieces and descriptions of scenery.

Critical editions

The editio princeps of Ennodius was published by Johann Jakob Grynaeus in 1569 at Basel. Sirmond edited his works in 1611, organizing the individual works into the four groupings described above; this presentation remained "the classic text" until Guilelmus Hartel (vol. vi. of Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, Vienna, 1882). However, it was not until 1885 that Friedrich Vogel prepared an edition for the Monumenta Germaniae Historica (Auctores Antiquissimi, vol. vii), that the individual works were once again presented in the miscellaneous order of the manuscripts. Vogel did so seeing traces of a chronological sequence in that order, which Sr. Genevieve Cook notes led to "a series of studies on the chronology of the works of Ennodius".

A modern edition of Ennodius's correspondence is under way: Stéphane Gioanni, Ennode de Pavie, Lettres, tome I: Livres I et II, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 2006, based on his 2004 Ph.D. thesis. See a first review (Joop van Waarden) and Stéphane Gioanni, Ennode de Pavie, Lettres, tome II, livres III et IV, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 2010.

From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia

Magnus Felix Ennodius, rhetorician and bishop, b. probably at Arles, in Southern Gaul, in 474; d. at Pavia, Italy, July 17, 521. When quite young he went to Pavia, where he was educated, was betrothed, and eventually became a priest, his fiancée at the same time becoming a nun. It does not appear certain that he ever married. Shortly after the death of his benefactor, Epiphanius (496), he received minor orders at Milan, attracted thither no doubt by his uncle Laurentius, bishop of that city. Soon he was ordained deacon and taught in the schools. About this time (498) two popes were elected simultaneously, the deacon Symmachus and the archpriest Laurentius. King Theodoric was in favor of the former, and convened a council at Rome in 501, the famous Synodus Palmaris, to settle this question and put an end to much scandal. On this occasion Ennodius acted as secretary to Laurentius of Milan, who was the first to sign the decrees of the council. The adherents of the archpriest Laurentius, who was rejected by the council, wrote against the decisions of the latter. Ennodius answered them and defended the synod in a still extant work entitled "Libellus adversus eos qui contra synodum scribere praesumpserunt". After referring to the objections urged against the incompetency and irregularity of the council, he attacks the enemies of Symmachus and proclaims the inability of human judges to decide matters pertaining to popes: "God no doubt consented to the affairs of men being settled by men; He reserved to Himself the passing of judgment upon the pontiff of the supreme see" (Libellus, §93). In 513 Ennodius was still at Milan, but shortly afterwards he was made Bishop of Pavia. In 515 and 517 he headed two successive embassies which Pope Hormisdas sent to Emperor Anastasius at Constantinople, both of which, however, were barren of results. The unrelenting enmity of the emperor endangered the lives of the envoys in 517. Of the remaining years of his episcopate nothing is known. His epitaph, found by accident, gives the date of his death.

The works of Ennodius comprise poems for special occasions and epigrams, particularly inscriptions for churches or other religious monuments. His defense of the synod of 502, often known as "Libellus pro Synodo", his autobiography (Eucharisticum), his panegyric on King Theodoric, and the biographies of his predecessor Epiphanius of Milan, and a monk, Antonius of Lerins, are interesting from an historical point of view; the first four especially. As much can be said of his numerous letters, addressed to various correspondents. Notwithstanding their verbosity, they contain much useful information concerning the addressees and the customs of the time. Ennodius is the last representative of the ancient schools of rhetoric. His "Paraenesis didascalica" (511) celebrates the wonderful power of that foremost of the liberal arts, by which a guilty man is made to appear innocent, and vice versa. He illustrates his own method in a few declamatory exercises called "Dictiones"; they deal with themes once the delight of pagan rhetoricians, e.g. grief of Thetis on beholding the corpse of Achilles; Menelaus contemplating the ruins of Troy; the lament of Dido forsaken by Aeneas, etc. Again, with all the resources of his rhetoric he denounces a man who placed a statue of Minerva in a place of ill-repute; a player who gambled away the field in which his parents lay buried; etc. He shared the popular fallacy of his contemporaries who saw in the reign of Theodoric a revival of the Roman Empire under the control of men of letters. Ennodius remained to the end faithful to the academic traditions of the Roman schools, whose mythological apparatus he was the last to retain; thus in an epithalamium he describes the beauty of the nude Venus, and makes love argue against virginity. Nevertheless, he refutes elsewhere the fables of the poets and points out that the understanding of the Christian Scriptures is the highest intellectual ideal. In him are visible the two tendencies whose conflict is never quite absent from Christian life; outwardly he remains true to classic tradition. His diction is exuberant and florid, but occasionally manifests vigor. The best editions of his writings are those of Hartel, in the sixth volume of the "Corpus ecclesiasticorum latinorum" (Vienna, 1881), and of Vogel in "Monumenta Germanise Hist.: Auct." (Berlin, 1885), VII.

Further reading

• Michael Fertig, Ennodius und seine Zeit (1855–1860)
• Augustin Dubois, La Latinité d'Ennodius (1903)
• Francesco Magani, Ennodio (Pavia, 1886)
• Friedrich Adolf Ebert, Allgemeine Geschichte der Litt. des Mittelalters im Abendlande, i. (1889)
• Max Manitius, Geschichte der christlich-lateinischen Poesie (1891)
• Teuffel, History of Roman Literature, 479 (Eng. tr., 1892). French translation by the abbé S. L'église (Paris, 1906 fol.).
• Cook, G.M. The Life of Saint Epiphanius by Ennodius. A Translation with an Introduction and Commentary. Washington, 1942.
• Kennell, Stefanie A. H. Magnus Felix Ennodius: a gentleman of the church. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000.
• Kennell, Stefanie A. H., "Latin Bishops and Greek Emperors: Ennodius' Missions to Constantinople," in Maria Gourdouba, Leena Pietilä-Castrén & Esko Tikkala (edd), The Eastern Mediterranean in the Late Antique and Early Byzantine Periods (Helsinki, 2004) (Papers and Monographs of the Finnish Institute at Athens, IX),
• Stéphane Gioanni, "La contribution épistolaire d'Ennodius de Pavie à la primauté pontificale sous le règne des papes Symmaque et Hormisdas", in Mélanges de l'École française de Rome (MEFRM), 113. 1, 2001, p. 245–268.