AZAZEL

234 AVITUS, ALCIMUS ECDICIUS

Avitus and his brother Apollinaris, b bishop ofValentia, incurred the displeasure and persecu-tion of Sigismund, his son and successor, by theirexcommunication of Stephanus the royal trea-surer ; but Sigismund, we are told, having beencured of a fever by the hood of Apollinaris ob-tained for him by his wife’s entreaties, renouncedhis errors, allowed himself to be instructed byAvitus in the true faith (Labbe, BibL MSS.vol. i. p. 693) and was finally persuaded, byway of expiation for the murder of his sonSigeric, to found a monastery at Agaunum (St.Maurice in the Valais) in honour of St. Mauricethe Martyr and his Theban legion (Greg. Turon.,J. ii. c. 5; Adon. Viennens., Chron. ad ann. 492).

At the instance of his royal patrons, Avituspublished treatises in confutation of the Nes-torian, Eutychian, and Sabellian heresies; he alsowrote against the Pelagian errors of Faustus,abbot of Lerins,and obtained great success in theconversion of the Jews who had settled in hisdiocese ( Venant. Fortun ., 1. v. c. 5).

From a letter of Pope Hormisdas to Avitus(Ep. x.), we gather that he was made vicarapostolic in Gaul by that pontiff; and in 517A.D. he presided in this capacity at the Councilof Epaune (Concilium Epaonense) for the restitu-tion of ecclesiastical discipline in Narbonian Gaul.But his influence seems to have extended farbeyond the limits of his own diocese, as is shownby his correspondence with several historicalpersonages at Rome, e.g. Faustus, Symmaohus,Vitalianus, &c. He appears also to have exertedhimself to terminate the dispute between theChurches of Rome and Constantinople whicharose out of the excommunication of Acacius[Acacius]; that this was accomplished beforehis death we gather from one of his own letters.(Epp. iii. vii.)

Avitus died Feb. 5, A.D. 523, was buried in themonastery of St. Peter and St. Paul at Vienne,where the greater part of his youth was spent,and in due time received the honours of canoni-zation. An epitaph preserved by Baronius, andprefixed to his works in most editions, is a glow-ing testimony to the estimation in which hispiety and genius were regarded by the age inwhich he lived.

The extant works of St. Avitus are as fol-lows :—

(1) A poem in five books on subjects drawnfrom Genesis and Exodus: De Origine Mundi;De Peccato Originali; De Sententia Dei; DeDiluvio; De Transitu Maris Pubri ,* this isdedicated to his brother Apollinaris, and con-sists of 2611 hexameter lines. The first threebooks might almost have suggested the idea ofMilton’s ‘ Paradise Lost,’ to which they bear acurious and in many points interesting analogy.

Besides these five books Labbe mentions (Nov.BibL MSS. Coron. Poet.') the unpublished MSS.of six more that bear the name of Avitus, andcontinue the Jewish history as far as the Bookof Judges. They are in a very corrupt stateand Sirmond, who examined them (O/msc. tom. ii.ad jin. Op. Ale. Aw), doubts their authenticity.

(2) De Coiisolatoria Castitatis laude , a poemin 666 hexameters, addressed to his sister

b This was the name likewise of their cousin Sidonius,of his father, and son, to the latter of whom four of theletters of Alcimus Avitus are addressed.

Fuscina, a nun, in which he mentions the nameof his mother Audentia.

(3) A collection of 91 letters, which is allthat remains of the nine books of correspondenceascribed to him by Gregory of Tours. Severalare of historical interest, especially that ad-dressed to Clovis (Ep. xli.) upon his baptism.

(4) A homily, De Festo Pogationum , fromwhich the religious observance of Rogation daystook its origin. [Mamertus.]

A second homily representing the Rogation otthe third day, which was discovered in the libraryof the Grande Chartreuse, and first published in1717 by Dom. Marten. (Thesaur. Anecd. p. 47.)

A homily preached on the occasion of thededication of a church erected by Maximus,bishop of Geneva. It was reconstructed fromcertain papyrus leaves discovered in the Im-perial library of Paris by M. Leopold Delisle andpublished in 1866. The title of this homily isconnected with the previously discovered frag-ments of another (vi. and vii., ed. Sirmond) de-livered at the inauguration of the monastery ofS. Mauricius at Agaunum, Sept. 22, A.D. 522.At the same time were published two fragmentsof a homily, In dedicatione Batilicae Genova quarnhost( is) mc(enderat), the title of which wasalready known.

(5) Seventy-two short fragments of homilies,sermons, &c., together with the titles of fivehomilies that are still missing, edited by P6reSirmond (Opusc. tom. ii.).

(6) The Collatio Episcoporum contra Ari -anos coram Gundobaldo rege , first published inD’Achery’s Spicilcgium , 1655 ff. (tom. iii. p. 304,ed. Paris, 1725).

These remains contain much that is valuablewith reference to the history, doctrine, and dis-cipline of the Church in the 5th century.

The poems of Avitus were first printed atStrasbourg in 1507 from a MS. in the pos-session of Beroaldus ; were published separatelyat Basle, 1546, with notes by Menrad Molther;and subsequently at Paris, 1643, by Jacob Sir-mond, together with the letters, the miscella-neous fragments, and the first of the above-mentioned homilies. The whole of the extantworks of Avitus are contained in Migne’s Patro-logia, vol. lix., except the discoveries of M. Delisle,for which the reader is referred to Btudes surdes Papyrus du F/ me Siecle, by MM. Delisle andRilliet, Geneva, 1866, a valuable contribution tothe biography of St. Avitus. [E. M. Y.]

AXIONICUS, one of the “Eastern” schoolof Valentinians, coupled with Bardeisan (’ApSrj-< Tiavijs ) by Hippolytus (Haer. vi. 35). Early inthe third century, when Tertullian wrote againstthe Valentinians (c. 4), Axionicus “ alone at An-tioch vindicated the memory of Valentinus bycomplete keeping of his rules.” [H.]

AZADANES and AZADES, Martyrs, adeacon and a eunuch, martyred in Persia underSapor II. c. A.D. 341 (Sozom. ii. 11; Menolog.April 14; Assemani, Act. Mart. i. 42 sq.;Martyrol. Pom. April 22). The latter was afavourite of the king, and was put to deathinstantly, upon his own mere profession of Chris-tianity, to the king’s great grief. [A. W. H.]

AZAZEL. In some verses by a Catholicwriter quoted by Irenaeus (80) the Gnostic Mar-