URSINUS

URSINUS

1069

f irm the ceremony, accompanied by a baudr seditious and turbulent people. Socrates tells° that he had been a candidate when Damasusm elected, and that, disappointed by his failure,h, S ot some obscure bishops to ordain him at the!bove-named church, not, however, openly in thechurch itself, but in a secret place connectedith it. The church called that of Sicinus, butbv Marcellinus and Faustus (in their account, tobe mentioned below) that of Liberius, is sup-posed to be that of St. Maria Maggiore on theKsquiline, the foundation of which is attributed^ pope Liberius. Sozomen (1. vi. c. 22) andNicephorus (1. xi. c. 30) give similar accounts.Further, a council at Rome twelve years after-wards, and an influential one at Aquileia, A.D.381 in which St. Ambrose took a prominentpart, both declared Ursinus to be a usurper, andaddressed letters to the emperors Gratian andValentinian against him. [See Epist. Concil.Roman. ad Grai. et Valentin .; Labbe, t. ii.p. 1187 ; and Ep. I. Cone. Aquil. ad Grat. imp . ;ib, p. 1183.] Further, St. Ambrose (Ep, 11)speaks of Damasus having been elected by thejudgment of God. The emperors also, and tl^ecivil authorities at Rome, throughout the con-

test, supported Damasus as being the lawfulpope. On the other hand, a different account ofthings is given by Marcellinus and Faustinus,two Lueiferian priests, who, having been expelledfrom Home under Damasus, presented a petition(libellw precum ) to the emperors Valentinian,Theodosius, and Arcadius (c. a.d. 383). Theyhad been supporters of Ursinus, and in the pre-face to their libellus precum they assert that hewas elected before Damasus by the people whohad been in communion with Liberius in thechurch of Julius, beyond the Tiber, and wasordained by Paul, bishop of Tivoli; and thatDamasus had subsequently, with a mob of chariot-eers and other low fellows, broken into thechurch of Julius, massacred many persons there,and, after seven days, had, with his bribed fol-lowers, got possession of the Lateran Basilica,and been there ordained. Thus, as to priorityof election and consecration, the evidence is con-flicting. The most important witnesses, Jeromeon the one side and Marcellinus and Faustinuson the other, were both likely to be personallycognizant of the events, but also to be preju-diced; the former as being the close friend ofDamasus, the latter as having been supporters ofUrsinus, and being sore from persecution underDamasus after his success. The verdicts of the

two councils above named, having been give]after Damasus had carried the day, are not conelusive: and it is to be observed that, while thcontest was going on, certain Italian bishopswho had assembled at Rome on the occasion othe birthday of Damasus, are said by Marcellinuand Faustinus to have refused at that stage othe proceedings to concur in condemnin;Ursinus, saying “We have come for a birthdaynot to condemn a man unheard.” However, thalance of evidence appears to be decidedly iavour of Damasus, the only witnesses againslm being the two Lueiferian presbyters, whwere likely to be prejudiced partizans, an'vose veracity we have no means of testing, l , their clear statement of what they alleg° ^ e facts—together with the fact that the irrpaitial Ammianus Marcellinus (see below) d<

cides in favour of neither party,—may suggestthe possibility that there was more to be saidfor Ursinus and his party than is allowed bywriters who sided with the triumphant one, andgot their accounts from it. After the twoelections all accounts agree that the two partiesdisturbed Rome by continual conflicts, in whichlives were lost. At length Juventius, the praefec-tus urbi, and Julianus, the praefectus annonae,concurred in banishing Ursinus with his twodeacons, Amantius and Lupus. According toMarcellinus and Faustinus, they had been bribedby Damasus to do so. But the disturbances con-tinued. The same complainants allege furtherthat Damasus afterwards armed his followerswith clubs, swords, and other weapons; thatseven presbyters of the party of Ursinus, havingbeen seized by them, were rescued by their ownparty and carried in triumph to the basilica ofLiberius; that Damasus in person, with an armedforce of clergy as well as laity, attacked thechurch, set fire to it in places, uncovered the roofand threw tiles down on those within, killed 160persons, men and women, and wounded others,none of the party of Damasus having lost theirlives in the conflict. This attack on the churchis said to have been made at 8 a.m. on the 25thot October, a.d. 366. There is other sufficientevidence that such an attack was made withsuch disastrous consequences, though we cannotwell believe without further proof that Ddmasusheaded it in person. Even Jerome allows that,Ursinus and his friends having got possession ofthe church of Sicinus, the partizans of Damasusattacked them there, and that “ most cruelslaughter of both sexes was perpetrated.”Rufinus says generally that the illegal electionof Ursinus caused civil war among the people, sothan places of prayer were filled with blood.Further, we have the important testimony ofAmmianus Marcellinus, the historian, who,though not a Christian, writes of the Christiansin a friendly spirit, and shows no bias on oneside or the other of the contest between Damasusand Ursinus. In the following passage (whichis given at length for the light it throws on thestate of things in the Roman church at thetime, and on the view taken of it by an intelli-gent and impartial heathen) it will be observedthat he alludes definitely to the massacre in thechurch of Sicinus, and implies that it was per-petrated by the party of Damasus. “The pre-fecture of Juventius was accompanied withpeace and plenty; but the tranquillity of hisgovernment was soon disturbed by a bloodysedition of the distracted people. The ardour ofDamasus and Ursinus to seize the episcopal seatsurpassed the ordinary measure of human ambi-tion. They contended with the rage of party;the quarrel was maintained by the wounds anddeath of their followers; and the prefect, un-able to resist or to appease the tumult, was con-strained by superior violence to retire into thesuburbs. Damasus prevailed : the well-disputedvictory remained on the side of his faction : one-hundred-and-thirty-seven dead bodies were foundin the Basilica of Sieininus, where the Christianshold their religious assemblies; and it was longbefore the angry minds of the people resumedtheir accustomed tranquillity. When 1 considerthe splendour of the capital, I am not astonishedthat so valuable a prize should inflame the desires